Apiary Update: Healthy Hives and Strong Brood Patterns

Today was an inspection day across several Pure Coastal Honey apiaries, checking colony health and monitoring how our hives are progressing following recent management work.

We inspected:

• our recent split from McLeans Ridges,

• the Flow Hive, and

• our Sentinel hive, used for ongoing monitoring and data collection.

Regular inspections are an essential part of responsible beekeeping, allowing us to assess colony strength, confirm queen performance, and monitor for pests such as varroa mites.

Monitoring Hive Health

Inspection trays were checked across the apiaries to assess natural mite drop. Monitoring mite levels helps us understand how colonies are responding after treatment and ensures we can act early if conditions change.

Encouragingly, mite drop levels remain low, supporting what we’ve been seeing during hive inspections — strong, active colonies continuing to perform well.

📷 Photo: inspection tray showing monitored mite drop

Strong Queens and Solid Brood

One of the highlights of today’s inspections was confirming healthy, laying queens across the hives. Marked queens were sighted, making it easier to track colony performance and maintain consistent hive management.

We observed solid brood patterns, a key indicator of colony health. A consistent brood pattern tells us the queen is laying well and that nurse bees are maintaining stable conditions inside the hive.

📷 Photo: marked queen during inspection
📷 Photo: solid brood pattern

Strong brood today means strong field bees in the weeks ahead — an important sign as colonies continue building strength.

🐝 A Tall, Working Hive

One of today’s inspections included our Flow Hive, currently running a full setup with a brood box, an ideal super, and a Flow honey super.

As colonies grow stronger through the season, additional space is added to support both brood development and honey storage. The brood box is where the queen lays eggs and new bees are raised, while the supers above allow bees to store surplus honey.

This taller configuration reflects a healthy, expanding colony with enough population to manage and utilise the available space effectively.

📷 Photo: Flow Hive showing brood box, ideal super, full deep super and Flow super during inspection

For many people, it’s surprising to see just how large a productive hive can become — but this space helps reduce crowding, supports colony health, and allows bees to store honey naturally as nectar flows

Apiary Update — Moving Hives, Monitoring Health & Growing Stronger

Today was a solid day in the apiary — the kind of work that quietly builds the strength of future seasons.

We moved one hive from our Codrington site across to McLeans Ridges, bringing that apiary up to four colonies. Keeping apiaries balanced helps colonies make better use of local forage and allows us to manage hive health more closely across our coastal locations.

While onsite, alcohol washes were carried out at both Newrybar and McLeans Ridges as part of our regular monitoring routine.

Encouragingly, both apiaries returned a zero mite count, which is always reassuring to see following treatment periods. Regular monitoring gives us confidence that colonies are healthy and continuing to recover well.

We also took a split from one of the stronger McLeans Ridges colonies to gradually increase hive numbers. Splitting strong colonies helps reduce swarming pressure while building future production hives.

Beekeeping is often a series of small decisions made week by week — moving colonies, checking health, and supporting growth at the right time.

Looking ahead, we’ll soon be trialling the Beestar hive monitoring system across our remote apiaries.
The goal is simple: better insight into colony conditions between inspections, helping us respond faster to changes in temperature, humidity, and hive activity without disturbing the bees.

Technology will never replace hands-on inspections, but tools like this may help us care for colonies more proactively — something we’re excited to explore and share as we learn.

Every strong hive today becomes future pollination, future honey, and a more resilient apiary tomorrow.

Apiary locations: Codrington • McLeans Ridges • Newrybar

Adding Technology to Our Varroa Management Plan

Over the past season, beekeeping in NSW has changed dramatically.

Varroa is no longer “over there” — it’s here, established, and evolving. With confirmed pyrethroid resistance now detected in some NSW apiaries, the pressure on beekeepers is increasing. For those of us running standing hives in coastal environments, the combination of varroa pressure and Small Hive Beetle (SHB) can be brutal.

We’ve experienced that firsthand.

The Toll of Dead-Outs

There’s something people don’t talk about enough — the emotional toll.

Opening a hive and finding a dead-out isn’t just a financial loss. It’s a colony that was building, foraging, raising brood. It’s time, care, and responsibility. When varroa and SHB combine, collapse can happen quickly.

It breaks us every time.

As beekeepers, we don’t take losses lightly. We analyse, reflect, adjust — and try again.

Resistance Changes the Game

Recent confirmation of pyrethroid resistance in NSW changes how we think about treatment rotations. Chemicals like Bayvarol and Apistan have been important tools, but resistance means we cannot rely on any single product or approach.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is no longer optional — it’s essential.

That means:

• Monitoring

• Rotating treatments correctly

• Avoiding under-dosing

• Removing strips on time

• Watching for reinfestation

• Being honest about what’s working and what isn’t

Transparency matters.

Why We’ve Added Hive Monitoring

This season we’ve decided to trial hive monitoring technology using Beestar across two of our remote apiaries.

This isn’t about replacing inspections.

It’s about reducing blind spots.

