A new varroa mite control area is expected to be created at the Waitaki River in a bid to buy time until the autumn release of a new biological control.
The bee-killing mite was found in North Canterbury on Wednesday, two years after arriving in Nelson and eight years after being found in the North Island, and industry leaders were moving to try to contain it for as long as possible.
HortResearch has developed a biological fungus, Metarhizium, which has achieved varroa kill rates of up to 95%, but it would not be available for the industry until next autumn.
Federated Farmers bees section chairman John Hartnell said he would meet Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry biosecurity staff on Monday, but he believed the Waitaki River was the best geographically barrier left.
Many apiarists have their hives in the honey dew forests from autumn but in spring they bring them on to the arable plains of Mid and South Canterbury to fertilise small-seed crops.
If MAF agreed to the Waitaki River being a control area, Mr Hartnell said the public would be asked not to take bees, bee-keeping equipment or honey over the river without a permit in case infested bees or mites caught a ride.
"It's the last geographical line that we've got," he said.
The alert was raised on Wednesday when an apiarist found infested hives at Woodend and another beekeeper also found mite-infested hives at Ashley Forest and Mt Thomas.
North Canterbury beekeepers spent Thursday and yesterday determining how widespread the infestation was.
Mr Hartnell was not expecting good news.
"We will probably have reasonably widespread infestation in that area of North Canterbury."
It was only a matter of time before the lower half of the South Island was also infested, he said.
HortResearch scientist Mark Goodwin said Metarhizium would be available to any beekeeper that wanted it.
An Australian company and partnerwere producing commercial quantities and Dr Goodwin said the longer the fungus was left in the hive the more successful it appeared to be in killing the mites.
Varroa mites would kill all the bees in a hive within a year and the loss of bees threatened New Zealand's billion-dollar horticulture industry which relied on bees for pollination.
Dr Goodwin said chemicals were available to control varroa but they were costly and could not be used by organic honey producers.
