Award winning researcher a step closer to breeding Varroa-resistant bees
Injecting a natural type of bacteria called Wolbachia into the abdomen of honey bees could help to solve a leading cause of honey bee deaths worldwide.
Scoping a Communication Strategy for Raising Awareness of Honey Bees
Women in Beekeeping Scholarship – 2018 Queen Rearing Workshop
Industry summary
Hive Haven V10 OATH hybrid native stingless bee hive
This project delivered an Australian stingless native bee hive assembly, known as the Hive Haven V10, which efficiently and effectively produces a range of native bee products to support the commercial future of the Australian native stingless bee industry.
The V10 can be used in a range of climatic conditions to enable the ongoing harvest of food-grade native honey and propolis, while assisting in the pollination of food crops. The hive is manufactured in Australia from recycled-blend plastic and contains a 70 mm hollow insulation cavity that can be filled with different insulation to alleviate hive overheating.
The hive provides both agricultural and horticultural industries with a durable, robust home for native bees that won’t rot, require painting or overheat.
Report
Record keeping for beekeepers: Review of applications and technology available for beekeepers and bee breeders
Record keeping is an integral part of beekeeping and is required by the Australian Honey Bee Industry Biosecurity Code of Practice (the Code) (Plant Health Australia 2016). Inspections must be carried out at least twice a year, at least four months apart.
According to the Code, beekeepers must keep a minimum record of the following, which significantly assists with biosecurity: date of the inspection; strength assessment of colonies; pests and diseases found; actions and treatments used for pests and diseases; details of tests for American foulbrood; date, number and locations of hive movements; date and supplier of bee introduction and used hive and hive components; and details of biosecurity training undertaken by the beekeeper and employees.
These records can be kept either electronically or on paper, and must be kept for at least three years.
Keeping detailed records is crucial for complying with biosecurity regulations and gaining insight into bee biology over time (Bolshakova and Niño 2018), as well as for monitoring the performance of colonies, which assists with making informed decisions regarding building profitable businesses.
Depending on beekeepers’ goals and interests, a variety of records can be maintained, including apiary information such as weather, location and flora; details about the colony, such as temperament, frames, brood, equipment, and queen presence; harvest records for pollen and honey; actions taken, such as treatments, feeding and hive movement; and finances, including honey sales and equipment costs. All beekeepers should prioritise keeping accurate and comprehensive records to improve their practices.
One group of beekeepers who could particularly benefit from record keeping is bee breeders and queen producers. Bee breeders have frequently cited a lack of time for not performing colony evaluations and keeping records. Recording queen introductions, pedigree and trait evaluations would enable better bee breeding.
Record keeping for bee breeders
Plan Bee is the national honey bee genetic improvement program. It provides a platform with tools and technology to introduce modern animal breeding techniques into the Australian beekeeping industry. These techniques will enable the production of estimated breeding values (EBVs) in the future. EBVs give the genetic merit of the queen – i.e. how much of the difference in observed performance between colonies is due to the genes of the queen. EBVs can increase the efficiency of the selection process.
To calculate an EBV, the following data is needed: unique queen ID; queen age; date introduced; queen mother ID and any other pedigree data available; the load the colony is kept in; the apiary the colony is in; the date of the colony trait evaluation; and trait evaluation records.
Other tools for trait recording
Other technologies are available to reduce the time taken to perform colony inspections. These include hive scales; sensors to measure humidity and temperature within colonies, carbon dioxide concentration, and the number of foragers entering and exiting colonies and whether they are carrying pollen; sound recorders; local weather data recorders; and infrared technology to estimate colony population.
Scope of this report
There is a plethora of apps that allow beekeepers to record their data via technology, assisting them with record keeping. This report summarises many of the apps available below for their utility in general record keeping and record keeping for Plan Bee. Data from apps that can export to .csv format may be able to be integrated with the Plan Bee database.
Management of Small Hive Beetle in Australia – Fact Sheet
News story
Clover4Bees makes encouraging progress prioritising pasture species
Pasture legumes shortlisted for honey bee food source potential, honey production attributes and industry collaboration opportunities.
