So it's winter - a slow bee time for most, although there is an unseasonable flow on in places with a couple of beekeepers doing winter extraction in NSW this week.

We had an interesting discussion at the Illawarra Bee Club last night about Varroa, with the biggest take-home being: when it does get here, don't follow the rest of the world and throw mitecide at the problem. Try and let the bees handle it because the chemical controls only last so long and in about 10 years it will stop working. Instead let the hives that are going to die die and the bees will by natural selection work it out.  That could be easier to say than do with your hives failing around you...

And finally, I just read some idiot has poisoned 750 hives up the south coast - a big loss for producers and what sort of fool does that.