Dr Doug Somerville shakes several hundred bees into a "Sugar Shaking Bees" field test jar, which will be topped with a mesh grated lid. The mesh is too narrow to let bees out but easily takes in a spoonful of icing sugar. Roll the bees around, shake the icing sugar out onto a flat surface, and if mites were present, they'd spinkle out with the sugar and be easily spotted. Once the test is done, the bees can be tipped, sugar and all, back on top of the hives.

If two-thirds of what you eat can be attributed to the pollination activity of honey bees, what are the implications of a pest capable of decimating their populations?

"Australia is the last major beekeeping country free from Varroa destructor or Varroa mites, the most serious pests of honey bees, which have now spread world-wide," said NSW DPI apiarist, Dr Doug Somerville.

"Once they arrive, they are extremely difficult to eradicate from a country - it’s never been done."

Varroa, the "foot and mouth" of the bee world, has had the most significant impact on production beekeeping in the 20th Century and has also wiped out wild bee populations.

Within two to three years, if left unattended, a colony will die from an initial infestation of one mite.

At risk within the ecological and food consumption chains - the estimated value of honey bees to the Australian economy, mainly through their value as pollination agents - $1.7 billion.

Australian honey attracts premiums on world export markets because chemical use in Australian hives is amongst the lowest in the world.

That will change if the relentless spread of Varroa ends here.

Varroa mites have now arrived in New Zealand, previously the last remaining unaffected country.

Pollination activity and service by honey bees is largely unpaid and undervalued by horticultural and agricultural industries.

Some examples of the many crops benefiting from honey bees include clover, lucerne, canola, cotton, apples, and cherries.