The New South Wales Agriculture Minister says as many queen bees as possible may be moved from a newly expanded varroa mite eradication zone to protect a national bee breeding program.
Varroa mite, which has devastated bee colonies around the world, has been detected at Butterwick, less than 10 kilometres from Tocal Agricultural College in the NSW Hunter region.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries-run college houses the national honey bee genetic improvement program, which supports beekeepers across the country.
The latest varroa mite detection takes the state's total to 59, but Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders has stressed that the mite has not been found at Tocal itself.
"[It] does not have infected hives — they've been monitored very regularly, but it does now fall within one of those red zones, so it is in an eradication zone," he said.
Mr Saunders said the nearby detection was unfortunate but not completely unexpected, with 16,000 hives now having been inspected.
He said protocols had been developed over the past month to safeguard and possibly move "some really, really high-value bee genetics that are housed at Tocal".
"It will be as many as is feasible without feeling like we're putting anyone else at risk," he said.
"It's not exactly formalised yet, but it would essentially mean that there would be a process where some bees could be moved in a small group, as in the queen bee with some of her nurse bees.
"[This would be achieved] by individually inspecting each and every one of those to make sure that they're free of varroa mite and then moving them in a restricted space … to somewhere else to try and maintain those genetics.
"That would also include other queen bee breeders in that area."
Bees in insurance hives offer hope
The aim of the national bee breeding program is to refine genetics and make bees more productive and less susceptible to disease, within Australia's "unique environment".
Tocal centre manager Robert Rein, who had a different understanding to the Minister regarding what would happen to Tocal bees moving forward, said red zone eradication protocols were clear.
"It means that will be euthanising hives and for our queen bee breeding research it means that will be part of that as well," he said.
But he said there were future options for the continuation of the program via queen bees linked to the program living in 'insurance or satellite' hives on properties elsewhere and interstate.
"As I understand it, we will euthanise all our hives in the red zone [queens included] — there is a discussion about all queen breeders being able to save genetics, the protocols and exceptions around this is yet to be finalised," Mr Rein said.
"When finalised, we [and other queen breeders] will have a procedure and protocol to operate to and action.
"Our queens are all over Australia so there are genetics out there, outside of this zone, which is really good and the industry was very supportive of getting this genetics program up and going," he said.
His DPI colleague Elizabeth Frost is optimistic.
"The response is looking at a procedure to conserve high-value queens, however there is a queen bee sector in Australia and the stock that we sourced for Plan Bee was from around the nation and so those programs of work still exist in commercial queen bee operations in NSW blue zones or general biosecurity as well as interstate," she said.
"So even if the Tocal program can't go ahead from the red zone component of managing stock here, it is still represented around the nation."
"In the past few years of running this program we have developed the national database and the data we've generated from this population, and also genotyping … will live on beyond this population in the red zone.
"I couldn't be more proud than that."
Mr Saunders issued a statement to the ABC this afternoon, further clarifying the Tocal bee program and the potential future for the queen bees.
"Due to the special research purposes of the queen bees at Tocal, DPI are working behind the scenes to look at movement options to preserve their genetics."
He said Mr Rein would not have been privy to those discussions.
