Varroa mite hunt intensifies

Efforts to track down the varroa mite in beehives around Murchison, 130km southwest of Nelson, are to be intensified.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry varroa programme co-ordinator, Paul Bolger, said testing would be scaled up to a 5km radius around the site where a questionable varroa sample was taken.

He said it was still a precautionary measure at this stage, but he accepted that the original sample was "probably" caused by cross-contamination in the testing laboratory.

Meanwhile, testing of 4000 hive samples in the Oxford and Murchison areas has found no further varroa presence.