Bee Industry Council of WA (BICWA) vice-chair Mikey Cernotta said the new technology was developed with a federal government grant and “wasn’t a silver bullet, but a start”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mikey Cernotta says the technology is a start. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)<\/p>\n
“What we learned from the NSW incursion of varroa mite was that the traditional sentinel hives that we use \u2014 whilst they serve a purpose, they’re too slow to react and they don’t provide landscape scale surveillance,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Cernotta said BICWA worked with researchers who specialised in artificial intelligence to develop the feeding stations.<\/p>\n
“The bees enter into the bee sentry unit to feed on the sugar syrup, and as they do that, they actually sit on a clear lens and we have cameras in there, which then photograph the bees from the underside because 90 per cent of varroa are actually on the underside of the bee,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Then if we get a detection, the AI or machine sends an immediate notification to a list of people and then we can positively or negatively identify and then determine whether we need to act.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The industry has worked with researchers to develop the feeding stations. (Supplied: Mikey Cernotta)<\/p>\n
Volunteers bolster biosecurity<\/p>\n
Shire of Dundas CEO and amateur beekeeper Peter Fitchat oversees a local government area that spans 700 kilometres of the Eyre Highway.<\/p>\n
His council is pushing to roll out the 20 hives on the highway, with the local postal service and shire workers checking them for sugar water.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shire of Dundas CEO Peter Fitchat says the whole town benefits from the shire-owned store. (ABC Esperance: Hayden Smith)<\/p>\n
“They’ll notify me and I’ll go and top it up while I do other work, in sort of volunteer capacity,” Mr Fitchat said.<\/p>\n
“So we’re hoping that this would sort of safeguard the industry in WA, because we border SA, we are obviously the front side of it, so it’s very important to get this right, straight up.”<\/p>\n
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) supports the bee sentry units.<\/p>\n
DPIRD plant biosecurity research scientist Jessica Bikaun said BICWA and Dundas Shire were doing a fantastic job, which complemented the surveillance by DPIRD.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Australia has moved from eradication to a management plan. (Supplied: Alex Wild, UT Austin)<\/p>\n
‘Accelerate improvements’<\/p>\n
BICWA is concerned about a lack of clarity on a response plan for varroa mite detection in WA.<\/p>\n
Mr Cernotta said the council wanted the state government to support early detection, a centralised digital traceability system, and a greater departmental presence, including dedicated beekeeping compliance officers.<\/p>\n
“These measures would not only increase WA’s chances of early detection and eradication, they would significantly assist in making the transition to management of varroa far less costly,” he said.<\/p>\n
WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis said the state government was working with affected states and with WA beekeepers to boost pest and disease awareness.<\/p>\n
“DPIRD operates a statewide bee surveillance program with more than 40 sentinel hives placed from Derby to Esperance that are regularly tested for exotic bee pests,” Ms Jarvis said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jackie Jarvis says the government has been liaising with affected states. (ABC Perth: Grace Burmas)<\/p>\n
“To date in 2025, more than 400 beekeepers [have] checked hives and reported no varroa mite.”<\/p>\n
She said DPIRD was still working with BICWA on adopting a digital traceability system for bee hives.<\/p>\n
“In addition to DPIRD’s bee biosecurity officers, WA has five varroa development officers and one coordinator, as part of the national varroa transition to management program,” Ms Jarvis said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Australian beekeepers have taken protecting their species from varroa mite to the next level with high-tech biosecurity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,89782,89781,81778,18708,83471,37715,89780,105,81780],"class_list":["post-128852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bee-council-of-wa","tag-beekeepers","tag-bees","tag-dpird","tag-honey-bees","tag-jackie-jarvis","tag-pest","tag-technology","tag-varroa-mite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}