Tasmania’s bee industry is well prepared if varroa mite makes its way here, but more training is still needed.
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The Bee Prepared Varroa Emergency Response exercise was held at the Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment offices in New Town, with a field exercise at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens.
A fictional scenario where a beekeeper reported finding varroa mites in one of his hives set the simulated exercise off, with the 35 participants from government and industry each responding, Apiary Biosecurity officer Karla Williams said.
“Emergency response teams were sent to investigate and collect samples from bee hives on the first day of the exercise, and on the second day, in the simulated control centre, we worked in groups on planning the next few days of the simulated emergency response, testing our existing systems and procedures,” Ms Williams said.
Tasmania’s exercise went well, but Ms Williams said it enabled them to “identify areas we can further strengthen before a real event”, such as training more Biosecurity Tasmania staff in bee hive management and beekeepers in pest surveillance.