CEO Update October 2024

CEO Report October 2024

September and October have been productive months in AHBIC, with a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ work happening.  In this update I will focus on sharing the work we have been undertaking with the APVMA and manufactures of varroa treatments, around progressing treatment registrations and also focus on an update regarding activities to address the issue of imported honey.

Varroa Transition to Management Program

Reports from beekeepers continue to demonstrate the significant impacts varroa is having across the east coast of NSW.  The impacts are now starting to be felt beyond the recreational sector in and around Sydney, with many commercial beekeepers reporting to me that they are experiencing colony losses too, these cases are beyond the east coast areas.

AHBIC is also receiving verbal reports of low-level infestations from beekeepers from throughout NSW, indicating the spread of varroa is broader than the heat maps suggest.

Varroa Treatment Registrations & APVMA

This month the AHBIC board met with senior officials from the APVMA to discuss the current situation and explore cooperative ways to increase treatment options for beekeepers.  The wide-ranging discussion has been summarised in an industry update due to go out shortly.  However, the conversation provided clarity on the rules and the opportunities for pursuing registrations.

Importantly, the meeting reaffirmed AHBIC is doing all within its powers to encourage and pursue new registrations.  The continual communication AHBIC has been undertaking with manufacturers globally to encourage registration, is the primary method to achieving this for industry.

AHBIC has been working with multiple manufactures with several prospective treatment options potentially in the pipeline.  This includes some additional organic treatments including oxalic acid blends, oxalic acid strips, botanical based treatments and even a novel RNAi technology that is successfully working in other industries.

Some exciting new Australian local research projects have been commissioned to explore new and novel insecticides for mite control and another project quantifying non-chemical treatment options.

We will be updating our varroa treatment table to reflect some new registration applications for Formic Pro and Apistan.  AHBIC has also been working with Amitraz manufacturers to look at the risk of residues and potential for a label variation to allow treatments with supers on.  This work is progressing with a measured approach to understanding the data and risks with the potential for a label variation.  We are pursuing this to provide beekeepers with another option other than Bayvarol for treatments with supers on.  Reports of continual use of Bayvarol alone is extremely concerning and will lead to resistance in no time.

AHBIC continues to work within our means to get as many varroa treatment options as possible available to our industry and will continue to update the progress, but remind our readers that the processes we are required to follow can be very slow moving.

Imported Honey Subcommittee

The Chair of the Imported Honey Subcommittee and I, meet with senior DAFF officials responsible for overseeing goods imported into Australia including honey.  In this meeting we highlighted the numerous challenges our industry is facing and presented the data from AHBIC’s imported honey shelf testing project.  We also explored the activities that are happening globally that impact Australian honey markets.  DAFF highlighted to us the work they have been undertaking in this space including looking for objective testing to improve the existing C3/C4 testing.

DAFF committed to working through the data and testing options to again prosecute changing the protocols.  We also explored opportunities to do a larger DAFF lead ‘at the border survey’ of imported honey using modern testing protocols to assess the rate of adulteration.  AHBIC has several actions to pursue following this productive meeting including hosting a whole of division workshop, with DAFF staff, to lift their broader understanding of our industries complexities.

DAFF committed to working more closely with AHBIC through monthly meetings to ensure progress is being made.

Other work we have undertaken has included commissioning a law firm and large accountancy firm that specialise in anti-dumping to provide specialised advice to AHBIC.  We tasked this group of experts to take pictures of shelf prices for honey in India to understand if there is a case for anti-dumping.  We are still working through the data, but initial analysis suggests the price differential between India and Australia is not great enough to be considered ‘dumping’.

Almonds Australia Conference 2024

I was lucky enough to attend the 2024 Almond Conference in Adelaide.  More than 600 delegates attended the meeting with a range of topics covered across the two days.  A big take away for me was that 40% of the existing orchard plantings will need to be replaced in the coming years due to age.  That, combined with the extensive new plantings going into the ground now, will be driving growers to seriously consider what varieties they want to plant for the future.

Many of the presentations centred around the advances in cultivars and especially self-pollinating and self-compatible varieties.  Growers and the panellists spoke about how they are moving towards the self-compatible and self-pollinating varieties to reduce their reliance on honeybees.  It is possible that over the next decade that we may see a reduction in hive requirements nationally for almond pollination services based on these new orchard plantings being less reliant on honeybees for successful yields.

Northern Australia Biosecurity Round Table

I also attended the NAPCaRN biosecurity round table earlier this month.  The meeting highlighted the extensive biosecurity work that is happening in the northern regions of our country.  Importantly I was able to make contacts to follow up on to ensure there is enough honey bee surveillance occurring.

This meeting highlighted the many opportunities we can embrace in working alongside the northern Australian biosecurity system with the aim of strengthening our national biosecurity surveillance system.

The Month Ahead

Over the next month AHBIC will be attending the Amateur Beekeeping Australia AGM, a honey marketing workshop hosted by University of Sydney and a Plant Health Australia member meeting at the end of November.  This is in addition to all of the regular management meetings including the National Bee Biosecurity Steering Committee meeting and numerous ongoing Transition to Management meetings.

Danny LeFeuvre

CEO

Resilient Beekeeping Factsheet Series – Varroa and Pollination in Australia

Swarms and How to Treat them for Varroa Mites.

Article By: Rod Bourke, Bee Biosecurity Officer NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development

As spring arrives most areas have been seeing swarming bees. Some of the earliest locations to get swarming were the old red zone areas from Sydney up to Kempsey, which are also highly infested with varroa mites. It’s safe to assume that nearly every swarm caught in those areas will already have a lot of mites on them, but don’t worry about that affecting their value to you.  

No matter where you are within NSW (and probably the rest of Australia as mites steadily move across it), best practice is that once the captured colony has settled (perhaps after 1-4 days in the box), do varroa monitoring (alcohol wash, soapy water wash or sugar shake) to determine what, if any mite loading is on those bees. Please note that high humidity, rain, a nectar flow or newly swarmed bees that are full of honey (which may purge during the extreme stress of a sugar shaking event) can drastically reduce the accuracy of a sugar shake, so an alcohol wash or soapy water wash is generally a more accurate method of determining mites. 

Once you have washed your bees you can determine what may need to be done to them with regards to managing any varroa mites they have.  

It is always best practice to take young nurse bees from the brood area when doing mite monitoring (not forager bees nor bees from the honey box), so if the colony has not yet started laying eggs when you do check then look for a central frame within the box. Alternatively look for the frame with the queen calmly working on it (unless you had already smoked or driven her off a good frame to an outside frame, which may not be the best one to sample), remove her safely onto another frame and then shake off some of those remaining bees to sample. It should always be ½ cup (approximately 300 bees) for a good sample, as sampling less bees than that is less accurate.  

Because newly collected swarms can sometimes be flighty and temperamental it is always good to ensure that they have fully decided to stay before undertaking this somewhat disturbing procedure of shaking bees off a frame, so if you prefer to wait a little bit longer until they are laying eggs nicely then that’s fine. But, don’t wait too long until they have advanced larvae before doing your mite sampling, as varroa may have already moved off the bees and into these brood cells. That would make it harder to find them when you do sample and therefore give you an incorrect (lower than actual) mite reading.  

Outside of the normal swarming season, but also during it there will be colonies that are actually absconding (instead of half the colony swarming) from their original location. Absconding is a way that bees escape a dire situation and try to reduce the concentration of damaging pests (such as varroa mite or small hive beetle) or diseases (especially American foulbrood) that had caused significant health issues in their previous colony location. These absconding colonies sometimes have quite high mite loads, and the number of bees in it can be quite small in size if their numbers had been dwindling in their previous impacted colony. Absconding colonies are not always as healthy as a swarm may be, so keep a close eye on them as they may fail to expand well and again suffer their previous issues, but in your boxes now.
 
Brood-less colonies (new swarms, absconding colonies or packages from a supplier) are very easily treated for varroa, as all the mites are fully exposed and vulnerable on the adult bees until the colony has reared its own advanced well-fed larvae that are about to be capped (this often happens from around day 8-9 after the swarm is captured). Unless the swarm looks extremely unhealthy then you should not consider euthanising them. Instead, you can add some synthetic flumethrin (Bayvarol is currently the only flumethrin product legally available in Australia) miticide strips and watch those mites fall off and the bee colony turn into a beautiful hive of bees.
 
The reasons we suggest using Bayvarol strips in this situation instead of other synthetic strips or organics are: 

1.    Bayvarol will provide the colony with 6-8 weeks of protection from reinfestation (field bees bringing new mites back into the hive), which is likely high if your swarm and the apiary area already has varroa present. Check the Heatmap for updated information on reported mites in your area – www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/varroa 

2.    Bayvarol can be used when bees are producing honey, which most strong swarm colonies will quickly produce in that first 8 weeks after their arrival. The other synthetic products cannot be used when honey is being produced, so they would only be used instead of Bayvarol if you captured a small swarm that will take 6+ weeks to expand and fill the brood box. 

3.    The organics may repel a caught swarm before it is fully established, causing its loss. 

The New South Wales (NSW) Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development delivers the NSW component of the National Bee Biosecurity Program (NBBP), and provides significant co-investment and expertise. The NBBP is coordinated by Plant Health Australia and funded by the Australian Honey Bee Levy. 

Tasmanian Junior Beekeepers & Tasmania’s VDO Carson McGinty

Varroa Extension and Engagement

Exciting National Pollination Strategy for Australia!

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