Call to deal with bee infection

 THE Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL) should re-establish the Varroa mite Taskforce to address bee infection. 

The suggestion has been made by the president of Farmers and Settlers Association Wilson Thompson.

Varroa mite infects bees and beehives in the Highlands and the country.

“In 2006, Varroa mite was detected and DAL established the Varroa Mite Task Force with technical support from the National Agriculture Quarantine Inspection Authority (NAQIA) and funding from the Australian Government and research by the National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI),” he said.

“The mite is a disease introduced by the Asian bees that came across from Indonesia. 

“It infected our native European bees that lived in PNG and made them weak.

“It affected their capacity to go out looking for pollen and affected honey production and their reproduction.

“The result is the impact of bee pollination of plants and crops, both for consumption and sales and also the production of honey.”

“In 2008, K2 million from the National Agricultural Development Programme(NADP) was used for expansion of bee hives and bees in East New Britain, Enga, Hela and East Sepik.

“This year, we had the Highlands region declared a quarantine area by the Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Tommy Tomscoll recently and I would like to impress upon DAL to re-establish the taskforce to work on the Varroa mite infection to set the foundation for apiculture development in the Highlands and the country.” Thompson said.