Beekeeping and Varroa Downunder with Liz Frost (S6, E40)

S6, E40 - Beekeeping and Varroa Downunder with Liz Frost

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

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Becky: Thank you, Jeff, for not changing your password so that I am able to invite Bridget Mendel into the recording studio. Bridget, welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast as a host.

Bridget Mendel: Thank you, Becky. I'm excited to be here.

Becky: Some of you might remember that Bridget and I were guests of the podcast a few years ago. I used to run the Bee Squad, and then Bridget took it over. It sounds like a hostile takeover, but it was quite friendly, wasn't it?

Bridget: Yes, it was a very friendly takeover. I believe that we actually passed the baton during the podcast. We talked about the Bee Squad and the programs that they have running over there.

Becky: It was really the honor to lead quite a talented team of beekeepers. Now that baton has been passed once again , and Jessica Helgen is now leading the squad over at the University of Minnesota. You and I also have something in common that is beekeeping-related besides the Bee Squad, and that is our co-authorship of the monthly article for Bee Culture called Minding Your Bees and Cues. You're the author in this relationship. You make everything so much prettier. You've got a background in both writing and beekeeping, right, Bridget?

Bridget: Yes, that is correct. I think we're very much co-authors.

Becky: I like to give you credit for all the good words.

Bridget: Thank you.

Becky: We have an article out this month, and it is with Liz Frost. Honestly, our interview with Liz, we couldn't meet with her in person because she's in Australia, but our interview with Liz was so good for the article that it seemed like a great reason to use the password for the Beekeeping Today Podcast recording studio and sit down and have a conversation with her. I'm super excited that we're doing this today.

Liz is an American who made it over to Australia. We're going to learn a lot about that transition and her journey there. She's not only made it to Australian beekeeping, but she is now the technical specialist in honeybees for the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. She's delivering research development and education to support the beekeeping industry. She's a big deal over there.

Bridget: I love it when people have really complicated official titles, and they're also very down to earth. I feel like Liz is both of those things.

Becky: She meets both of those things. Then another quality that I think you enjoy as far as Liz is concerned is the fact that she's a writer too. You have that in common.

Bridget: I'm excited to ask her about that as well.

Becky: Fantastic. Let's just listen to this quick word from Strong Microbials and get into our conversation with Liz Frost.

[music]

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Becky: Everybody, I would like to welcome Liz Frost to the recording studio. Liz, thank you so much for joining us.

Liz Frost: Thank you, guys, so much for having me, and for dealing with the time difference between Central Standard Time and Australian Eastern Standard Time.

Becky: I really want to reach out to you maybe weekly or monthly now because I feel like it's such a victory that we have now navigated this time difference twice successfully [laughs]

Liz: Watch out. We've got our autumn fall backwards soon, so the joy won't last for long.

Becky: That sounds way too tricky. Liz, can you introduce yourself quickly? You are obviously not from Australia, even though you are in Australia. I think your accent is giving it away. Would you tell the listeners your history in beekeeping? The brief history because we only have half hour or so.

Liz: Brief history. Australians, when they meet me, they ask, "Oh, are you from Canada?" because they're being diplomatic, and I said, "No, I'm from California." I grew up in California. Went to University of California Davis, and eventually found the study of entomology. I was working in quite a few different insect labs, eventually worked at the arboretum at UC Davis, and had a summer job there assessing pest levels on their ornamentals for sale. I was looking at some pesticide labels and one insecticide said dangerous to bees. I did my due diligence and looked up that there was an extension apiculturist at UC Davis, Eric Mussen.

I cold-called him and had a chat. That's how I first learned that bees could be a career of some sort. I did study entomology at UC Davis for my minor, but medical and forensic entomology, because the bee minor was not active at that point. That's where I got started in bees at UC Davis and eventually worked for four years for Su Cobey at UCD, at the Harry Laidlaw, a honeybee research center. Then once she moved to Washington State, I worked for the Bee Informed Partnership California Midwest tech teams for two seasons and got my foot across the Pacific into Australia.

After I finished up with BIP and had been moving every three months for two-season period, that got a little bit-- Anyways, that was a bit tiring, but I learned heaps from-- I've got a case of the heaps since I've been in Australia for long enough. I keep saying heaps this, heaps that. I did learn stacks and heaps from North Dakota, Minnesota, and California . Bekeepers and queen breeders, and that really set me on this pathway to keep expanding my knowledge. I thought, Australia, Su Cobey had been there to deliver training and she had some contacts still. I got my foot in the door with some contacts that she had.

