Management
Introduced to Papua New Guinea in
the late 1970’s (Koetz 2012), the Asian honey bee has been known to hitchhike
on vessels docking in Australian waters with swarms being intercepted and
destroyed since 1995 (Barry et al 2010). This issue was also encountered over
1000 km east of the Solomon Islands (Anderson 2010; Anderson et al. 2012).
With the invasion of the Asian honey bee in May 2007, the Queensland Government rapidly responded with the implementation of an eradication program. The eradication program aimed to ‘delimit the incursion and contain it within a 50 km radius of Cairns by detecting and destroying all nests and swarms’ (National Management Group 2011). The eradication program was delivery by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), Biosecurity Queensland and the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council (AHBIC), known as the National Management Group. Since the detection of the Asian honey bee over 800 nests and swarms have since been destroyed Koetz (2012). In 2011, the Australian Government declared the eradication of the Asian honey bee not ‘technically feasible’. However saw the concern of national significance and thus developed the National Asian Honey Bee Transition to Management Program (T2M). The key investment of the T2M is to educate the community, land owners, honey bee industry and commercial and hobby apiarists to identify the Asian honey bee and apply mitigation and control measures to limit its impact on human health, amenity and honey production (National Management Group 2011). The T2M states the key elements of transition to living with AHB are as follows (National Management Group 2011):
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Eradication methods
Currently the only management method of the Asian honey bee is to destroy the nest or swarm when identified. Methods used is Queensland have been presented in the YouTube clip below. WARNING: The author wishes to advise that the above video is for information purposes only. If you spot a swarm of Asian honey bees contact the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on 13 25 23
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