What is a Varroa Development Officer?

Varroa Development Officers (VDO) are here to help beekeepers across Australia, as a major varroa extension project funded by the National Varroa Mite Management Program. VDO help through providing hands on engagement with beekeepers both commercial and recreational to extend best management practice guidelines, sharing knowledge and expertise directly to beekeepers in the field and within club and association branches.

VDO are well versed in beekeeping practice having been selected for their knowledgeability and their skills in sharing best practice direct to beekeepers, often over 50% of the work undertaken so far by the team has been in the field. Although the VDO teams are included in the 24 month roll out of the Transition to Management, VDO contracts will begin to wrap up between now and February 2026.

Engagement Statistics

VDO have been set 3 clear Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to report monthly on their progress over the course of their employment. These KPI relate to numbers of beekeepers met each month, regional spread of their work and engagement with key industry associations and clubs in their state. All state teams have delivered well according to their KIP’s and as they are recorded, it is possible to paint a clear picture of the achievement of the national extension team each month.

 

 

VDO Engagement Summary								National TOTAL
State & Staff Number	NSW  3	NT  1	QLD  5	TAS  1	VIC  13	WA  6	SA  3
Monthly goal by state	60	16	100	22	80	64	40
Current Achievement	2211	88	1290	314	1364	693	664	6624
KPI Engagement Goal	2133	200	1530	397	1440	1088	720	7508

Table 1: VDO engagement summarised between March 2023 and August 2025, showing the number of beekeeper engagements have occurred which includes, phone, email, workshop, presentation, beekeeper breakfast, apiary visit, club visit.

What we have recorded so far within the VDO program is an incredible amount of in-field visits at the apiary with industry, which is proven to be a great way to pass on all of the new practical beekeeping skills required to manage varroa. All states have delivered comparable information, which spans multiple beekeeping specific topics and reveals a substantially broad consistency in knowledge among teams and a well communicated extension mechanism.

Interaction Type	Number
Phone call/ email	1690
Presentation/workshop	1418
In field	3516

Table 2: VDO Engagements by interaction type.

VDOs developed the Varroa Treatment Plan for Industry

Did you now that VDO can come to visit beekeepers to run through a personalised treatment plan for your operation? The team across Australia along with AHBIC’s Varroa Coordinator Bianca Giggins, developed the Varroa Treatment Plan together for industries benefit.

A Varroa Treatment Plan is an additional resource that can help beekeepers:

• keep track of specific details unique to their apiaries,

• streamline operations,

• chart a forward program of mite management,

• remove confusion, and

• potentially save time and money.

A Varroa Treatment Plan includes information that you add, specific to your apiary including hive locations, weather, colony cycles, labour scheduling, income producing activities, existing treatment practices, costings and more.  VDO can visit you and run you through all of the complexities which become part of the decision making with varroa in mind. The treatment plan can be downloaded in excel spreadsheet, which includes a gross margin calculator which is extremely useful for business planning purposes. It is one of the top visited pages of the Varroa.org.au website.

You can download your own in excel or PDF here: VARROA TREATMENT PLAN TEMPLATE

Article written by: Bianca Giggins, National Varroa Mite Coordinator AHBIC