Cultivating a relationship with our native pollinators is not merely a reactive step against the looming threat of the Varroa mite invasion. It's a meaningful journey back to nature's original design, a homage to the intricate balance of our ecosystems.

As the global agricultural community braces for challenges posed by these mites to honeybees, it's crucial that we recognize and leverage the power and potential of our native pollinators. These indigenous species, often overlooked in the shadow of honeybees, are perfectly adapted to their local environments, showcasing resilience and efficiency.

Their roles have been crafted by millennia of evolution, ensuring pollination services that are both effective and sustainable. As we face the imminent Varroa challenge, it's not just about creating a backup plan. It's about broadening our horizons, understanding the rich tapestry of pollination beyond honeybees, and making informed choices that ensure the health of our crops and ecosystems.

This approach is not just an investment in our immediate future, but a testament to our commitment to sustainable, resilient, and diverse agricultural practices that will serve generations to come.

We saw this coming a year ago and it’s extremely concerning. The majority of horticultural and agricultural crops produced in Australia require honeybees for pollination. Once established, the varroa mite is expected to progressively kill off Australia's wild honeybee population at huge economic cost. This is a potential catastrophe.
 
We are currently working on research to find better ways to kill the varroa mite. We have discovered key differences in the structure of varroa mite ion channels which we will exploit to generate a new generation of compounds that have miticidal, but not insecticidal effects. 
 
We will test a series of these compounds in structure-function and field-based assays to identify chemicals that can kill varroa mites, leaving bees and other insects unharmed. 
 
We aim to develop a new generation of miticides that will help control the varroa destructor.

The decision to cease eradication of the Varroa mite is based on the consensus that it is no longer technically feasible to eradicate. Repeated detections of mites in areas of high hive density, such as at almond pollination events in south western NSW, create potential super-spreader events which are difficult to contain.

There will be an initial period of volatility as Varroa establishes. Over the next few years we will experience significant colony losses in our managed and feral bee populations as the industry transitions to management. On a positive note, currently Australia remains free from Deformed wing virus, a damaging disease spread by mites, so colony losses may not be as severe initially. Ultimately, it is the viruses that are spread by mites that cause the biggest colony losses, so we must continually monitor virus presence in Australian bees during the Varroa establishment period to ensure that we remain free of viral diseases. 

We now need to focus on putting in place a coordinated, sustainable national strategy to manage Varroa. Our approach must avoid over-reliance on synthetic chemicals, which rapidly leads to resistance in Varroa populations and contributes to poor bee health. 

Once Varroa has entered the feral bee population, as now seems likely, eradication becomes virtually impossible as has been found to be the case in nearly all overseas countries.

We anticipated this situation developing in Australia and so have already initiated research at The University of Sydney directed towards discovery and development of new more selective agents for control of Varroa – agents that carry greater safety for bees, apiarists and farm workers. The agents we are working on mimic Varroa’s own hormones and take advantage of variations in the atomic structures of the relevant receptor proteins between the mites and bees. These receptors are absent from vertebrates, providing an additional level of safety for humans, as well as livestock, companion animals and wildlife.

This announcement increases the imperative for the development of such agents.

Transition to management will allow Australia to focus on the future, which will involve a diversity of strategies to deal with damage caused by Varroa mites, ranging from beekeeper training, to developing alternative pollinators, to breeding resistant bees. Eradication was a worthwhile goal, and we should honour the sacrifices beekeepers have made, but now is the time to focus on a national Varroa strategy, leaning on the experiences of other countries.

The news that the varroa eradication program in NSW will be abandoned will have far-reaching implications for not only apiarists but also potentially for the management of feral honeybee colonies that have invaded natural areas. Elsewhere around the world, apiarists have employed management practices that allow them to live with the mite and suppress the associated diseases that the mite can spread.

Our only option now is to try to suppress the spread and to make regular checks of managed hives to ensure hive health and manage and potential disease. The spread of Varroa, may however help to reduce feral honeybee numbers which may ultimately reduce the chance of disease transmission from feral unmanaged colonies which in turn may have significant implications for native plant-pollinator systems.

Allowing bees to be transported for pollination services across the country to the almond farms in the Sunraysia and Riverina regions of NSW was probably the final nail in the coffin of NSW Department of Primary Industry's attempts in eradicating the mites. The only logical remaining step is to switch from an eradication to a control strategy, as the current extent of the varroa mite incursion renders complete eradication impossible.
 
In June last year, I recommended to 'prohibit any movement of beehives at least within QLD, NSW and VIC, because it just takes a single breach of the current exclusion zones in combination with beehives being transported across Australia for pollination services and we will soon end up with an uncontrollable spread of the varroa mites.' It seems that commercial interests rather than a more cautionary approach prevailed, and we must now find permanent solutions for managing our beehives in the presence of varroa mites, as most other countries around the world are already doing for many years. 
 
I hope that a least a fraction of the over AU$100 million that were spent in vain towards eradicating the mites will in future be spend for research on environmentally friendly ways of controlling them.

After 15 months, and 14,000 managed honeybee hives destroyed, efforts to eradicate Varroa have failed and instead a strategy of management has been issued. One of the big issues here is feral honeybees. These populations have been harming native wildlife for decades, and it is only now that people are beginning to realise the risks feral honeybees pose, albeit for pest control by being a reservoir of diseases to managed honeybees.

