Beekeepers will be charged an extra one cent per kilogram under a proposal to pay back funds from the Varroa mite eradication response.
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The recommendation put forward by industry will mean that any beekeeper that produce more than 1500kg of honey a year will see a rise from 4.6c/kg to 5.6c/kg in levies.
Danny Le Feuvre from the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council - the nation's peak body - said members agreed for the 1c/kg rise a month ago as there was not enough money in the coffers to pay back their share of the response.
Under the Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed (EPPR), in which AHBIC has been a signatory for more than a decade, there is a cost sharing responsibility to pay their share for an outbreak response under the deed, which is through levy funds.
'We didn't have enough money in the EPPR funds to pay for the response so we are proposing to raise that component of the levy to pay for it," Mr Le Feuvre said.
"The members have agreed to pay the extra 1c/kg until we have paid off our share and then we will reduce it,' he said.
The full cost of the response was $100 million but Mr Le Feuvre said the honey bee industry's share was 1.1 per cent ($1.1m).
They have 10 years to pay it back but he said the 1c/kg levy rise would see the industry pay their share back in a shorter period of time, of about six years.
"The variability is honey production, some years we produce more honey than other years," he said.
Mr Le Feuvre said the process now was to communicate to the federal department of agriculture about the proposed rise, it would follow with a consultation process with industry broadly, which would take six months before the levy was introduced.
Other options on the table were to increase the levy by much more to pay off the debt in a couple of years or have a smaller amount that would take a longer period of time.
"This is not locked in, we need the consultation phase to come, so it's good to talk about it now," he said.
Mr Le Feuvre said the national annual production was 20,000 tonnes from 2000 registered commercial beekeepers and 47,000 recreational beekeepers.
He said the levy only applied to those who produced more than 1500kg of honey.
"It's not equitable at the moment, as there are a lot of small producers that are not required to pay," he said.
"We have a structural issue that we need to fix ...we are in the process of reviewing the structure."
Mr Le Feuvre said no one was happy with the outcome but the industry was "desperate" to eradicate Varroa at all cost.
"We had a once in a lifetime chance to eradicate, we were not going to get that chance again and we had no choice but to try,' he said.
"There was an overwhelming vote from our membership in support to attempt to eradicate, but that fell away when we found it in Kempsey and then very shortly after then pulled the pin and went to management."
