Manoa Beekeeper Michael Kliks first spotted this tiny mite in April of '07.

"I called Department of Agriculture within five minutes, and they were at my house within fifteen minutes, we all understood what we had on our hands."

The "Varroa Destructor" - a bee mite that can kill a 60-thousand bee colony in a matter of weeks.

"They transmit viruses they weaken the hive by sucking the blood," says Kliks.

For the last seventeen months the mites were found to have spread from Ewa to Mililani to Waimanalo...that is until yesterday.

"Now we're eighteen months into it, and it's happened."

The Department of Agriculture discovered four Varroa mites in a bee swarm trap near Hilo harbor.

"Now it's on the Big Island, and that's a disaster for agriculture," says Kliks. "Clearly the Department of Agriculture did not even attempt to contain it to the island of Oahu."

"When the infestation was discovered on Oahu we implemented an interisland quarantine to prevent live bees, dead bees ,used bee equipment between islands," says Lyle Wong, Department of Agriculture. "We've been trying our darndest not to let the bees move."

"Something happened and the mites got there," says Kliks.

He calls it a state emergency.

"It's gonna be a huge economic impact."

"Coqui frog is bad, nettle catepillar is bad, but nothing compares to what Varroa mite will do to our food supply."

"Avocadoes, guava, pumpkins, zuchinni."

In the last year, bee conlonies on Oahu have dropped from fifteen-hundred down to three-hundred. Kliks fears the same will happen on the Big Island.

"Very easy to criticise the department, that we did not do enough, I'm not sure what more we could have done," says Wong.

"If we loose the ability to transfer this pollen back and forth, agriculture is gonna suffer and we'll have low grade crops and farmers will give up," says Kliks.

Agriculture quarantine teams plan to immediately destroy all feral bee hives within a five mile radius of Hilo bay.

The state says the Varroa mite is a serious problem but does not warrant an emergency declaration by the Governor.

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