Hi Jeff, I’m not concerned about me. It’s a general point.
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Imported queens?
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It is surely possible, although very unlucky, for varroa to be brought in on a few queens and their attendants. Probably that would mean that all the varroa in Australia have a very shallow gene pool as they would all have been descended from perhaps a single female mite.
It seems as or more likely that some container ships were harboring feral hives?
I wonder - how far are they going to continue to expand the quarantine/eradication area - not sure where the limit is but - at a certain point it is hopeless to continue to focus efforts on zero mites and instead focus on managing mites like the rest of the world. Sad choice to have to make, for sure.
Maybe Australian bees and beekeepers will fare better that NZ did because the VSH queen lines have improved since varroa arrived there?
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I’d expect the sentinel hives would have been the first port of call for the mites with a higher count if this were the case.
Where would the VSH queen’s come from then?
The only reason we will fare better is by learning from others mistakes and experience.
I’ve still got my fingers crossed though.
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The way varroa reproduces suggests that they don’t mind extreme inbreeding. And if the imported line already has some resistance to acaricides, well…
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There was a story, interestingly, not long ago.
We may, but I don’t believe we will. Not many at least. Varroa management methods were well developed in '80s. Beekeepers still use them with some variations in delivery approach. Did it help much to Canadians, New Zealanders etc? We will go through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance like everyone else.
The first year will be “varroa isn’t that bad as they say”. When colonies start to collapse - “what the heck?”. Latter - “I will perform a religious rite in form of a single varroa reduction step, it may help”. And then after brooding a bit, people will switch to the comprehensive approach 
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One more thing about all these “90% of hives wiped out” and “we all gonna die”. Here is New Zealand’s experience with varroa in terms of honey production. Make your own judgment.
For the graph, I took FAO data and the map of infestation from The New Zealand experience of varroa invasion highlights research opportunities for Australia, by Jay M. Iwasaki, corresponding author Barbara I. P. Barratt, Janice M. Lord, Alison R. Mercer, and Katharine J. M. Dickinson, 2015.
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Ships hang for weeks or longer within sight of the coast to load and unload. I would say within flying distance of land a lot of the time. Every chance it came from a ship but the sentinel hives were not the point of infection.
looks like that is one of the two most likely entry points- the other being illegally imported queens:
I remember chatting with a long time beekeeper at our annual Beekeepers Field Day that I had known for many years. This was just as varroa was showing up and he described an infested hive that had a lot of varroa…I mean a lot. He claimed there were thousands of varroa dead on the bottom board and yet the hive was still functioning…well he got over the “denial” stage real fast and started using a synthetic miticide. Looking back, one wonders how that hive survived (which would have been temporary) and how many hives it had infected in the process.
But he sure wasn’t alone because I lost virtually all of my hives too.
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It sounds like this fellow was managing his hives quite well. Not in a cense of varroa but in general. At a heavy level of infestation it possible to have tens of thousands of mites in a hive. The bottom board would be looking as he said in such case. What is hard is to achieve such level without something tipping infested colony over. Traditionally, it is winter. But it also takes years to build up such varroa population. I guess, his denial period, probably, was not particularly short 
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Restrictions changed in Wednesdays DPI update allowing hives outside the eradication zones to be worked.
Beekeepers are able to work their hives, remove frames for honey extraction, and place empty supers on full hives. These changes do not apply to beekeepers who are in the red eradication zones, and do not permit the movement of hives, brood boxes, nucleus hives, packaged bees and queen bees anywhere in NSW.
So now, instead of sacrificing one year of poor almond pollination, Australia is willing to potentially spread varroa across the country, risking the quality of future pollinations.
Beekeepers have currently sacrificed their livelihood for the good of the country, so let’s just throw it in their face by potentially spreading it anyway.
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Apparently there are a lot of hives withing bee bubbles, just over the border that can be used for pollination, & rightly so, seeing as those hives are a LONG way from the affected zones.
If Varroa IS here to stay, one thing I read was that the mites move around from hive to hive on drones. With that in mind, my strategy of keeping drone brood to a minimum could be a good strategy. It works for hive beetle mitigation, it might also help in keeping mite numbers down.
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Another more established practice is to use drone comb and cull it prior to emergence since the varroa preferentially infect drone comb.
I have not read this but I am nowhere near experienced to know if this is true or not.
Certainly varroa do move around on workers and can be spread from worker to worker or from comb to worker by drift, robbing, or open feeding.
I read that (re the drones) a couple of times in stuff published over here, by the supposed experts.
I know about the drone culling strategy, which I’ll try to do myself, if I think I can manage it successfully. 2 frames per hive times 50 hives, maybe once every few weeks will amount to a sizeable pile of culled drones.
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Hello, just how do you prepare the OA & Glycerin on the stove? And how do hou apply it to the blue shop towels?
Thanks, Chuck
Hi Chuck, this is the preparation I follow, taken from Randy Oliver’s recipe for a larger volume:
For one Shop towel:
18g OA
14.6 mL glycerine
Use a vent fan and/or protective gear - oxalic acid & vapor is caustic. Do not let the mixture get too hot or get on your skin!
Dissolve together over med-low heat & remove - don’t allow to bubble. I use a regular kitchen pot and wooden spoon.
Soak towel in warm solution until absorbed & lay out on an acid-resistant surface to cool & dry 24 hours
Divide towel in half & place both halves spaced apart on top bars of brood chamber just prior to supering
Use one whole towel per colony. Monitor for signs of agitation and effect on queen…may cause some brood death
Mite drop occurs continuously over 50-60 day span & eliminates need for repeated OAV treatments.
I also use these sponges instead of the shop towels - easier to work with and one sponge is about equal to one towel:
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My towel recipe from Randy Oliver uses 40g OA per sponge, which is about double the shop towel amount…
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