Why have Australian honeybees been put into lockdown? Podcast
Science Weekly
The Guardian
4.2 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2022
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Guardian. So, so, so skin. |
| 0:18.0 | Get your morning mojo going with Mullah like Greek style. |
| 0:26.0 | Now with a new recipe, with Vitamin B6 and Vitamin D. Let's have it! Mullen Light, get the good going. At the end of June, part of Australia implemented a lockdown. |
| 0:43.0 | For it, bees. |
| 0:46.0 | New South Wales beekeepers are on red alert. |
| 0:49.0 | The Australian industry is now under serious threat from an imported mite. |
| 0:53.0 | A deadly parasite of the honeybee, called the Varroa mite, |
| 0:57.0 | has found its way into the country, |
| 0:59.0 | which until now has remained the only honey producing nation in the world free of the pest. |
| 1:07.0 | It's bad news, not just for the honey bees, but for the industries which rely on them. |
| 1:13.0 | It's been estimated that about one in every three mouthfuls of food |
| 1:18.0 | in some way involve honeybee pollination. |
| 1:22.0 | Other insects can pollinate but but the size of bee colonies makes them the most efficient pollinators, |
| 1:28.0 | something we don't want to lose. |
| 1:30.0 | So to stop the mite spreading, outside New South Wales and into other parts of Australia, |
| 1:36.0 | authorities have set up eradication zones, killing millions of bees already infected, |
| 1:42.0 | and have put hives across the region into a kind of lockdown. |
| 1:47.8 | But how on earth do you keep bees from flying around pollinating and potentially spreading this deadly mite from hive to hive. |
| 1:56.8 | And if you do manage it, what will it mean for Australia's almonds, avocados and melons. |
| 2:04.3 | From the Guardian, I'm Madelinekeeping industries, you're a lecturer at the |
| 2:21.0 | Southern Cross University in Australia and you're a beekeeper. So this Verroa might, how bad is it right now? |
| 2:29.4 | Are honey producers currently quite worried? |
... |
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