Hard times ahead for the humble Aussie honeybee

While Australia’s honeybee (Apis mellifera) is currently faring better than its European and American counterparts, it is already afflicted by several imported maladies. Two bacterial diseases, American foulbrood and European foulbrood, are found in honeybee colonies in almost every Australian state (Western Australia is currently free of European foulbrood) and have the potential to cause significant numbers of deaths. Losses can be minimised, however, by good hive management, integrative pest management and breeding of disease-tolerant bees.

The small hive beetle (Aethina tumida) is another major pest. It was first observed in Australia in 2002 and has spread widely in the east, especially in New South Wales and Queensland. A prolific breeder, the small hive beetle is now damaging honeybee colonies in several states. Management attempts have been made by using traps loaded with poison within hives, but on top of the concern about introducing poison into hives that produce a product for human consumption, beekeepers are reporting that the beetles are becoming increasingly tolerant to the poison. More research is needed to find sustainable long-term solutions.

While some bee parasites are already in Australia, strict quarantine regulations and good luck have combined to exclude others. For example, several other species of honeybee, which could compete with the European honeybee for nesting sites and nectar and pollen resources, and could introduce new diseases, have not yet made it to Australian shores. One real concern is the Africanised honeybee (a subspecies of Apis mellifera), also known as the ‘killer bee’, which is particularly defensive compared to other bee species.

On the other hand, the Asian honeybee (Apis cerana) was first detected in northern Queensland in 2007, to the dismay of Australian beekeepers, environmentalists and agriculturalists. It is of concern because it is more aggressive, frequently swarms and may carry diseases to which Australian honeybees have no resistance. After this initial discovery, subsequent detections of new imports of Asian honeybee occurred in Townsville in 2009, 2014 and 2016, with this latest introduction found to be infested with the Varroa jacobsoni mite. These imports were destroyed and there is no indication of a permanent varroa mite population in Australia.

Nevertheless, control measures are being undertaken as this mite is considered to be a significant risk to Australian industry, potentially leading to broad honeybee population losses. Fortunately, those measures are working. A bee colony infested with the Varroa destructor mite was detected at Port of Melbourne in June 2018 and was quickly dealt with. Tests of sentinel hives in the surrounding area returned negative results for the mite, indicating that the invasion has not spread further into Australia—good news for our honeybee populations.