The goal is simple:

• Monitor hive weight trends

• Track temperature stability

• Watch for sudden changes that may indicate stress

• Identify potential swarm or collapse patterns earlier

• Support our inspection decisions with real data

We travel weekly between Codrington, McLeans Ridges and Newrybar to inspect hives. As we expand, that becomes harder to manage manually. Monitoring allows us to see patterns between visits.

The data stays ours.

We’ll analyse it, learn from it, and share what we can publicly.

Technology Is Not a Silver Bullet

Let’s be clear — no sensor kills mites.

Monitoring does not replace:

• Alcohol washes

• Drone brood checks

• Timely treatments

• Strong hive management

But it may help us detect:

• Brood temperature instability

• Rapid population decline

• Queenless Hives

• Hives preparing to swarm

If we can catch stress earlier, we can act earlier.

And in a varroa environment, time matters.

The Future: Full Product Traceability

One of our long-term goals at Pure Coastal Honey is full traceability across every product line.

Not just batch numbers.

Not just “packed in Australia.”

We want to be able to trace a jar of honey right back to:

• The apiary it came from

• The specific hives that produced it

• The season it was harvested

• The treatment status at the time

• The forage conditions during flow

With hive monitoring technology, we can take this a step further.

Because Beestar units use GPS location data, we can verify that our monitored hives are located within our registered Australian apiaries. That means we can demonstrate that our honey was produced from standing Australian hives — not blended, not imported, not relocated interstate during flow.

As imported honey and blended products continue to create confusion in the market, provenance matters more than ever.

Our vision is this:

In the future, customers will be able to:

• Scan a code on a jar

• See which apiary produced it

• View general seasonal notes

• Understand the conditions the bees worked in

Not marketing fluff.

Real data.

Why This Matters

Trust in food production is built on transparency.

Beekeeping has changed. Varroa has changed it. Treatment strategies have changed. The economics have changed.

What shouldn’t change is honesty.

We don’t claim to be fully organic — because bees fly 5–10 km and forage wherever they choose. Absolute claims in modern beekeeping are unrealistic.

What we can claim is:

• We operate standing hives.

• We report mite detections.

• We treat responsibly when necessary.

• We aim to return to softer strategies when pressure allows.

• We are building systems to trace and verify our product.

The industry is evolving.

So are we.

The Bigger Picture

Varroa is not a temporary wave — it is a new baseline.

We can either resist change or adapt with it.

For us, that means combining:

• Traditional hive skills

• Data-driven monitoring

• Full traceability goals

• Transparent communication with our customers

• Continuous improvement

Our aim is simple:

Keep bees in boxes.
Keep colonies strong.
Keep building trust.

We’ll continue to share what we learn — the wins and the setbacks.

Because transparency builds trust.

— Jamie
Pure Coastal Honey
Codrington / Northern Rivers NSW

When Doing the Right Thing Still Feels Wrong

A hard but necessary step in our hives

In our earlier post about the Varroa Wave, we shared how mite pressure rose suddenly and unevenly across our apiaries, forcing us to adapt in real time. Some hives responded well to brood breaks and organic treatments. Others didn’t.

This is the part of the story we hoped we wouldn’t have to write — but real beekeeping doesn’t always follow the plan.

Over the past fortnight, despite earlier interventions, our final hives experienced re-infestation levels that put their survival at risk. After careful monitoring and mite washes, we made the call to place these hives under a synthetic varroa treatment.

It’s not a decision we’re comfortable with. But it is a responsible one.

Why the Varroa Wave forced our hand

Varroa doesn’t move in neat lines. It surges, collapses, rebounds, and spreads — often from hive to hive that looked stable just weeks earlier.

What we’re seeing now is a secondary wave:

• Reinvasion from surrounding hives

• Mite numbers climbing faster than organic methods could suppress

• Colonies heading toward a point where intervention becomes urgent, not optional

At that stage, doing nothing isn’t natural — it’s neglect.

We keep bees in boxes. That means we don’t get to step back and “let nature decide” when we know the outcome is collapse.

Why this still aligns with our values

Our approach hasn’t changed — only the tools required for this moment have.

Synthetic treatments are not our preference. They are:

• A last resort

• A temporary measure

• Used only when monitoring shows that other methods are no longer enough

Our goal is not to eliminate treatments entirely, but to minimise intervention wherever possible, and to return to organic and mechanical methods once mite pressure stabilises.

Think of this as a reset — not a new direction.

What this means for our honey

This is the question we know many people will ask, so we want to be completely clear.

Honey currently available from Pure Coastal Honey:

• Was harvested before these treatments were applied

• Comes from hives not under synthetic treatment during harvest

• Meets all food safety and withholding requirements

Any hives under synthetic treatment:

• Are not producing harvestable honey

• Are managed with dedicated treatment supers where required

• Will not contribute honey until all withholding periods are complete and the hive is cleared

In short:
Our honey remains pure, local, and responsibly produced.

