Hey Lone,
Bio-security is a bloody joke here :(
I used to live in Darwin, they were pretty good up there, they used to pick up a colony every so often, bit easier when there is only one real port in the whole territory. QLD well that's a different story.....beautify one day, full of feisty verroa mite the next.
not a good development.....
perhaps if the government weren't suck a bunch of tight a55's they might not have withdrawn the funding for the $5 million eradication program on the basis that the bee was “ineradicable”.
The Asian bee poses a significant threat to the Australian environment and economy for a number of reasons. Asian bees do not produce surplus honey and cannot be managed in commercial hives. Asian bees compete with native birds and small mammals such as possums and bats for nesting sites, pollen and nectar, and they are a natural host to the Varroa mite,
Which would vitally wipe out honey bee populations in Australia, jeopardize the $80 million beekeeping industry, the loss of pollination which would threaten horticultural and pasture crops, potentially leading to the loss of 20,000 full-time jobs and economic losses upwards of $6 billion.
It’s clear that the Asian bee incursion is a serious issue.
So why has the government withdrawn the funding from the eradication program?
This question was the focus of a Senate inquiry in March, and the outcome from the inquiry is a tale of bureaucratic farce.
The CSIRO’s pre-eminent Asian bee expert was mysteriously "left off" a mailing list (how bout that?), which meant that the CSIRO wasn’t consulted on key issues, and the decision that the Asian bee was ineradicable was made on the basis of "questionable science".
its $5 million for goodness sake....they spend more that that on little Johnny's Trackie daks
typical government decision making....oooo dont get me started :evil: