>Whan varroa was first discovered in Ireland in 1998, strident efforts were >made by our Department of Agriculture to eliminate the pest and >unfortunately to no avail. >Whilst I do not in any way denigrate the efforts made by the Department, it >must be said in hindsight that their good natured work came to naught. >In fact, seasoned observers of varroa abroad forecasted that this would be >the case and they were proved to be correct. >It is impossible to eliminate varroa - you must treat for it. In Europe and America we failed to control the spread of the mite due to many factors. The more isolated areas may have a chance, although it is a small one. The first problem you face is what are you going to treat with? If the mites are already resistant to Apistan then you are going to need to start with Cumaphos, but with some mites now showing resistance to that then you are out of luck with the strips. Your next choice is Formic acid. Climate plays a big role in how well that works so there is still no magic bullet. It is going to be very expensive to fix this problem. A large, bee-free buffer zone would need to be established and a lot of work to locate feral colonies would have to be done. It could even require a total "reset" of the population from a clean source. I do not know how much of the NZ food supply depends on honey bee polination, but if the number is over 10% I would sure look for a long term solution while one is still available before putting the ability of NZ to feed itself at risk.