There is a silent battle being waged by Australian Quarantine Services (AQIS), which the agency is presently winning. Should quarantine personnel drop their guard, however, Australian agriculture could be devastated in one season.
The battle is to keep the tiny destructor varroa mite offshore and out of Australian bee hives.
Originally from Asia, the worst known honey bee parasite was identified in two states in the US in 1987. By the next year, it had spread to 12 states, then to the rest of the continent. Already widespread in Europe, it turned up in Hawaii in 2007 and then Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands last year. Australia is the last continent to be free of the destructor, which wreaks its havoc by sucking the blood from adult bees and brood and eventually killing the entire hive.
Over 70,000 hives were lost in the first few years of the mite’s arrival in New Zealand, while in the US, during the 2006–2007 winter, the mite combined with a range of other adverse conditions to see the $US17 billion ($A24 billin) honey bee industry devastated. Between 25 and 80 per cent of colonies in US apiaries disappeared at that time, in what has been described as Colony Collapse Disorder.
In Australia, “AQIS has done a pretty good job of keeping varroa out, but it’s a battle,” says Dr Doug Somerville, apiarist with the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
Should the mites make it into Australia, illegal smuggling and shipping containers would be the likely culprits, but Dr Somerville believes that if the mite can be caught early, it may prevent the mass devastation of honey bees seen in other countries.
Economics the killer
Dr Somerville says it is not the devastation caused by varroa that will be the major problem for Australian honey producers.
“It will be the economics,” he says. “Local producers just can’t compete with cheaper imported product.”
The chemicals needed to keep the mite at bay are expensive and with increasing imports of the cheaper inferior honey from China, local bee keepers will just not be able to meet the added expense, he explained.
Dr Somerville says 30 per cent of beekeepers have exited the US and New Zealand industries since the arrival of the varroa mite because they found managing the pest too hard.
Pollination Concerns
Destruction of the honey industry is not the only concern either, says Dr Somerville.
“In the big scheme of things, honey’s a bit of a minor product, really. Roughly one-third of the food we eat relates back to bee pollinated crops, so most of the benefits of honeybees actually come from pollinations”. Bees are needed to pollinate 90 per cent of fruit, nuts and vegetables, including avocados, almonds and even cotton. Without bees to pollinate, the agricultural industry will devastated.
Aussie Battler
Dr Somerville says Australian native bees, which are resistant to the mite, may be one alternative, but there is little known about them.
To build an industry would require a vast amount of research and investment, he said.
One researcher, Dr Katja Hogendoorn from Adelaide University, however, has made the Australian native bee the focus of her work.
There are over 1500 species of native bees in Australia and most of them are solitary bees that do not build hives.
Around 10 species are social native bees which produce honey, although in very small quantities.
Dr Hogendoorn says Australian native bees can be good pollinators, but it is important to know what species to choose, because some are selective. The Banksia bee, for example, prefers to forage on the Banksia tree.
With the potential fallout of a varroa mite invasion in mind, Dr Hogendoorn believes the Aussie native bee has an important role to play
“Native bees cannot replace all the honey bees in pollination, but can be very good in niche markets,” she says.
Dr Hogendoorn is particularly focussed on the small blue banded bee, which lives in all Australian states and is called such because of its iridescent blue hair bands on a black body,
While it does not produce honey, the blue banded bee is a very good pollinator and is most effective on the plant variety that includes tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants, as well as pumpkins.
Other Australian native bees that could be useful for crop pollination include stingless bees for mango and avocado in tropical areas, leafcutter bees for lucerne pollination and reed bees and sweat bees for a variety of fruit trees.