Bridget: You shared your origin story, but since we did have the opportunity to talk to you last month, I know that you actually started as a creative writing major, English major, and I as a fellow creative writing major, it's rare to meet somebody with that origin in entomology, at least who is willing to talk about it. I was wondering if-- do you still write, and if so, do bees inform what you write about or what you think about, or conversely, does your background inform your beekeeping at all? Do you think there's any relation or impact of that origin?

Liz: 200%. I guess, farmers, they really grasp onto that storytelling aspect just of life generally. The human condition is built around storytelling and community and oral tradition originally. Storytelling and writing to get it in a way that your audience takes it in.

I think creative writing has really helped me get things to the various stakeholders that I interact with. I still write creatively. Life just gets busy as you get older and get different positions and things like that. There's the research writing discipline, which has similarities to creative writing in ways, but obviously, it's structured differently and you have to [chuckles] adhere to scientific methodology and the scientific method and all that, but the discipline of writing is similar.

I'd say creative writing really helped me hit home with beekeepers, and also be able to record their stories as well. Record their stories in a colloquial way that is unique to them. Last time we spoke, I had some interesting phrases for you. The beekeeping industry and farming sector is just totally ripe with jargon on top of just beekeeping jargon.

When I first started working with California queen breeders, I would come home to visit my family, and my sister said to me, why the hell are you talking like an old gold prospector? [laughter] We know. The queen breeders, if they-- I hope some of them will listen to this. They know. They're from-- Some of them came during the gold rush to California, and some came from Oklahoma, and during the Great Depression. These phrases stick for a long time. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, but--

Becky: [laughs] No, I love that. I think it's so true that-- I don't know. If you just have your ear out, it's like the beekeeping language is so poetic and also just so funny and great. There's just the insider language that it's fun to-- I don't know, think about from the perspective of a writer. I love that.

Liz: Definitely. I would encourage any creative writing beekeepers to keep your hand to the pen because there's that many wannabe bee stories out there that are just factually incorrect and, I don't know, don't do justice to the community or the sector, and love to see some more good bee books out there. My favorite one is by this Australian author that's called  The Honey Flow.

If you can get a copy on that one, it's just a true picture, I suppose, a snapshot in time of like '50s beekeeping in Australia and how nomadic and competitive and unique it is in the Australian environment by Kylie Tennant.

Becky: You left California when beekeeping was very challenged in the United States, and you went for a really long plane ride. You ended up for a short visit that turned into a very long visit, is that correct? You've become a really valued member of the team as far as supporting beekeeping in Australia, but you looked for maybe greener pastures that were a little bit more Varroa free, is that correct? [laughs]

Liz: Yes, that's correct. Australia, globally, it's the last major large-scale beekeeping continent and country that doesn't have Varroa or didn't until June 2022. They went through a short period of attempting to eradicate, and determine it wasn't feasible. It's still only found within one of the eight states and territories in Australia. It's confined to New South Wales.

The reason I came to Australia initially was multifaceted, a change, an opportunity. I was in that age frame where you could still get a working holiday visa. You could do a blend of working for one employer for a maximum of six months, and then do some holidaying around that. Got my foot in the door working with three commercial beekeepers, went back home to California, did a bit of contracting, insemination with California queen breeders, and different contract options with USAID and Lebanon.

The draw too of Australia is this botanical side that's so unique to Australia. We've got some eucalyptus in the states. When you fly into San Francisco and you go to downtown San Francisco, it smells like Tasmania or like the mountains of Victoria, Australia, because there's all these Tasmanian blue gums around. These different higher elevation, higher rainfall trees, eucalyptus that are very fragrant. California has lots of them everywhere. In my hometown, once I come back and forth from Australia, I start recognizing, "Oh, street trees." Up there is the eucalyptus sideroxylon, row of street trees, there's she-oaks casuarina species, and forest red gums. They love that arid condition, some of those species.

Becky: How many years did you have Varroa free in Australia?

Liz: I had ten Varroa free years.

Becky: You did?

Liz: I did, personally, but obviously-- The early colonists brought bees in like 202 years ago, roughly, to Australia from England. Mellifera, I think, they brought first.

Becky: You had ten years, and part of what you did and loved to do was to learn the flora, correct?

Liz: Yes, that's correct. Beekeepers in Australia, they really have to know their flora. Some beekeepers call it migratory, but it's only migratory in the sense of those European crops that they go to Canola, obviously, is an annual flower, Lucerne, alfalfa. They call it lucerne. If the summer conditions are right for that nectar flow to turn on.

The other species, the native species-- there's over 200 species in Australia that could be of value either for honey or for pollen. They may flower every two years, every five years. If there's a really bad drought, there's some species that won't flower for ten years. Beekeepers have to really know, depending on the rainfall, the year, present year, what species are going now into a growth spurt where they're putting on lots of leafy growth, which has to run its course before bud growth happens? How long will that bud be held for or will conditions, soil moisture or intense storm conditions alter that bud density, so will the tree abort too many buds that it won't be economically feasible to burn the diesel to get to it if it's not got this huge amount of bud on it?

Bridget: I have a question, just maybe to back up a step, which is can you talk a little bit about the bee scene in Australia and how you fit into that? Obviously, we're familiar with the migratory beekeepers, and then the hobby beekeepers, and how those groups move or don't move, and the way that different entities and organizations and universities connect with the different beekeeping landscapes. I was just curious if you could just paint a little picture of the scene you're a part of and what your role is in that scene.

Liz: Australia, the scene here is we've got eight states and territories. Most of those are on the mainland. We've got one island, major island, Tasmania. There's some minor islands, but obviously, they are covered under other states. The biggest beekeeping state is New South Wales. It's roughly the size of Texas. The landscape there is a huge arid, but prone to flooding landscape for the majority of the western section. There's a great dividing range, which is quite low in elevation really, but it is a range of some description. The east of that is a full coastal strip of tropical, subtropical, warm temperate and dry sclerophyll rainforest strip.

Most of the recreational beekeepers are located in capital cities and along the coastal strips all around Australia. Not so much in the Northern Territory and far north Queensland. They have monsoon seasons. It's really hard to keep Apis mellifera up there, but they've got a wealth of stingless bee species up there instead.

Each state-- Major beekeeping state has its own Apis association. We've got New South Wales Apis Association in New South Wales, for example. There's a national peak body, the Australian Honeybee Industry Council, which oversees and collaborates with all those organizations. We've got a national recreational peak body, too, the Australian-- They are called Amateur Beekeepers Australia, ABA, they're called. They have recreational clubs in every state and territory, I think, and counting and climbing. Most beehives in Australia are managed by commercial bee keepers, but most beekeepers in Australia are recreational beekeepers. Particularly clustered around the capital cities and along the coastlines.

Becky: For the commercial beekeepers, how big do their operations get, because they get very big here in the US?

Liz: Yes, commercial operations here, I would say are quite different. There's obviously many, many similarities, but you've got a lot of lean operators here. There's still a lot of beekeeping commercial operators that have, say, two full-time employees and seasonal employees. There's beekeepers operating full-time commercial that might operate 700 hives, up to an average of 1,000 or 2,000 hives.

Then there's others that run on the higher end, 7,000 to 10,000 hives, or for the major queen producers, obviously, they may run more, but they're probably many nucs, maybe nucs for mating apiaries. That's really constricted by-- unique thing in Australia, there's such a diversity of floral resources that I think were, from the US example, a bit like the past, I guess, where there's greater floral diversity. Australia, it has very few people. It's a very uninhabited continent, I guess, so there's not as much urbanization.

There are still a lot of land use challenges. There's quite a lot of clearing of native forests, which beekeepers rely on for honey here. It is changing, but beekeepers that are generational and cluey about floral resources know that they have a carrying capacity for the number of hives they can manage, and they don't have reliable supply chains like North America, say, with a huge variety of supplemental feeds that they could purchase. That's a difference. They rely more on native or introduced floral resources for their feeding regime versus routine supplemental feeding.

Becky: It's a good time to take a quick break, and we will be right back.

[music]

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Bridget: We thought we would take a dark turn to ask you a little bit about Varroa. We have a lot of empathy but also curiosity, obviously because Australia has been this mythic place for us beekeepers here. Then watching this unfold from afar is, I don't know, it's like you recognize yourself in the drama and the anxiety, but also just genuinely curious as someone who was introduced to beekeeping with mites top of mind. That's always been the number one thing to think about and deal with in terms of management. I'm genuinely curious what your experience has been like having this come into the beekeeping world that you're in.