What frustrates me most as a scientist and bee conservation biologist is the lack of monitoring. Due to the heavy investment into honeybees, we don't know the status of most native bee populations and their flower hosts - how viable is it to propose native bees can compensate for honeybee declines for pollination of various crops? How are native bee populations doing in areas where honeybee populations have declined? How are they affected by chemical control measures targeted at honeybees?

Our indigenous bees have been neglected for far too long, and it's time we started protecting them - including from feral colonies of honeybees. In terms of the fate of honey bees - management is a very viable option. Australia has invested a lot into the honeybee industry, and beekeeping practices, and our native flora, are better than in most places in the world that have had Varroa for years. In no region are honeybees at risk of extinction.

It is very tragic for the beekeepers whose hives were destroyed, but we don't have a 'control' to see what would have happened if this measure was not adopted - but it may be that Varroa be far more prevalent and widespread by now. This will be a difficult time for beekeepers, but hopefully it will lead to better biosecurity, more training among beekeepers, mandatory hive registration and regular hive inspections, and importantly, more conservation measures and monitoring of the native bees that have been part of the Australian ecosystem long before honeybees arrived.

The fact that Varroa mite are now established in Australia is unwelcome news for beekeepers and for growers of crops that rely on honeybees for pollination. Nevertheless, it was always understood that the eradication strategy had a significant risk of failure. Varroa mite will cause significant economic damage in agriculture, and so it is vital that we focus on adaptation to life with Varroa. We can learn from overseas, where people have lived for decades with this honey bee disease, but Australia needs to adapt its own solutions because of our unique biodiversity, climate and agriculture.

It is very sad what has happened to the bee-keeping industry as people have seen their livelihoods devastated. But attempting to eradicate this pest was the right initial response because of the cost and damage varroa mite can cause to the industry going forward. Containment and management is now the ideal response.

Using miticides to contain the mites is a good response, but varroa is very effective at developing resistance to miticides. Going forward we will need a multi-pronged approach, which includes miticides, but also a number of other methods.

We are working with the bee-keeping industry and researchers from New Zealand and the United States to identify a range of non-chemical varroa mite control methods that could be effective in Australia. But when and how these control methods are used will affect their ability to control the mites.

This is why we are reviewing them within an Integrated Pest Management framework, which will enable the control methods to be as effective as possible. With this approach, monitoring mite numbers is critical, as is working closely with beekeepers and the bee-keeping industry.

This is a complex issue, and there will not be one answer, but our team is ready to assist the industry in whatever way possible.

Once Varroa has entered the feral bee population, as now seems likely, eradication becomes virtually impossible as has been found to be the case in nearly all overseas countries.

We anticipated this situation developing in Australia and so have already initiated research at the University of Sydney directed towards the discovery and development of new more selective agents for control of Varroa with greater safety for bees, apiarists and farm workers. The agents we are working on mimic Varroa’s own hormones and take advantage of variations in the atomic structures of the relevant receptor proteins between the mites and bees. These receptors are absent from vertebrates providing an additional level of safety for humans as farmers and consumers.

The present situation increases the imperative for the development of such agents.

Learning to live with Varroa will be the steepest learning curve for the beekeeping industry; we have the opportunity to learn from what has and hasn’t worked overseas. My colleagues and I have recently submitted a report ‘Resilient beekeeping in the face of Varroa’ to AgriFutures Australia. This report found that the best way forward will be to implement Integrated Pest Management practices to manage Varroa. While there are effective miticides available, they have effects on bees, humans, and leave residues in hive products. Overuse of synthetic miticides will result in the mites becoming resistant to them. Beekeepers will need to monitor their mite loads, have a toolkit for reducing mite numbers, and then monitor mite loads again to see if the actions they took were effective. We can live with the mite, but unfortunately how we keep bees is going to change.

The Australian honey and pollination industry needs timely access to country-specific and applied information for monitoring and management methods for varroa.

Significant time and resource investment will be required by beekeepers to monitor, manage, and replace hives due to varroa losses. 

We have a critical need for national capacity building for beekeeping, varroa and pollination research, training, and extension.   

As far as I’m aware, we don’t have a national program in Australia that monitors colony losses, making quantifying impacts across the sector more difficult to discern. 

Costs for the average-sized Australian bee business could increase by as much as 30 per cent and experience in other countries suggests there could be significant declines (up to 50 per cent) in the numbers of hobbyist and semi-commercial operators worth 173m annually. 

We also know that varroa will progressively kill around 95% of Australia's feral bees within approximately three years and therefore more bee colonies per hectare may be needed to effectively pollinate some crops. 

Cumulatively, increased costs of production, a decrease in the numbers of beekeepers and fewer feral bees will likely result in higher demand for bee hives to service 35 pollination dependant industries across the country, and as seen in NZ, price per hive rentals may increase by 30-100% within five years.

It’s quite a shock that the government has given up its attempts to eradicate the Varroa mite. The impacts of this decision will be felt for decades to come in how beekeepers manage their hives and how farmers pollinate their crops. In particular, farmers may not be able to rely on passive pollination from feral honeybees any longer. 

The government should be investing strongly into solutions. In particular, research into how native bees (of which there are 2,000–3,000 species) can be used for pollination. They should also be very concerned about the conservation of these species so that we can benefit from them for years to come. 

The government dedicated $132 million to Varroa control. If they invested even a small fraction of that into native bee research and conservation, we would be in a much better position to adapt to this crisis. 

In a poignant example of this, three weeks ago I was informed that my funding application, with the University of Sydney, to assess 600–1,000 Australian native bee species for their conservation status (the first step for directed conservation) was not funded under the government’s DECRA scheme. It’s time to look forward and seriously act on pollination security.