A statewide emergency alert to limit the movement of bees across New South Wales was issued last week after the extremely lethal Varroa mite was found in hives arriving in the port of Newcastle.
A 10-kilometer quarantine zone was immediately established after the discovery as the infected hives were being destroyed.
Later, the New South Wales government increased the size of the quarantine zone to include the entire state.
According to an article by KidsNews.com, a news website for children produced by News Corps Australia, Southern Cross University bee expert Dr. Cooper Schouten said that “the domestic honey bee industry risked losing more than $70 million a year if the Varroa mite became established in Australia.”
Australia is among the few countries in the world to not have the mite, so New South Wales Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders described the current situation as being “high stakes.”
Biochemist Dr. Joel Mackay from the University of Sydney said his team were developing insecticides that would kill the mites without harming the honey bees.
“In this way,” he said, in an interview with KidsNews.com, “We are hoping to establish a more robust control strategy for when the time comes that Varroa slips through our defenses, which have held up pretty well so far.”
A 10-kilometer quarantine zone was immediately established after the discovery as the infected hives were being destroyed.
Later, the New South Wales government increased the size of the quarantine zone to include the entire state.
According to an article by KidsNews.com, a news website for children produced by News Corps Australia, Southern Cross University bee expert Dr. Cooper Schouten said that “the domestic honey bee industry risked losing more than $70 million a year if the Varroa mite became established in Australia.”
Australia is among the few countries in the world to not have the mite, so New South Wales Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders described the current situation as being “high stakes.”
Biochemist Dr. Joel Mackay from the University of Sydney said his team were developing insecticides that would kill the mites without harming the honey bees.
“In this way,” he said, in an interview with KidsNews.com, “We are hoping to establish a more robust control strategy for when the time comes that Varroa slips through our defenses, which have held up pretty well so far.”
