28 May 2000

Varroa laboratory tests pass 10,000

Over 10,000 "sticky boards", withdrawn from hives after Apistan treatment to diagnose for varroa infection, have now been analysed in laboratories.

MAF programme co-ordinator Matthew Stone says the lab staff have made an enormous contribution to the varroa campaign, working long hours at a very exacting task.

17 teams working in 23 apiaries with 631 hives found no trace of varroa, leaving the total number of Infected Places remains 279 on apiaries owned by 131 beekeepers, after visiting 2,120 apiaries housing 40,461 hives.

As part of planning for future work, apiary maps are being upgraded. All maps have been standardised on the 1:250,000 terrain map of New Zealand, and the detailed work of digitising those maps has been started. This will enable the maps to be used in context with GIS*, and be more effectively used as part of the toolset for whatever control option is chosen.