Promoting the Importance of Bees Communications
News story
Littlest livestock, biggest impact: Beewise shares world’s first robotic beehive at evokeAG. 2023
US-based company, Beewise brought the world's first robotic beehive to Australia for the first time, unveiling it at evokeAG 2023. The solar powered BeeHome uses cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to monitor and treat the hive for pests and diseases and relay the information to the beekeeper’s phone, meaning they can keep track of honey production and care for the hive’s needs from wherever they are in the country, and even across the globe. CEO and co-founder Saar Safra shares how BeeHome is taking on the global phenomenon of collapsing bee colonies amid threats from pesticides, parasites and global warming.
Development of a Code of Practice and National Bee Biosecurity Program
Develop & assess of leafcutter bee survival, mgmnt & reproduction in Sthn Aust
News story
Supplementary feeding can build and maintain hives amid stress
Honey bees are performing critical honey production and pollination roles against a backdrop of increasing stress, as fires, floods, drought and the resulting changes to flowering patterns leave colonies without access to adequate nutrition – yet nutritional support is on the way.
Report
Varroa destructor Research Strategy 2024-2027
Following the arrival of varroa at the Port of Newcastle, AgriFutures Australia commissioned research on how the industry should prepare for the possible establishment of varroa in Australia. A scientific group centred on the Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution (BEE) Lab at The University of Sydney produced a report,
Resilient beekeeping in the face of varroa (Holmes
et al., 2023). The report, published in January 2024, distilled current scientific knowledge about how varroa was being managed worldwide. The authors consulted scientific literature, bee researchers and beekeepers worldwide. The report made wide-ranging recommendations on the steps the Australian beekeeping industry should take to adapt to the presence of varroa in our country.
Major recommendations included that Australia must urgently undertake research to adapt international technologies for the control of varroa in our unique environment, and must press forward with new research that will help Australian beekeepers and pollination-dependent industries thrive in the post-varroa environment.
In April 2024, AgriFutures Australia sponsored a workshop involving 70 participants, including Australian bee researchers, industry leaders and relevant personnel from federal and state agriculture departments. This
Varroa destructor research strategy 2024-2027, which arose from the workshop, is a consensus for future relevant, robust and industry-focused research that will help the Australian beekeeping industry transition to living with varroa. The Strategy provides a prioritised list of research areas from the most urgent to aspirational longer-term goals. Broad consultation was undertaken across the industry to ensure the Strategy contains research that will meet the needs of industry.
Increasing returns to Kakadu plum growers through improved pollination
An indigenous Australian bush food, Kakadu plum, or Gubinge (Terminalia ferdinandiana) is produced across a wide area in the north of Australia, including Western Australia (WA) and the Northern Territory (NT). Kakadu plum plays an important social and economic role for many remote Aboriginal communities, with the harvest bringing together different clans and Traditional Owner groups into one economic activity.
Most Kakadu plum is wild harvested, however there are a growing number of orchards being developed by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups. In the 2018-19 season, the Northern Australia Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance harvested more than 20 tonnes of Kakadu plum, with a farm gate value of $650,000.
Kakadu plum growers have identified variable yields and quality as a limitation to industry expansion and attribute much of this to poor pollination and fruit set. This project was designed to test some basic pollination management techniques, including exploring whether managed colonies of stingless bees could be deployed to enhance cross-pollination.
This report will be a resource to aid the general understanding of Kakadu plum pollination biology, and to upskill producers in their understanding of pollination. It improves the collective understanding of the basic floral biology of Kakadu plum; provides an awareness of the different types of insects visiting Kakadu plum trees and the distinction between pollinators and those insects which do not pollinate; highlights tools to assist growers in making informed decisions on management that may affect pollination; and demonstrates Traditional Owner leadership in the development and growth of the industry. The report also outlines the need for further study to assess the potential for managed stingless bees to improve pollination and provide an additional revenue stream (e.g. honey production), given the challenges in managing colonies that were experienced during the project.
Belinda Pooley
Belinda is a recipient of a 2024 AgriFutures Rural Womens Acceleration Grant.
The Development of the National Varroa Research Strategy and National Bee Breeding Strategy
Resilient Beekeeper Webinars and Podcasts
Probiotic development for bees: analyzing gut bacteria in healthy bees
Does Nosema ceranae infect bees and contaminate honey in Australia?
