TRANSCRIPT:
It’s a tiny parasite, but poses a huge threat to Australian agriculture.
And despite a 100-million-dollar effort, government agencies are giving up trying to eliminate the deadly Varroa mite, fifteen months after the parasite breached our shores and infected the honeybee population.
To exterminate Varroa mites, miticides are used, chemical agents specifically designed for this purpose.
But beekeeper and former Department of Primary Industries expert Bruce White says they have had an unintended consequence, harming the very bees they aim to protect.
"It's been devastating to a lot of people who are really passionate about their bees. Initially it was the right thing to do but as time went on, more and more outbreaks - less enthusiastic about destroying colonies."
He says the call to give up on elimination should have come much sooner.
"My training would have said to me - it's so widespread after a month... I think a wise decision then would have been to declare it endemic."
Varroa mites are parasitic insects that reside on bees, feeding on their blood and impairing the bees’ ability to fly and communicate, making them more susceptible to pesticides.
Fewer bees means less pollination, which our farmers rely on to grow fruit and vegetables.
Australia has one of the world’s toughest biosecurity regimes to protect our unique environment, and was the last major honey producing country without varroa mites.
Researchers like Mary Whitehouse from Macquarie University say now it's about trying to limit the spread and fight back.
"What we need now is really a multi-pronged approach to control the pest try and limit the use of insecticides. Because they are the mites will develop resistance to them, they can contaminate the hive and the bee products as well. And also there is also much more limited time in which we can use these chemicals because of the large honey production season that we have."
John Roberts is a CSIRO research scientist.
He says more work is needed to support the $14.2 billion honeybee industry.
"Honeybees are our most valuable agricultural pollinator. There's lots of other honey bees and pollinators and bee species and pollinators out in around the world that are contributing to pollination. But we don't have anything that's quite the same as managed honeybees to do the scale of pollination that we need for agriculture."
John Roberts says because there's so much at stake, Varroa is a pest we now need to learn to live with.
"In Australia, this is going to be pretty disruptive having Varroa establish, we know it's going to expected to have pretty big impacts on our feral bee population where we get a lot of free pollination. But so it would be important for us to look at how we can manage and support the managed population to meet those needs. But generally, Varroa has been dealt with around the world and managed bees are not really at any risk of disappearing anytime soon."
