News & Events

  • Victoria strengthens bee biosecurity and Varroa mite preparedness

    30/04/2020 – 12:49 pm Agriculture Victoria’s apiary team increased the national award-winning State Quarantine Response Team (SQRT) in early March this year. Training was delivered to 25 new field team leaders (authorised Agriculture Victoria staff) and 35 industry members/beekeepers who wanted to help protect the industry from incursions of exotic bee pests. The SQRT program proved its worth when […] Read more
  • New tool to strengthen bee surveillance

    17/04/2020 – 12:00 pm State and territory apiary and biosecurity officers recently came together to have their first look at a new tool to streamline the collection of bee pest surveillance data. The Bee Surveillance Portal is an online application which has been developed to manage the data collected by the National Bee Pest Surveillance Program (NBPSP) field activities. […] Read more
  • Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera), Crown Copyright

    Eyes in the apiary: external mite surveillance

    17/04/2020 – 11:47 am Current world events have highlighted the level of management required for preventative biosecurity and, even more so, the difficulty of tracing and eradication once an incursion breaches the border. They have also illustrated the importance of an individual’s actions. When it comes to bee biosecurity, all beekeepers need to be vigilant to support the early […] Read more
  • It’s Sugar Shake Month!

    03/04/2020 – 8:58 am April is Sugar Shake Month, a joint initiative between NSW DPI, Amateur Beekeepers Association NSW, NSW Apiarists Association and the National Bee Biosecurity Program to promote awareness and surveillance for exotic bee mites in Australia. During April, all beekeepers are encouraged to perform a sugar shake test and submit their results to the NSW DPI. […] Read more
  • NSW Bee Biosecurity Officer update

    03/04/2020 – 8:30 am This update from NSW Bee Biosecurity Officer Rod Bourke gives an overview of his main activities since mid-2019. Exchanging mite experience with New Zealand In June-July 2019, I visited New Zealand to look at varroa in different beekeeping operations with Mark Page, the NSW DPI Bee Biosecurity Officer (Surveillance). We saw that you can run […] Read more