Beekeeping in Western Australia: registration, varroa and swarm calls

Registration is compulsory in every Australian state and territory, hobbyist or commercial, and it starts at your first hive. There is no backyard exemption anywhere in the country. In Western Australia you register with WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development under the Biosecurity and Agriculture Management Act 2007 (WA), and a registration runs for three years before it needs renewing.

• Everyone keeping honey bees in Western Australia must register with DPIRD, and registration runs for three years.
• You are assigned a hive brand that must be applied to every box, brood chambers and honey supers alike.
• Renewal notices are issued eight weeks before expiry and renewals go through the Brands Online Portal.

Every state has adopted the Australian Honey Bee Industry Biosecurity Code of Practice, a nationally consistent set of minimum standards covering hive construction, how often you inspect, and what you are obliged to report. Registration is what makes you reachable when something is found near you.

Western Australia remains free of varroa. It is the only mainland state where that is still true, and its border controls on bees and used beekeeping equipment are correspondingly strict.

National eradication was abandoned in September 2023, and the transition to management programme ended in February 2026. That changes what catching a swarm means: a swarm is no longer just free bees, it is an unscreened colony arriving next to yours.

Collecting a swarm in Western Australia means bringing in bees that have never seen varroa, which is exactly why bringing hives, used equipment or bees in from interstate is restricted. Take swarms locally and do not import your way to a second colony.

Western Australia swarm reports peak in October, and 85% of everything reported here arrives between September and December. Australia's season is the inverse of the northern one, so advice written for a northern spring is six months out by the time it reaches you.

Reports have come in from 30 separate statistical areas across Western Australia, so this is not one busy suburb standing in for a state.

We pass every reported swarm to nearby beekeepers by text or email, at no cost and with no association membership required. You set the area you are willing to travel and the size of swarm you will take.

The 199 Western Australia reports above are not a marketing figure. Each one came from someone who found bees and wanted a beekeeper to collect them, and with 12 of us across the state, most of those calls have very little competition.