Bee Alert

[MHB]

Bee Alert
Cases of Varroa Destructor have been found in Newcastle, this is the third detection in Australia; we won the last two and need to beat it this time too.
If you have bees at home (especially if you live in the Hunter) start checking your bees. If you know of any feral hives report them.
There are plenty of good resources on the web, most State Dip of Agriculture, not to mention all the usual suspects, will help you.
I lost all my hives when the first wave of foul brood went through; incinerating all my bees wasn’t the best day of my life. This Mite can do more harm than any other threat bees are facing.

Seriously guys this matters
Mark

 

[shmick]

Found on the NSW Central Coast and Bulahdelah to the North now too. Hives (including feral ones) are being euthanised and burned.
Lots of people will be effected by this as well a many farmers and growers who rely on them for pollination.

 

[MHB]

Long time no see Shmick, have missed your inputs.
Anyone who likes bees or honey should be very concerned.
Mark

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

I'm a big fan of natural un pasteurized honey, is this going to impact the availability of honey in the shops?

 

[Dave70]

Dam fcuking right it matters, for a myriad of reasons, and missing out on slathering honey on our crumpets or putting that bochet on hold because the stuff is now as expensive as Glenlivet 18 will be the least of it.
We think lettuce is pricy now. Wait until it has to me manually pollinated.
My bookkeepers husband lost a bunch of hives in the 2020 fires, along with the thousands of others, now this.
Its just one kick in the balls after another lately.

They may not be all cute and cuddly like lambs, but I'd Imagine it must still be heart wrenching for farmers forced to euthanise otherwise perfectly healthy hives, and not just from the cold hard cash perspective.
They're literally the definition of 'essential workers' and we're fairly rooted without them.

 

[yankinoz]

I watched honey nearly disappear from US garden markets. "Honey" then arrived at supermarkets from China, prompting the development of tests to detect fraudulent substitutes. A couple of beekeepers that I know got spam from Chinese manufacturers offering ersatz honey to mix with the real stuff. I read that gains have been made against varroa in many affected countries, but the keepers here presumably know the story much better than I do.

 

[Grmblz]

It was just a case of "when" not "if" and looking at what happened/is happening in NZ will give some indication as to what we can expect here.
Miticides are expensive, both to purchase and administer, and are increasingly ineffective due to resistance in the mite population.
For an up to date view of where we are at with varroa resistant bees A derived honey bee stock confers resistance to Varroa destructor and associated viral transmission - Scientific Reports. Not terribly promising, and certainly no silver bullet.

 

[S.E]

They're literally the definition of 'essential workers' and we're fairly rooted without them.

Well not necessarily Dave70. The European honey Bees are after all imported essential workers and arguably competing with the native essential workers so not all may be bad if they are kept in check apparently. Definitely not good for the commercial honey and pollination industry though.

Personally I don’t really want to see natures balance restored and any threat to European honey bees as I have just got back into beekeeping and have two hives that I have been building up since January and was really looking forward to honey production this year.

 

[yankinoz]

We think lettuce is pricy now. Wait until it has to me manually pollinated.

I've seen the same warning in several places, but the only reason to hand-pollinate lettuce would be in seed production. When you grow it for the leaves, you harvest before the plant flowers. The same would apply to many greens. Decimation of bees would affect mostly fruiting plants, but that covers much of what we eat. After a neighbour got rid of her bees, most of the zucchinis on our plants aborted.

They're literally the definition of 'essential workers' and we're fairly rooted without them.

 

[Narapoia]

I watched honey nearly disappear from US garden markets. "Honey" then arrived at supermarkets from China, prompting the development of tests to detect fraudulent substitutes. A couple of beekeepers that I know got spam from Chinese manufacturers offering ersatz honey to mix with the real stuff. I read that gains have been made against varroa in many affected countries, but the keepers here presumably know the story much better than I do.

Have been reading about this. There are several honeys on the shelves in Australia that are sourced in China and labelled as Honey but almost certainly are flavored sugar syrup. I think I remember reading that Capilano wanted to import without diluting its core brand and as a result resurrected Allowrie and started selling it under that. I think Coles pulled the brand at some point over blowback on the sourcing of the Honey.

Have always tried to buy from people that harvest the honey themselves since then. Central coast has a few people that sell it and pick it up whenever it's available in areas we go camping.