Liz: Yes, similar to you, Bridget, I learned beekeeping with Varroa with small hive beetle, with the usual endemic bacterial and fungal pathogens in the US and in Australia. At the time, I first came in 2013, their major concerns in the disease space were small hive beetle, American foulbrood, and chalkbrood. Chalkbrood was actually very severe compared to my experience in the US. That was quite novel and, really, there's a whole nutritional deficiency aspect to that space.

Varroa, they managed to avoid it for some time. Australia has a really serious, I guess, structure for biosecurity and non-native or exotic pests and diseases that may affect their agricultural industries negatively. You can think about the cane toad example where they introduced it as they thought it was a biological control for a sugarcane grub, which actually had different activity timing which wasn't compatible.

I think from that experience, and looking at the global scene and how agriculture has struggled in areas where they haven't kept certain pests and diseases out, Australia as a very isolated nation with some key weak points in supply chains and access to global supply of various things, takes biosecurity and border security quite seriously. Varroa is one of those nasties that they wanted to keep out indefinitely as the ideal, but obviously, Australia is seated in Southeast Asia and Oceania, and that's the origin story for Varroa is in Southeast Asia. They recognized that it was a matter of time, but wanted to make an effort to see if they could remain free.

It's very interesting because to this day, Australia still doesn't have tracheal mite either. We've got Varroa now endemic, but not tracheal mite, and that's another thing that they test for regularly at high-risk ports and in bee samples around the nation. They've got this network of port surveillance, bee biosecurity officers based in the major beekeeping states that collect samples periodically. They do a national residue survey as well for chemicals in honey, chemical residues. I guess it's a good example in ways to look at for other exotics such as Tropilaelaps.

I think other countries should be very keen to learn from the Varroa response in Australia, and I guess what tools are currently available now it's endemic. You can look at our website, New South Wales DPI, the Varroa mite emergency response website. It currently has a heat map now. Any either government-led surveillance or any beekeeper-volunteered Varroa detections will go up in this heat map at a parish level. Any member of the public can look at the heat map and click the parish that their hives are located in and see what quantity of detections have been made there.

I guess that's an interesting thing for beekeepers to have access to because thinking between Australia and the US, Australia has pretty strong interstate connections. They only have eight season territories, and they really have to collaborate on the EasternSeaboard because these three major states on the East Queensland, and New South Wales in the middle, and Victoria in the south, that's what beekeepers here consider the long paddock. Beekeepers might run their hives across those three states through their season.

They'll go to almond pollination in Victoria, and then produce honey for the rest of the year, and a mix of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria. The governments have close ties on that Eastern Seaboard for facilitating movement of these migratory beekeeping operations to go to almonds, or to go to avocado pollination up in Queensland, or blueberry and macadamia pollination in New South Wales.

Becky: Liz, were there always inspections between those states with bees are being move from one to the other?

Liz: Beekeepers in Australia, they have a Biosecurity Act they have to comply with. If they have American foulbrood, they are not allowed to treat or to mask symptoms of American foulbrood because it's a fatal bacterial disease, and any treatment you put on, it would just be masking symptoms or it won't kill the spores. It'll mask vegetative, stay suppressive for a while. It's beekeepers legal requirement that if they find American foulbrood, they have to euthanize that colony themselves and then sterilize that equipment.

In Australia, on the East Coast, we have access to gamut radiation facilities that beekeepers can bring their honey supers infected equipment to get processed and reused again. There are compliance officers in the major beekeeping states and territories. If there is a mass pollination event in some years, they will go down and look for dead out hives or under-strength hives and check a small number of those for American foulbrood, but that hasn't been, I guess, a huge undertaking until Varroa was detected.

Becky: When Varroa was detected, was the eradication throughout the entire state of New South Wales?

Liz: Yes. Varroa was detected in government-managed sentinel hives near the port of Newcastle. That's a national program where high-risk ports, which the federal government and the state governments have identified, have managed hives at them basically to be an early pickup for Varroa coming in on a container ship. It has been successful. In recent years, there was a container ship from Texas that docked at the Port of Melbourne, and honeybee colony was found and euthanized, and there was Varroa in it. That was a successful eradication found on the ship at the port.

