By JOSIE CLARKE and PHILIPPA STEVENSON
A honey bee mite threatening New Zealand's billion-dollar horticulture industry has almost certainly spread to the South Island.
The mite, which can wipe out whole colonies of bees in a few years, was discovered on Tuesday in the hives of an amateur beekeeper in South Auckland.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has banned any movement of bees or hives in or out of a zone from north of Rodney to Waikato.
But it discovered yesterday afternoon that infected queen bees from a large commercial beekeeping operation have already been sold widely throughout New Zealand, including in the South Island.
National Beekeepers Association executive member Lin McKenzie said the mites, Varroa jacobsoni, could "decimate" the $1.8 million live bee trade.
Outbreaks in Britain and the United States had destroyed up to 60 per cent of bee populations.
But worse, the decline in bee numbers could seriously hurt New Zealand's crucial horticulture and agriculture industries, as pollination would be interrupted.
Horticultural exports accounted for $1.3 billion in trade in 1997, and agriculture production for $10 billion.
Mr McKenzie said: "That's a real concern. Kiwifruit, pipfruit, stonefruit ... all depend on pollination. It's a multimillion-dollar industry at risk."
Agricultural economists calculate bees are worth about $2 billion a year to New Zealand as pollinators of nitrogen-fixing clover, which underpins pastoral industries, including dairy, meat and wool, and high-earning crops such as kiwifruit, apples and vegetables.
MAF is still trying to discover how the mite arrived here, but acknowledges that no other country has been able to eradicate the parasite, which may have been living undetected in New Zealand for up to five years.
Politicians and beekeepers immediately criticised New Zealand's lax border controls.
Green MP Ian Ewen-Street said: "Border control in New Zealand has been done on a shoe-string, and honey producers, horticulturists and pastoral farmers may all have to pay a high price for past cheapskate measures."
A former president of the beekeepers' association, Russell Berry of Rotorua, said he was disappointed that MAF had spent time setting up an operations centre rather than rushing teams into the field.
A "swish" operations centre would do nothing to cover up the "bloody terrible job they have done in letting it in in the first place."
Five MAF-led field teams have found eight dead hives in a search of South Auckland properties. Other hives showed signs of infestation.
As well as imposing a controlled area, MAF has issued "restricted- place notices" on premises that have bought bees from the infected commercial operation.
MAF has halted all live bee exports, even though the country's major markets already have Varroa, but expects to start them again once it knows how far the mite has spread.
Until now, New Zealand and Australia have been considered the only major beekeeping countries free of the mite.
New Zealand has about 5000 beekeepers, with more than 300,000 hives. Around 600 are in semi-commercial or commercial businesses.
The export ban has left the only operator who packages New Zealand bees with several tonnes of bees waiting to go to Auckland airport.
Canada takes most of New Zealand's bee exports, and some go to Korea. Exporters had just completed negotiations to export to Britain, and were in the final stages of negotiations with the United States.
Tim Leslie, executive secretary of the beekeepers' association, said a hobbyist beekeeper became concerned about a hive and rang AgriQuality on Tuesday.
"That's when the balloon went up," he said.
Samples were sent to Lincoln University for positive identification and Varroa mite was confirmed at 4.15 pm that day.
Mr Leslie said the discovery would have be no effect on this year's honey crop, which had already been harvested, but the mite's impact on New Zealand agriculture could be "very dramatic."
The local and export market for 10,000 tonnes of honey, as well as export sales of 50,000 queen bees, 40,000kg of bulk bees and health products such as propolis and royal jelly, is worth around $50 million a year to New Zealand.
Varroa, a small, reddish-brown oval mite 1-2mm long, found on the outside of adult honey bees, is not dangerous to humans and does not affect honey.
Brian Alexander, Auckland president of the beekeepers' association and a Kaukapakapa commercial beekeeper, said the chances of stopping the disease were "very, very low."
The American Varroa mite had already built up a resistance to chemical treatment.
Dr Mark Goodwin, of the Ruakura apicultural research and advisory unit, said the Varroa mites were likely to kill New Zealand's wild bees, as honey colonies would not be able to survive without treatment.
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