Looking forward, not backing down

The Varroa Wave has reminded us that beekeeping is no longer about following a fixed rulebook. It’s about:

• Observation

• Adaptation

• And sometimes making uncomfortable decisions to protect the bees in our care

Once mite pressure eases, our focus will return to:

• Brood breaks

• Splits

• Monitoring-led management

• Organic and mechanical treatments wherever possible

This isn’t the end of the story — it’s simply the next chapter.

We’ll keep sharing what we’re seeing, what’s working, and what we’re learning, because transparency matters — especially when things get hard.

— Pure Coastal Honey

Varroa mites from past wash

What Comes After Varroa? Our Approach in the Hives

n our last post, we talked about the arrival of varroa and how it’s changed beekeeping across Australia. This post is more practical. It’s about what that looks like on the ground — in our hives — when mite levels reach the point where action is needed.

Recently, a few of our hives reached treatment levels. That’s always a moment where decisions matter. The goal is simple: protect the bees. How you do that depends heavily on conditions at the time.

Right now, we’re in the middle of warm coastal weather. Some common organic varroa treatments carry higher risks to bees and queens when temperatures are high, so we needed an approach that would be effective without adding unnecessary stress to the colonies.

This is where a brood break came into play.

A brood break is a short pause in brood production. Varroa mites reproduce inside developing brood cells, so when there is no brood, the mites lose their ability to multiply. This pause isn’t something we’ve invented — it happens naturally in bee colonies during seasonal slowdowns or when a hive replaces its queen.

To create this pause, we temporarily prevented the queen from laying eggs using a purpose-built cage inside the hive. She remains part of the colony and is cared for by the worker bees. Over the following weeks, existing brood emerges and no new brood is started. The hive becomes temporarily brood-free.

Once the hive reaches this broodless stage, we can treat with oxalic acid, a naturally occurring substance that’s already present in honey. Treating at this point is important — without brood, almost all mites are exposed on adult bees, meaning a single, light treatment is usually effective. The queen is then released and normal brood production resumes.

At the same time, we also performed a split on one of the stronger hives. Splitting reduces mite pressure by interrupting brood cycles and spreading bees across colonies, while also allowing us to build up new hives from healthy stock. Like brood breaks, splits are a management tool that works with bee biology rather than against it.

During this period, we also reduced excess space in the hives and removed honey supers where needed. With fewer bees emerging during a brood pause, keeping the hive compact helps the bees defend against pests like small hive beetle and maintain control of their space.

None of these decisions are taken lightly, and none are permanent settings. Varroa management isn’t about finding a single perfect treatment — it’s about responding to conditions as they change: weather, colony strength, pest pressure, and season.

This is what “after varroa” looks like for us. Careful monitoring, measured responses, and choosing methods that balance effectiveness with bee welfare. It’s slower than quick chemical fixes, but it keeps the focus where it belongs — on healthy bees and resilient hives.

Varroa Wave Update:Adapting to Protect Our Bees

The arrival of varroa has changed beekeeping in Australia in ways many of us never expected. Like beekeepers across the country, we’ve been navigating an intense learning curve while trying to do what matters most—protecting our bees.

Over the past season, our region has experienced a significant varroa pressure wave. During this time, keeping colonies healthy and stable inside managed hives has been increasingly difficult. Bees that once thrived began to decline rapidly, even under close monitoring and intervention.

Treatments We Tried

Our first approach focused on softer and organic-style management options, combined with increased monitoring and hive management. These included:

• Increased hive inspections and brood checks

• Formic Acid

• Oxalic acid vapour treatments

• Brood breaks and hive strengthening strategies

• Drone brood removal

While these methods can be effective under lower mite pressure, the intensity of the varroa wave meant they were not enough on their own. Despite best efforts, some colonies continued to decline faster than they could recover.

The Reality of the Varroa Wave

One of the hardest parts of this period was watching strong colonies struggle to maintain balance. Varroa doesn’t just weaken bees—it disrupts the entire colony system. During peak pressure, even well-managed hives can reach a tipping point quickly.

This was not a matter of effort or care, but biology and scale. The mite load simply outpaced the control methods available at the time organically.

Making the Switch to Synthetic Treatments

After careful consideration, consultation with other beekeepers, and reviewing available data, we made the decision to introduce registered synthetic treatments where appropriate.

This decision wasn’t taken lightly. However, our responsibility as beekeepers is to reduce suffering and prevent colony collapse. In this context, switching to synthetics was about saving bees, not abandoning values.

All treatments were applied according to label directions and biosecurity requirements, including appropriate honey supers management to ensure food safety and compliance.

What This Means Going Forward

Varroa has made it clear that flexibility and honesty are essential in modern beekeeping. No single approach fits every situation, and adapting management strategies is now part of responsible hive stewardship.

We remain committed to:

• Bee health and welfare

• Careful, minimal-use treatment strategies

• Transparency with our customers and community

• Ongoing learning and collaboration with other local beekeepers

Why We Share This

We believe customers deserve honesty about how their honey is produced—especially during challenging times. Beekeeping isn’t static, and neither are the pressures facing bees.

Sharing both the tough seasons and the successful ones is part of building trust and supporting a more resilient beekeeping future.

Varroa has changed the rules, but our commitment to our bees has not.