There's been previous detections of Apis florea, Apis dorsata in Western Australia. It has quite a few runs on the board for success, but obviously, you can only get it so many times. Varroa was detected at the Port of Newcastle, and then further detections and tracebacks expanded the zone where it was found. The response is overseen by a national body of cost-sharing organizations that rely on honeybees. The beekeeping bean industry and pollination-reliant growers, state governments, and the federal government cost-share the response. The representatives from those organizations are involved in a staged review of the response all the way along to determine its feasibility.

Becky: When people's colonies were euthanized, how long did they have to wait before they were able to get other bees?

Liz: When we were in the Varroa eradication phase of this response, the nationally agreed protocol, which had been agreed on well before Varroa was found was that to prove that it's safe to have bees again in an area, it would have to have no further Varroa detections for a three-year period. That happened in Townsville, Queensland. They had a Apis cerana detection with Varroa jacobsoni, and they found all related swarms and colonies to that initial find at the port established with a colony there. They did bee lining, sugar triangulation to find all the colonies. The huge public communications piece, and members of the public were finding honey bees swarms and Apis cerana swarms and reporting those.

That was a successful eradication of Apis cerana up in Townsville. That was a three-year period proof of freedom. While New South Wales was in eradication, that was the protocol. that once the last hive is eradicated that has Varroa in it, there has to be a period of continual surveillance to prove that an area is free of Varroa for three years until bees can be moved back. Obviously, that wasn't the case. September 19th, 2023, eradication was deemed not feasible. From that date, hive euthanasia stopped.

Bridget: Obviously, the varroa coming to Australia is news here. Is it similarly news in Australia beyond the beekeeping community? Is this a public thing that people are thinking about, writing about, concerned about, or is it more an industry conversation?

Liz: When Varroa came into Australia, it was a huge deal. Members of the public all knew about it. There's so many beekeepers in Australia because it's been so easy without Varroa. We do have small hive beetle and super high rainfall where most of the beekeepers are. There are a lot of small hive beetle challenges, but not enough to keep a beekeeper down where you've got potentially 200-kilo average per hive with the copious amounts of nectar production along the East Coast and Nowra.

Members of the public were all hearing about it. It was on the news. Very often, the local news in the Newcastle area. A lot of Australians, I suppose, have had a beekeeper in the family. Grandpa used to have a beehive or great-grandfather used to have a beehive, yada, yada, or neighbor has a beehive. Australia's the home of the Flow Hive. It was invented in Northern New South Wales in the subtropics. There's a lot of Flow Hive beekeepers too. The public was very concerned.

We've had a tumultuous time in the last few-- oh gosh, the last five years. 2019-'20, we had the worst bushfire in recorded history in Australia, and drought preceding that. Once the drought broke around 2020, we had three La Niñas in a row and insane flooding. That really disrupted agriculture and food production. It's very front of mind for Australian citizens, the fragility of their food supply.

Becky: Liz, what's the new normal right now? What's beekeeping like for you and your organization right now, and for beekeepers?

Liz: Looking at the Varroa heat map, there's not a lot of new detections further afield from the known hotspots between Sydney and New Castle where I am. This three and a half-hour stretch driving along the coast, and cluster a few hours further south. The new normal for me, through the Varroa response-- and previously, I was co-managing Australia's National Honeybee Genetic Improvement Program. Tragically, the research population that I was co-managing was within the eradication zone. All 250 of my research hives had to be euthanized by October of 2022.

I suppose that project had a lot of cogs to the wheel. We focused externally working with queen breeders to improve their record keeping on pedigree, dating observations, and working through what's their objective for their operation, working on the database that beekeeper's data would go into to have the end goal of generating estimated breeding values for queen bees or E-B bees, queen bees. All other mammalian livestock industries have the luxury of as a marketing tool and accuracy of what livestock you're getting and what it can do for your business and why the price point is such.

The new normal now is we are able to have bees back at the agricultural college that I work at. I'll be co-truck driving those back next week. They're full of honey, full of eucalyptus melliodora, yellow box honey as well. They'll be getting Varroa shortly-

Becky: Oh no.

Liz: -once I move them back to Tocal. I did just an interesting tidbit about the landscape here at Tocal. It's sparsely forested, historic dairy country. The landscape for Varroa has been interesting to see. Obviously, sample size of one, it doesn't tell you a lot, but it's a start. I brought one hive back to see if there was any residual fipronil in the environment because the area was baited during the Varroa response to knockdown feral colonies, which I knew of three in the 2,200-hectare campus. Put the one hive there to ensure.

