The Backyard Beekeeper

14/06/2026

SE QLD Varroa update......... is changing

So after nearly 10 months of our weekly Sunday updates which you have all been very supportive of thank you,
we feel we have reached a point in time to change the format up.
Everyone has mites now, so to continue trying to support the beekeeping community, if it helps we will share a weekly update from our prospective on our travels around during the week -
So Introducing

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.
Week ending 14th June 2026

The Good- The plight of our current situation is finally gaining some momentum. The media has started picking beekeepers stories up-
ABC national
ABC Melbourne
ABC Brisbane
ABC Adelaide
ABC Sydney
ABC Landline
10 New Plus
10 News Brisbane
7 News
Whilst the train has some fuel in it now, we need to get it moving with the decision makers.... we will share a mid week post for everyone to forward onto the politicians that have chosen not to support beekeepers and farmers and to share to the media as well to keep it fresh in their minds each week until we have some effective, meaningful support from them.

The Bad
- The new genetic Mite - is spreading slowly heading towards the northern suburbs of Brisbane and slowly making its way toward the Gold Coast and southern Logan areas.

The Ugly
- Possible unknown pathogens or viruses - we are seeing a very widespread unknown event unfolding. Areas in Ipswich, Beaudesert, Mount Crosby Sunshine Coast and Brisbane city seeing colonies suddenly collapse. Hives with mites counts of zero or 1's with thousands of dead bees underneath the hives and trembling fully formed crawlers indicating nervous system breakdown. (See video)

Finally please feel free to add what's working, what you're seeing and useful commentary is so important otherwise it just gets deleted as always.

Thanks for your support and hope the new format sits well for everyone.

The Backyard Beekeeping Team

Rick
Gracious Gracie
Super Steve
Wondrous wifey

The bee in the video is one from PalmView Sunshine coast - 3 colonies all with thousands of dead bees underneath them. The mite counts for the last 12 weeks have been 0-1mite per 300.
Something ain't right 🤷‍♂️

10/06/2026

10/06/2026

Keep sharing keep talking everyone - hoping someone will hear us 🤷‍♂️😔

10/06/2026

Just an mid week update - Tonite's News - keep the momentum going everyone, something isn't right about the new mite and what it is perhaps carrying or causing in our colonies and we need an URGENT response to these losses and financial support to the beekeepers, framers and scientists that need to get this under some control.
Nothing like this has happened in the rest of the world, even the Newcastle incursion wasnt anything like this new genetic.

Feel free to share as much as you can and to those who make decisions.

Thanks
Rick and Team

07/06/2026

The reality of varroa destructor

07/06/2026

Varroa update weekending 7th June 2026
- some momentum gaining within the media with 2 stories going to air from us this week...... see 10Newsplus interview below (click pic not link) or abc news and also landline today - hope it helps the industry.

We have also added "suspect resistance"although we don't have lab testing for these areas - we believe these areas have very high resistance to the synthetics miticide. (DPI have data not released yet)

- Westlake 1 hive - 50 mite count (post formic pro) (increasing-suspect resistance)
- Wishart 1 hive - 6 mite (increasing-suspect resistance)
- Everton park 20hives - avg 20/30per wash (increasing- suspect resistance)
- Beaudesert 22 hives - avg 6 mite (holding but expecting this to increase) ( poisoning symptoms in area)
- Riverview 1 hive - absconded- (suspected resistance)
- Mount Crosby 6 hives - collapsed -(increasing - suspect resistance)
- Toowong 1 hive - 20 mites (stable-suspect resistance)
- Clayfield 3 hive - 2 collapsed 1 - 30mite count (increasing again- suspect resistance)
- Indooroopilly 1 hive - 10 mites - (stable- suspect resistance)
- Sunnybank 1 hive - 30 mites (increasing suspect resistance-)
- Belbowrie 1 hive - 40mites (increasing-suspect resistance)
- seventeen mile rocks - 2 hives - avg 15 mites (increasing area- suspect resistance)
- cromahurst 2 hives - 1mite (stable)
- PalmView 3 hives - 1 mite (stable)

We lost our first colony this week and are expecting huge losses after having apivar in the apiaries for the last 4 weeks and not knowing we have 100% resistance until last week when the test results came back.

We are seeing huge mite drops from our oxalic vaporisation programs throughout Logan, Pullenvale and Carabrook areas. The amount of mite drop is significant in all these areas so the environmental pressure is unfortunately not slowing down.

As you will see by the summary we are still seeing very mixed results, the new incursion genetic ("super mite") is really making it extremely hard to deal with.
A combination of OA va**ng and strips is holding the numbers but the colonies need constant good nutrients pollen and syrup- Formic acid drops the numbers but comes with huge risks at this time of year for your queens and the bee deaths rates!are high.
Brood break again will most certainly work, but risky when the brood clusters are small and trying to stay warm at this time of year.

Yet to try thymol (apiguard) gel only because for us it requires replacement at 5 days and 14days if you want a full brood cycle and a rim spacer for the cartridges, it is also temperature sensitive above 15deg and below 40 deg - feel free to let people know if it's working if your using it especially in resistant areas.

Please share what's working, make sure you complete any of the surveys being sent out and keep the comments useful as useless comments just get deleted...

