AUSTRALIAN beekeepers would continue their efforts to keep the external parasitic mite varrroa destructa out of the country, Australian Honey Products' Lindsay Bourke said.
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Mr Bourke said that for years now people had, periodically, aired the opinion that it was only a matter of time before the mite became established in Australia.
"We in the industry are doing everything we can to prevent that happening, including the rolling out of the national centiinal hive program," Mr Bourke said.
"But they're a bit like canaries, you know there's a problem when they die.
"We're rolling out something better than that now — an unmanned bait-hive program with cameras that send their images back to a central place that will be manned 24 hours a day.
"The CSIRO have done their bit too and have identified Australia's 80 main, important ports and we're putting 20 of the bait hives around them.
"I've just sent 20 of these up to Mackay to be fitted out and we've had one running in Cairns and one in Brisbane for the past 12 months."
Mr Bourke does not accept the inevitability of a verroa mite incursion.
"We didn't do a very good job with the Asian bees up in Cairns, but we've learnt a lot of things since then," he said.
"I hope we can stop it (varroa mite) forever and I think that's a realistic hope — Plant Health Australia and Animal Health Australia work very closely together to that end.
"There are only a few people in Australia who've had all the training in this area with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry — I'm one of them.
"But from time to time there's always someone claiming to know the industry who makes predictions of gloom and doom without inner knowledge on the federal scene."
Mr Bourke said that when the varrroa mite came to New Zealand only the large operators who could afford to treat their bees continued.