Fipronil has a short half-life. The dose they were using was as low as you can get. They have to have a super low dose in the sugar syrup so that it doesn't kill the foragers outright, they bring it back to the colony, and over time and recruitment of additional foragers, the whole colony dies. That's the goal. That first time I brought back. Within three weeks of set down, it had reached five mites in an alcohol wash. I treated it with Bayvarol, which when I've said that to Americans before, they've been-- I'll use the diplomatic term, skeptical.

I'll put another example in which will be of interest to folks. Closer to the Port of Newcastle, in the higher density, known high level of Varroa area, I caught what I shortly determined to be an absconding swarm. About 1.5-liter volume of bees. Put it in a hive, and let it settle for some days, a week. Then I did a sugar shake, and 37 mites came out of the sugar shake.

I treated it with Bayvarol. I put a sticky mat under there for my own interest. After two weeks, I kept the treatment in for six weeks, the minimum requirement, six to eight-week treatment for the Bayvarol label in Australia. A major nectar flow was on and I was like, "I haven't had beads for so long. I'm not losing this nectar flow." Six weeks, I had the Bayvarol in, but for the first two weeks, I had a sticky mat underneath, and 505 mites dropped onto it.

Becky: Oh, gosh.

Liz: Bayvarol's been proven to be quite effective still with the Varroa we have in Australia, which is very interesting and extremely unlucky to have Varroa, but very lucky to have Varroa that's still susceptible to Bayvarol.

Becky: Right. Oh, you got the right Varroa. That doesn't sound right.

[laughter]

Liz: No, it doesn't.

Becky: Wow. You have the history with artificial insemination of queens, and you teach that, correct?

Liz: That's correct. Taking a break through the rural response, it was pretty much all hands on deck and not having bees at your training center makes teaching artificial insemination an impossibility really. There were intensive movement restrictions for traveling with bees across the state. It just was time to take a leap year on that one, but I'll be delivering the next course at the end of February. Bring the hives back. There are chalk of block with drones, raising queens at the end of the month.

It's a popular course. Obviously, not many people deliver it in the world and it's a niche skill, and there's really more prep and aftercare that could sabotage your best efforts in the lab. It's not just a drilling lab nerve job. You have to be a good beekeeper, and handle bees confidently, and know how to keep those precious drones alive.

Becky: I was going to say, from drones to queens, it is.

Liz: Yes. Mature and not in like a--

[crosstalk]

Becky: Are they mature?

Liz: Yes. [chuckles]

Becky: Are they buzzing?

Liz: You've got to make sure-- [laughs] Buzzing and vigorous. Full of vim and vigor, and not in an API site that has a brood of rainbow bee-eater birds at it.

Becky: Oh no.

[laughter]

Becky: Wow. Oh, Liz, is there anything that we've missed that you might want to update the folks for the podcast?

Liz: In Australia, we've got a moment in history here. We've got Varroa. We're the last to come to the party really with Varroa destructor in terms of the large-scale beekeeping industries that have it. It's just an interesting time, I suppose.

We recently had the pleasure of having Ann Marie Fauvel from the Bee Informed Partnership visit us. She's visiting past BIP tech team member Emily Noordyke who's working for the state government at the moment. She attended one of our workshops on the training resources. We're developing to outlay the industry. Her takeaway was that Australia seems to be really hounding the terms of know your mite levels before you treat, and ensure that your conditions are appropriate for the treatment that you're using.

We have some really intensive nectar flows that can be-- if we're in a good season, very prolonged that 1 1/2 liter absconding storm that had a 12% infestation rate of mine that I knocked the mites down, and I've been baiting with drone comb and removing that, and removing about 225 mites every drone comb I take out on average, now has about 40 kilos of honey that is ready to harvest. The Integrated Pest Management forward strategy of extension that we're taking in Australia could be of interest to beekeepers elsewhere. There's some cool resources that are out now.

AgriFutures is the manager of Australia's Honey Levy Funds, and they disperse that funding to research. They funded a review of Borough research and beekeeper and bee researcher surveys from around the world. They've reported on what is globally recognized as the best range of treatment methods and range of selection methods. Mechanical, cultural, biological, chemical, all those aspects of the Integrated Pest Management pyramid, they've reported on.

