Well done, Mun. Straight into Advanced. I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it.

Agreed, but idiots are as idiots do.

Hey Stuart, what rotten luck you’ve had. Metho is perfect, it’s what I use. The problem is we only test a few hundred bees at a time. The mitacide strips get the phoretic mites throughout the hive, so tonnes more effective and why you had the negative result but DPI found mites. Let me know when you want to start again, I’ll give you a couple of nucs to kick off. If you have access to a blue zone property to setup, it could be sooner. All the best, mate. Mike

Yes, It's astonishing to think someone can be so selfish and ignorant or perhaps stupid to believe its ok to deliberately risk the destruction of hives, people's income and mental health because they think they can outfox the government. Evidently the fine and jail isn't enough of a deterrent. Maybe a public register like they have for pedophiles would work.

@@AussieMikesBees I still can't get over the old timers that just want to give up the fight and start using chemicals. I have only been in the game since 2015 and still can't fathom why there are so many people that just don't want to do the right thing?

Thanks for the update, Stuart. I know a lot of people say it’s futile, but this far in I’m still optimistic. Good on you for bait station hosting. The more there are, the better the odds.

Thanks, Michael. I’ve just returned from a trip through Europe talking with quite a few beekeepers and the common sentiment is they wish they could turn back time and eradicate. The news here is there’s been more spread through illegal hive relocations. Now I’m on the edge of the surveillance (purple) zone. We’ve had an early start to Spring so swarms will be the next challenge for containment.

There has been some recent spread all caused by what I call Feral Beekeepers. These are the conspiracy theorists who believe the varroa response is a ploy by government to control them. They've moved their hives out of the red zones and when the surveillance program discovers mites in the relocated sites, a new red zone is declared and all the beekeepers in that 10km radius can thank that Feral Beekeeper for the loss of their bees. Enough of the rant. The DPI are still confident they'll eradicate Varroa. They know where the boundary is and are working their way in from the outer edges toward the centre of each red zone or combined red zone. Extensive fipronil baiting is targeting feral bees and unregistered hives within the red zone. With the relative winter dearth, the baiting will be more effective. When you look at the map of Australia and the size of the red zone, it's not that large. The rest of the country are all watching and hoping that we win this fight. many of the volunteers come from interstate. Although there's a lot of bees being killed in the process, the plan is all about saving the bees. I'll do an update video soon. Just been crazy busy lately. Cheers, Mike