Our work to design safer insecticides – particularly ones targeting honeybee pests (which was funded recently by Horticultural Innovations Australia) – has become more immediately topical overnight with a report (and followups 1 2) that the dreaded Varroa mite has been detected in beehives in Newcastle, near Sydney. Australia is one of the only countries left in the world where this pest has been kept at bay, and there are concerns that it is only a matter of time before the mite finds its way in and takes hold.

Yesterday Joel talked with Sarah McDonald on ABC Drive Sydney radio about the issue. You can listen here (5 min 15 s through to 15 min or so), and today talked with ABC Rural Hour (here, from 15 to 19 min). Tomorrow SBS are coming for an interview, so it’s an unusual flurry of media attention for the lab…it will probably add up to roughly Joel’s allotted 15 min of ‘fame’…