The Role of Bee Keepers in the Bees Diet

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People are going to see the impact of this in their diet. Some foods will be more expensive because there's just fewer bees around. In Australia, we've got about one thousand 800 commercial bee keepers. We produce about forty thousand tons of honey each year. It comes down to everyone being able to have a look in their hives right now and work out whether they have a row or not.

The varroa mite, a deadly honeybee parasite, has finally found its way into Australia. Varroa destructor affects every other major beekeeping area in the world, damaging honeybees and transmitting viruses across hives. Now, in a fight to contain the mite, the state of New South Wales has destroyed 1,533 infected hives and implemented a statewide standstill on bee movement. Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dr Cooper Schouten, a beekeper and researcher, about why the mite poses such a threat to honeybees, what it means to put bees into lockdown, and what impacts this biosecurity breech could have.. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod