It was more than 20 years ago, but beekeeper Murray Bush remembers exactly where he was when he first heard varroa mite had been detected in New Zealand.
The apiarist from the picturesque vineyard town of Blenheim was in a small backcountry hut, nestled away in a remote South Island valley.
"There was no cell phone coverage," Bush recalled.
"It was way out back of the beyond."
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At about 9pm, Bush jumped inside his parked-up ute to listen to the news on the radio.
"There was a special report that varroa been found in the North Island," he said.
"It instantly dropped on us that, well, okay, our beekeeping life has changed forever."
Although beekeepers had found the destructive varroa far away in Auckland, 700km from Bush's own hives, including 22km of Cook Strait waters which sit between NZ's two main islands, Bush knew immediately he and his bees were in trouble.
"At that point, we had no idea how widespread it was, what the government response was going to be, what our own response was going to be," he said.
He had read about varroa mite in magazines, and understood the impact the sesame seed-sized parasites could have on a country's bee industry, spreading viruses that cripple a bee's ability to fly, gather food, pollinate or emerge from their cell to be born.
"It wasn't a mystery to us," Bush said.
"We were thankful we didn't have it, and all of a sudden we had it.
"And that mental impact was just instant."
Are you affected? Contact me: msaunokonoko@nine.com.au
Bush was right to be worried.
It took five years for the mites, also known as varroa destructor, to swarm the North Island, cross the wild Cook Strait and infest his hives.
In less than a decade, the reddish-brown organisms had spread across the entire 1600km length and 450km breadth of NZ.
"There's no turning the clock back," Bush said.
"It's effectively with you for life."
After the mites were detected in biosecurity surveillance hives at the Port of Newcastle last Friday, the clock is ticking ominously for Australia.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has issued a statewide emergency order to control the movement of bees across the state, and stop any spread.
Around 6,000,000 bees have been destroyed, with more casualties likely to follow, and three different exclusion zones set up around the port of Newcastle range in severity between 10km to 50km.
The DPI has forbidden bees being moved across NSW.
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"If varroa mite settles in the state, it will have severe consequences, so we're taking every precaution and action needed to contain the parasite and protect the local honey industry and pollination," Minister for Agriculture Dugald Saunders said.
It's unclear where the mites originated from, potentially a ship at the port or possibly from a local hive already unknowingly contaminated, but one thing is certain: an outbreak will threaten Australia's $70 million bee industry.
Australia can learn from NZ's fight against the mites, Bush said.
It's vital the government gives beekeepers massive coordinated support and significant funding to tackle what may unfortunately already be an unwinnable war, he said.
"It could be too late already," Bush said.
"Your window of opportunity to assess your position is minute.
"Once varroa escapes it can just go anywhere."
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Because of the incestuous nature of varroa, a solitary bee carrying a single mite can lead to a mass outbreak.
The first egg laid is always male, and subsequent eggs female.
Once the eggs hatch, the male mates with the females.
Biosecurity zones should be set far and wide, Bush said, otherwise beekeepers from Queensland to South Australia were staring down the barrel.
"You only get one brief opportunity to assess the scale of spread and the chance of eradication," Bush said.
"So don't scrimp on this financially."
If the genie is out the bottle, Bush said Tasmania, and possibly Western Australia, could get lucky and escape contagion.
The impact and stresses on beekeepers in the NSW red zone right now be immense, he said, as hives are systematically isolated and destroyed, and a massive cloud of uncertainty and pressure hangs overhead.
"This means immediate loss of income (for beekeepers) and possibly losing years of hard work with breeding programs."
Orchards and horticulture growers reliant on bees to pollinate crops will also be braced for the worst of news.
"The mental torment cannot be underestimated," Bush said, recalling the upset and upheaval Kiwi beekeepers experienced in the early stages of discovery.
"I've been in meetings and tough, grown men who've seen it all cry.
"The mental stress just got so overwhelming.
"And when they asked a question, the answer is 'we don't know'. And it's not bureaucrats not doing their job, it's just that they don't know."
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If Australia is unable to contain and eradicate the Port of Newcastle discovery, the industry will adapt and learn to live with the parasites, New Zealand Beekeeping president Jane Lorimer said, but there will be cascading costs.
Some beekeepers will inevitably go out of business, she said, unable to survive the loss of hives and a financial hit brought about by a forever-changed business model, which must somehow stay viable despite thinner margins.
"It's a huge pain to try and deal with," Lorimer said.
An apiarist with 30 years experience, Lorimer forks out $18,000 to treat her 1500 honey hives for varroa mite, an exercise she undertakes two to three times every year depending on always-changing local mite conditions.
She described her bee operation in the Waikato, an rich agricultural basin 130km south of Auckland, as "medium-sized".
Since varroa swarmed NZ, Lorimer has been forced to hire double the number of staff in order to monitor, tend and treat hives.
"Every beekeeper has just got to work with what they see," she said.
"Some lose their hives.
"We lost a lot of hives last winter.
"It was initially some varroa reinvasion because some beekeepers couldn't afford treatment, and then we had a really bad season for wasps last autumn.
"Anything that was weakened by varroa ended up being taken out by the wasps."
In the war against varroa, it's an all-for-one and one-for-all situation, Lorimer said.
Beekeepers must work together, treating their hives multiples times a year, to put up the best protective shield for the entire industry they can.
But even that may not be enough.
Like viruses and other parasites, varroa is constantly evolving.
And after 20 years in NZ, the mites have begun to build resistance to synthetic and organic treatments.
"We're starting to see in NZ pockets of change or less efficacy with some of the treatments we're using," Bush said.
"The result is more time for more monitoring, more expense.
"And the worst case scenario, more hives lost."
Bush pauses when asked what the varroa situation in NZ may look in another 10 years.
"It'd be a random guess, but it's not going to be better, put it that way."
If you have bee hives located within the 50km biosecurity zone, please call 1800 084 881.
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