Fiji's beekeepers are losing hives at an alarming rate and the region has a narrow window to prepare for the arrival of the Varroa destructor mite, Fiji beekeeper Jean Tikaram wrote on the Devpolicy Blog.
Tikaram has kept bees in Rakiraki, in Fiji's Ra Province, for about 20 years and works with smallholder beekeepers through the Fiji Beekeepers Association (FBA).
The Biosecurity Authority of Fiji (BAF) confirmed Varroa jacobsoni in a hive in the Central Division in 2018, and in 2020 the whole country was declared a biosecurity emergency area, restricting the movement of hives and equipment. The mite has also been recorded in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Tikaram wrote.
That mite is serious but treatable, she wrote, while its relative Varroa destructor is closer to a pandemic. It has not yet reached Fiji, and when it does it will find thin surveillance, no system for reporting hive losses and beekeepers scattered across islands with little support.
Australia detected V. destructor at the port of Newcastle in June 2022 and tried to eradicate it, euthanising more than 40 million bees, about 10 per cent of the New South Wales total. After a $101 million effort, governments and industry agreed in September 2023 that eradication was no longer feasible, and researchers expect varroa to kill about 95 per cent of Australia's feral honey bees.
Among beekeepers in Rakiraki, Tikaram wrote, farmers have lost many hives and in some cases all of them without knowing why, and the FBA hears similar reports from across Fiji. The cause may be mites, disease or management practices, but without testing or reporting beekeepers are working blind.
Distance makes it harder. Most keep a few hives alongside other farm work, often far from the nearest government agricultural officer, and when hives fail there is no clear channel for that information to reach BAF or industry bodies.
In 2023 the then minister for agriculture put Fiji's sector at more than 1,200 beekeepers and 13,500 hives, producing over 250 tonnes of honey a year, she wrote. Beekeeping has low start-up costs and fits alongside household and farm work, but women make up only about 5 per cent of Fiji's beekeepers, and in her experience people who lose their hives often do not restock.
Tikaram set out five steps. Biosecurity should be built into border upgrades already funded, including A$12 million from Australia for container scanning at Lautoka and Suva and a new border management system under the proposed Vuvale Union, so that used beekeeping equipment, live bees and bee products are flagged for inspection.
She also called for sentinel hives at Fiji's main ports, a simple hive-loss reporting system run through the FBA and shared with BAF, integrated pest management training delivered by mentoring, and government subsidies for treatments such as oxalic acid.
The risk goes beyond imported equipment, she wrote, to the Asian honey bee, which carries V. destructor and other pathogens, to small hive beetle and to Tropilaelaps mites. "Disaster is just one boat ride away."
Earlier this year the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, through Southern Cross University, funded a small group of Fiji beekeepers to travel to Australia with beekeepers and scientists from Morocco and Ghana. The FBA has since formed a working group with BAF, ACIAR and the Ministry of Agriculture, and Tikaram wrote that government-led surveillance supported by beekeepers could be adapted across the region, possibly through the Pacific Community.