It is a tiny parasitic mite the size of a pinhead, which lives its life attached to the body of an Asian honey bee, and both are on Australia's most wanted list.The pests were discovered recently in north Queensland, and now the foreign raiders are being hunted by biosecurity officers in an intensive three-month operation around Townsville.But rather than guns and other weapons, the frontline soldiers in search of the enemy carry large "swoop nets" which look like they were designed to catch pretty butterflies.Biosecurity officers from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries are armed with the nets as they seek to protect Australian horticulture from the significant potential threat the Asian honey bee and its parasitic companion the Varroa jacobsoni mite could pose.The officers are examining flowers, trees, garden beds and other sites in a 10-kilometre radius from the port, to check for unwelcome feral foreign bees, after a hive of several thousand was found at the Port of Townsville.Five Varroa jacobsoni mites were also found, and experts suspect the hive had been at the port for up to two years.The Varroa jacobsoni mite. 
 Photo: Queensland Department of Agriculture and FisheriesThe Varroa jacobsoni mite is related to the Varroa destructor mite, which has inflicted severe damage on the honey bee industry in the United Kingdom and has been described as the world's most devastating honey bee pest.Varroa mites can severely compromise honey production as they live on the bees, multiply and lead to deformities in bees which means they cannot forage as effectively.Although conditions were different to those in Australia, biosecurity experts have warned that in Papua New Guinea - which is home to both Asian honey bees and European honey bees - the Varroa destructor mite switched from the Asian honey bee to the European honey bee.An Asian honey bee on the left, European honey bee on the right. Photo: Queensland Department of Agriculture and FisheriesIn addition to producing honey the European honey bee also performs another crucial role in Australian agriculture. Cherry growers, apple producers and other farmers use the bees to help pollinatate crops.Ashley Bunce from the Queensland department of agriculture, also the director of the Varroa mite response, said field officers were searching for Asian honey bees within a 10 kilometre radius of the Port of Townsville.The incursion was being taken very seriously by authorities, he said."Our priority is to make sure that we can find any Asian honey bees in the Townsville area and destroy those, so we can eradicate this mite from Australia," he said.Dr Bunce said surveillance teams had already searched an area covering a two-and-a-half kilometre radius from the port, and had not discovered any more Asian honey bees."There's a number of different techniques that they use, one of them is swoop netting. They carry a big butterfly net and they go around looking for flowering plants and there's certain flowering plants they know that these bees are more attracted to," he said.They are also using feeding stations installed near flowering plants that are filled with a solution to attract bees which are then trapped.Trevor Weatherhead, executive director of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council, said: "We need to make sure that the Asian honey bee doesn't establish itself in Townsville, so that we then don't in turn have the mite."Jessica Lye, from the group AUSVEG, said the Asian honey bee's arrival in Townsville was a concern. "We do see this as a priority, in terms of doing something about this hive and carrying out the surveillance," she said.