If beekeepers want to have a look at that, that's on AgriFutures 's website. The project laser, Michael Holmes, and Nadine Chapman from Sydney Uni, Jody Gertz from La Trobe, John Roberts from CSIRO, and Sasha Mikheyev from ANU. I think I've got them all there. Another resource coming out later is one I'm working on with some researchers from Macquarie Union, Juliana Rangel Posada from Texas A&M, and New Zealand researchers from University of Otago. Then that'll be a review of Integrated Pest Management of emerging tools. Looking to the future and what things are currently seeking patenting or being researched out of the box stuff.

Becky: Unfortunately, we're all in this together, but it does sound like Australia's got some great tools already put together so that beekeepers can take that important approach.

Liz: Yes. If anyone wants to come to Australia, our conference season is at the end of your busy season when commercial beekeepers are all about to kill each other. They're just up to here with queen greeting. It starts in May, kicks off May 23, 24 with the New South Wales Conference in Wagga Wagga, and finishes up in Townsville, Queensland early July 11th with the Queensland Conference. Come on down. Don't try and fight a kangaroo because they'll kick you in the guts.

Bridget: For those that are going to take you up on the invite, do you have any phrases that you'd recommend learning so you sound cool when you get there?

Liz: Definitely. If you find an Australian that's just rip-roaring drunk, and he's trying to get in a fight, you could say, "Oh, he's mad as a cat snake."

Bridget: Perfect. That's probably all you'll need, I would guess.

Becky: I think that's the first time.

Liz: That's all you need.

Becky: If they need it. That's the first time I think that's been said on this podcast. I think we've definitely-

Liz: Excellent.

Becky: -done Beekeeping Today podcast proud. Liz, we can't thank you enough for sharing your time with us and all of your insight and your knowledge, and your experiences. Thank you very much for joining us.

It's been a pleasure to speak with you both. As an Australian and US dual citizen, I have to say goodbye in the Australian way. Hooroo.

[music]

[laughter]

Becky: With that, thank you so much. Bridget, so I have to ask you, would you prefer to have always had Varroa in your beekeeping operation and just like as it is right now, learn to live with it or would you prefer a decade of Varroa-free but then have to go through eradication before you can keep bees again?

Bridget: Oh, my gosh, it is too late for such philosophical questions. I think, honestly, I don't envy the panic. If you're trying to control something that big-- maybe just because we just lived through COVID, it feels so stressful to try to contain something and know how hard it is, and then obviously, they've decided "Okay, we're not going to try to eradicate it. It's too late." I'm okay without that stress. Obviously, it would be amazing to have had that experience.

Becky: Although when I started beekeeping, Varroa was here. It was back in the early 90s when our threshold was 8 to 12 because they weren't vectoring viruses. I feel like I got the last bit of easy good beekeeping that we didn't have all the worries of Varroa and the different stressors that came with it. Boy, that eradication just breaks my heart. I can't imagine what it was like for all those individual operations to have to lose their animals. It happens in agriculture all the time, but it's hard.

Bridget: I feel like it's just a reminder that everything is so global, and things move, and viruses, and diseases, and pests. It's the way it is being in any animal care or food production or all those human care. It's all just like, "Okay, it's part of it. It's just we've created this way of living that's going to pop up in some form, that stress." I feel like it's nice to learn-- I learned how to manage mites when I learned how to keep bees. It's was just sort of-- I don't know. It just was a given. Now that you're asking it, I'm like, "Well, I guess there's some pros to that scenario." [chuckles]

Becky: I think that's the only good thing I've ever been able to say about Varroa is that at least we haven't had to go through that eradication just in a lot. It was wonderful to be able to connect with Liz, and it's nice to see somebody's career accomplish and do so many things. She's obviously such a great resource to Australia. It's great that if we have to lose her, that we're losing her to a very good effort.

Bridget: It's fun to chat with her. She's so smart. I think we should figure out a way to talk to her next month too. Should we do a video?

Becky: Is there another platform that we could share this with?

Bridget: What other platform could we capture Liz on?

Becky: You and I have to get to work on that. It's a great way to end this discussion knowing that we're going to figure out one more way to set up another meeting with Liz and learn what she's doing in Australia

Bridget: Yes, learn more about eucalyptus.

Jeff: That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to follow us and rate us five stars on Apple Podcast whererever you download and stream this show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any webpage. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors Betterbee, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and Northern Bee Books for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Bee Keeping Today Podcast listener for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions and comments at the Leave A Comment section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

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