Thanks
The Backyard Beekeeping Team

Rick-
Gracie- superstar South
Steve- superstar west
Wifey - superstar north (yes she helped with hives up north)

Click pic for 10NewsPlus story

https://10.com.au/news/national/australian- 1 honeybees-under-attack-from-invasive-mites-10-news/tpv260605fswuq

All the latest National news with 10 News.

03/06/2026

Sorry for the extra posts this week, but hot off the press thought I would share, ABC News
EDIT - News article https://www.facebook.com/share/r/17mLfmRzgj/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Beekeepers in Queensland say they are "barely hanging on" a year after the varroa mite was detected in the state for the first time.

03/06/2026

FYI - Just some info for around Brisbane and surrounds - VIC, NSW and possibly SA may be impacted 🤷‍♂️

02/06/2026

Secondary update on the Varroa Front..... The Resistant Mite Spread

We have just received yesterday from DPI genetically lab tested results on mite samples we conducted in April across a number of suburbs.

I thought it important to share this information asap as we had an idea it was bad but now we truly know how bad the resistance mite load actually is throughout Brisbane.....

To say we are disappointed would be an understatement, the sense of urgency and communication to get this type of information out to beekeepers that are making daily decisions on thier colonies and finances - has a lot to be desired in our opinion.

These samples were submitted and collected on the 14th April and results communicated the 1st of June.

For us - In that time we have condensed and treated entire apiaries (150 colonies) using Bayvarol and now Apivar. Over $3000 spent on treatments and wages to now learn we have to do it all again as the mites have up to 100% resistance to both products in some of our apiary locations -
a ticking time bomb for entire collapse and spread now.

The attached two pics - one is the data of actual samples we collected (personal data covered for obvious reasons) the other a suggestive map of areas we suspect to be most impacted by resistance. Information below to explain further -

We have asked for DPI to release more findings or to construct a map for us to use but we have been informed their test results are not for public disclosure at this stage.
DPI response is "to continue to use different modes of treatments and to check efficacy rates and suggested to check wash counts again a week after treatment applied".
What has been confirmed is that the Brisbane and Ipswich areas have resistant mites and the spread is vast - areas like Kingaroy, Bundaberg, NSW and Victoria all have confirmed cases of the resistant mite, without testing samples we don't know the percentage of impact.

I'll let you all be the judge of all this information but hope talking about it and sharing it can help you with your management of this pest.

Thanks
Rick

Data example pic 1
Using say example 3 in Pullenvale 70 % of the mite sample tested resistant to Pyrethroid and 80% of the sample tested resistant to Amitraz. Highlighted in red due to the high number of resistant mites in the sample provided for testing.

Next line Marburg zero mites tested resistant to both modes of treatment.

Pic 2 - Suggested impact of resistant mite spread across Brisbane- Nb (we don't have lab data for this, DPI did confirm its across most of Brisbane and our work across these areas also shows in treatment efficacy results)

31/05/2026

The "Super" mite....... more on this below....
Varroa update week ending 31st May - short one due to the rainy conditions most of the week.. and the OA vaporisation program we are doing for clients at the moment through Pullenvale, Brookfield, Jimboomba, Carabrook areas

- Morayfield- 1 hive - 16mites - (increasing)
- Narangba - 3 hives - 1-2 mites (area increasing)
- Pullenvale - 2 hives - avg 20 mites (increasing)
- Carabrook 1 hive - 25 mites (increasing)

Has everyone underestimated this new "super" mite?? Why is the term "super" mite being thrown around.... it's certainly not for positive reasons that's for sure...
For those that haven't heard or following from other countries, we have recently discovered that Australia has had a secondary incursion of varroa.
The issue for us in this new incursion is that this genetically different varroa mite is resistant to synthetic pyrethroid and Amitraz synthetics and is now widely believed (not confirmed yet) to have brought new pathogens and viruses to the Australian beekeeping colonies.

The rest of the world has been dealing with a "slow burn" of these issues over decades with little to no wild, feral or unmanaged populations.

We in Australia however are experiencing a "wild fire" of spread with plague proportion numbers of these "new" mites that have already spread across thousands of square kilometres in what we believe to be just the last 12months.

The result so far as we enter winter is millions and millions of dead bees, thousands of colonies wiped out and we are yet to understand totally the reasons why 😔 Is it management? Is it efficacy rates? Is it viruses? Is it environmental? Is it re-infestation? Is it poisoning?
Is it all the above?

For those of us that bees are their life, their livelihood and just have a love for our bees.... the future is a scary black hole of the unknown right now....
For everyone else who doesn't keep bees, the impact will be considerable to the agricultural industry - the last thing our farmers need right now.

Please help to spread the word to those that can help, scientifically, financially, influencing... time to put our hands up and admit we are worried about the future.

Sorry it's a sad one, feel free to share your story good and bad -
Negative and useless comments will be deleted as usual.

Goodluck out there

Thanks
The Backyard Beekeeping Team

Rick
Gracie - Super Star
Steve- Wild West
Wifey - Support councillor 😉

The video of the resistant mite I pulled off a bee - looks like all the rest hey....🤷‍♂️