The National Bee Pest Surveillance Program is an early warning system to detect new incursions of exotic bee pests and pest bees. The program involves a range of surveillance methods conducted at locations considered to be of most likely entry of bee pests and pest bees throughout Australia.
The National Bee Pest Surveillance Program has one major objective:
To facilitate the export of queen bees and packaged bees to countries sensitive to a range of bee pests and pest bees. This program will provide technical, evidence based, information to support Australia’s pest free status claims during export negotiations and will assist exporters in meeting export certification requirements.
To act as an early warning system to detect new incursions of exotic bee pests and pest bees. This greatly increases the possibility of eradicating an incursion, and limits the scale and cost of an eradication program.
The program is jointly funded by Hort Innovation using research and development levies of 14 horticultural industries, with contributions from the Australian Honey bee Industry Levies, Grain Producers Australia (GPA), and the Australian Government. In-kind contributions for the implementation of the program are provided through each state and territory Department of Agriculture. At a national level, Plant Health Australia coordinates and administers the program.
