Varroa is in QLD

Once again I find myself writing to you all upon my discovery of Varroa Destructor at a clients place in the Scenic Rim of QLD.

I'm sure by now everyone has heard this news that Varroa has made its way across the border and into QLD. Detections at the moment are being discovered daily within the scenic rim and more recently across the eastern suburbs of Brisbane City itself.

Beekeeping is about to change forever once again in Australia as we face yet another enemy that plagues our colonies.

We have faced many over the years both pests and disease, Varroa Destructor will be no different, in that we will go through tough times of colonies dying out and we will have wins with strong colonies defying what's thrown at them.

Our job as always remains the same - to help and assist the bees and beekeepers -

it will start with constant monitoring every 4 weeks and then based on a numbers game we will treat accordingly to lessen the numbers of varroa. Please understand once varroa is present, it is present for life and no amount of chemical or treatments will ever remove them from the colony, just like SHB really.

Also Despite what you may read or have been told, Varroa will need a combination of chemical treatments to get us through the intial infestation period. We understand there are other options that the beekeeper may like to try however we will recommend what's we currently know works. This period of using chemicals could last as long as 3-5 years, but over time and as everyone's experience grows the varroa numbers will stabilise and somewhat reduce collectively and then we will learn to control the parasite's numbers, we will develop our queens to show more and more resistance and I certainly hope to see the day whereby we once again are chemical free within our hives.

We are all prepared here at The Backyard Beekeeper, with stocks of miticide and natural elements that are working in NSW that are keeping the numbers in hives manageable. Our treatments will cost $20 per hive and we will only do this when the threshold numbers of varroa samples have been seen within alcohol washes or drone uncapping.

As of "next season" July / August 2025 all services will include either an alcohol wash or drone uncapping within everyone's apiaries , looking for varroa presence and monitoring numbers if found. There's no extra change for this however services may take a little longer as we don't want to wash your queens and inadvertently cause another issue.

We know everyone will face this differently, we know we will lose colonies, but please try to stay positive, because as a beekeeper you will be truly the custodians of the European bees in Australia. They are a significant pollinator for everyone's gardens and food production crops. All feral and un-managed hives will die out leaving only the bees you manage available for nature, so I think it's somewhat of an honour to care for these hard workers.

So to leave you all with a quote below that is fitting and be sure to sing out to any of us, if you have questions.

“The road ahead is long and there will be many setbacks. Success is not assured… but the price of failure has never been this high.” Charles Lee Lesher

Goodluck everyone and we will be here to support you.

Rick and Team