27/06/2022
A sad time for Apiarists in NSW. Imagine having to let biosecurity exterminate 90 of your own hives 😥 If NSW doesn't get this under control, varroa mite has the potential to decimate Australia's honey
industry. This is very serious....
https://www.facebook.com/690485620976298/posts/5802813546410121/?app=fbl
Newcastle it is time to say goodbye to our honeybees.
Kelly and I started keeping bees in our backyard over ten years ago to protect honeybees as the worldwide threat to bees hit the media. Our business grew organically from that first hive as we saw Newcastle shared our passion for bees. With 100s of households embracing our beehives and just as many students learning to maintain their own. With the Varroa mite parasite being detected in Newcastle we will have all our 90 hives destroyed to protect honeybees across Australia.
Now the most powerful way to protect the Australia Honeybee industry is to say goodbye to our bees. To stop beekeeping in Newcastle. All of our hives are in the 10km eradication zone. If your hive is too it will be destroyed.
In the coming weeks, the Department of Primary Industry’s Biosecurity emergency response team will take samples from your hive then it will be euthanised. This is hard and so sad. To starve the parasite, they will kill the host, our beautiful honeybee hives, and all feral/wild European honeybee colonies will die. Native bees will not be affected by Verroa mite and will not be targeted in the eradication by the DPI. If you are within 50km of Newcastle Port, you cannot open your hives, you cannot take honey. If you are in NSW you cannot move your bees.
If you have attended one of our workshops you know how passionate we are about biosecurity, that we teach every backyard beekeeper that they are part of an important network that is Australia’s food security. That your hobby is linked to all hives in Australia. If Varroa Mite leaves this area we will lose between 40% and 90% of hives Australia-wide, we have seen this around the world. Please be prepared that this red zone may expand if they find more mites.
Please BEE KIND. The Biosecurity response team are passionate beekeepers called up from this area doing a hard job. Many will have lost their hives too in this response. When they enter your backyard remember this. Kelly also works as a Bee educator at the local Agricultural collage and was quickly seconded to help mount a response. It has been a hard week.
What does this mean for Urban Hum, we have some honey that is ready to Jar and I (Anna) will be at the Olive tree market in July. After this, we do not know just yet. Newcastle will not be able to have hives for several years.
We will also have pollinator-friendly seeds at our Olive tree stall.
We will be planting flowers, we need pollinators, let's plant for our native bees. Let’s attract butterflies to our gardens. Let’s create a memorial garden across Newcastle. Come spring Newcastle will not have honeybees in our veggie patches let's mark this session's loss with colourful blooms to remember the joy our hives have given our families. I will sit with my bees and say goodbye. A honey bee colony is all about the health of the whole colony, not the individual bee, the bee network across the nation needs our help it is about the whole Australian Honey Bee Industry, not our individual hives.
1. 10km or less don't touch your hives. Make sure you register your hive location we need to all be in this together or it will not work.
2. If you are outside the 50km radius do a sugar shake test.
3. Plant flowers to support native bees and other pollinators
