“It’s important for Canadian beekeepers to have that lifeline, in the event that we have catastrophic losses,” said Lorne Prins, vice-president of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission. 

“In all fairness, most producers will be able to identify both pros and cons when it comes to opening the borders, (but) it is absolutely important that we continue to look at the issue. It is in the best interest of the Canadian beekeeper to replace that stock from the United States in the event of a severe loss.”

The issue came before the House of Commons standing committee on agriculture in late April, with two members of the commission saying a 2013 risk assessment needs to be reviewed. That federal government assessment concluded there was a “high probability of introducing diseases and pests into Canada due to importation of honeybees from the continental United States.”

Jeremy Olthof, commission past-president, said a peer review found it was “based on confirmation bias, not fact.” The border should be reopened, specifically to Northern California, where many bee replacement package originate, said the Lacombe County producer.

As well, border measures are ineffective at keeping out pests such as varroa mite because they could easily cross into Canada on their own, Ron Greidanus, a beekeeper from Stettler and a commission director, told the ag committee.

“It is a fallacy to think that the … border we share with the United States is a wall or a force field,” Greidanus said. “It is a figment of human imagination. Pests and pathogens do not see it.”

Varroa mites are the major cause of hive failure, Prins said in an interview.

“We were over 50 per cent last year in the industry in Alberta and most of Canada was over 50 per cent,” he said, adding losses this winter appear to be lower. “Reports now are 20 to 30 per cent, so almost half of what we had last year.”

The efficacy of varroa miticides is starting to wane so producers fear the problem will worsen.

“The majority of our winter loss is tied to varroa, whether it is varroa directly or the viruses that follow a varroa infestation,” said Prins, who operates Gull Lake Honey Company in Lacombe County, with wife Alida.

“A varroa infestation in a beehive is comparable to a rat infestation in your home. You’re going to have health issues.”

Current regulations allow queens to be imported from Hawaii and California, but not package bees. Ag Canada lists only Australia, New Zealand and Chile as sources of packaged honeybee imports. Greidanus suggests that Canada work jointly with the U.S. to develop a North American bee strategy.

The 2013 report identified four main threats: resistant American foulbrood, varroa mites resistant to the miticide amitraz, small hive beetle and Africanized honeybees.

Greidanus said resistant American foulbrood and amitraz-resistant varroa mites both exist in Canada already, while small hive beetle and Africanized honeybees have failed to establish and thrive in Canada’s climate.

The post Open the border to replacement bee packages, say Alberta beekeepers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

After two terrible, no-good, very bad years, Alberta’s beekeepers are feeling a little more optimistic.

Poor weather severely reduced production in 2019, then came high overwintering losses, then the pandemic brought a maelstrom of troubles, and then more bad weather.

“Last year was a poor year, I would say overall, for beekeepers,” said Curtis Miedema, who raises bees near Barr­head. “It was just too wet and rainy throughout the year. So far this year, things are looking more promising.”

The closed border produced a lot of uncertainty around temporary foreign workers, who make up about two-thirds of the labour force in the bee sector.

“In the end, about two-thirds of the expected workers were able to get here,” said Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission. “It started the season late and with the new rules of workers having to quarantine when they got here, it just pushed everything back quite a bit.”

“It set our whole year back when we didn’t have the help we needed to start,” added Miedema, the commission’s vice-chair. “Even when they did arrive, they all had to go through the quarantine process. It held us up.”

And the window for catching up is narrow.

“You can’t finish that late because once the flowers are done and the bees are done foraging, you’re sort of finished your harvest,” he said. “It made everything more of a time crunch.”

A late spring added to last year’s woes, as did a wet and cool July in many areas as bees don’t forage as extensively under those conditions.

On top of all that was the frustration of trying to get replacement bees.

“With the high overwintering losses, both the commercial beekeepers and some of the hobby beekeepers rely on replacement bees, which get flown in from Australia and New Zealand generally,” said Phillips. “None of those bees came in because no planes were flying last spring.”

Some beekeepers suffered extreme losses (one lost upwards of 90 per cent of his hives) and about 25,000 colonies were lost from 2020 to 2021. (The commission’s 175 producers normally have about 25 million bees in nearly 300,000 colonies.)

About all everyone could do was soldier on.

“With the bad weather, no replacement bees and production going to fall off, some people put their time and energy into getting the production that they could, and ensuring their bees were going into fall as healthy as possible,” she said.

Better but not great

Although not back to normal, things are definitely looking up.

The two years of poor production drove up honey prices, which are about 20 per cent higher than they were two years ago.

Getting foreign workers was chaotic as the rules both here and in their home countries kept changing but it did happen.

“I was hearing from my beekeepers that at times, there were five or six federal ministries that might be contacting them at any different point in time, with different instructions,” said Phillips. Not everyone was on the same page.

“The effort to get workers here was incredible, but most did arrive.”

They were also able to bypass the three-day hotel quarantine thanks to a concerted effort by the province and industry.

“One of the companies that arranged flights from Mexico just turned itself inside out and went to the mat for all Prairie beekeepers,” said Phillips. “It was able to shift flights landing in Toronto to landing in Calgary. Then the other Prairie provinces were sending buses to pick them up.”

The followup COVID-19 testing was another hurdle to clear (the contractor underestimated the complexity of getting out to rural areas).

And replacement bees have started coming to Alberta — albeit only 20 per cent of what was ordered this year. The beekeepers’ commission is asking the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for an emergency exemption to try to bring bees in from northern California.

“We buy queens from there, so it is relatively safe. So far, it is saying no, but we’re still pushing,” said Phillips.

The commission is also pushing for a new business risk management program and while the Prairie provinces are on board, other provinces haven’t agreed yet, she said.

But weather- and honey production-wise, things are looking much better. It was a milder winter and the improved weather has continued into spring and early summer.

“I think people are more hopeful,” said Phillips. “It’s more optimistic not just in Alberta, but across the Prairies. Honey prices are still up, and the beekeepers are hoping the weather stays good.”

“We’ve had some really good weather and the bees have been building up well on the dandelion flow,” added Miedema. “Dandelions can be pretty hit or miss, but because we had the moisture and the time, the bees did really well on them.”

Alberta is the largest producer of honey in the country and the province’s beekeepers are a resilient lot, he said.

“They realize we have good years and bad years. When farms are just starting out, bad years are hard to take. But I definitely feel there’s a lot of optimism in the industry.”

The post Beekeepers got knocked down but they got up again appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The ag sector had feared border closures would keep out these workers and devastate sectors such as fruit and vegetable production. But Canadian beekeepers also rely on temporary foreign workers — about 1,500 are hired each year across the country.

“We estimated that about 10 to 15 per cent of workers were here already,” Aaron Toma, an official with the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, said March 18.

“The timing is terrible. It’s like last week and this week that the majority of them are going to come here.”

“It caused immediate concern for the beekeepers because any day, the weather will warm up and the bees will wake up, and then it gets really crazy,” added Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission.

Temporary foreign workers will have to self-quarantine for 14 days, and their employers will have to ensure proper sanitary and social distancing procedures are being followed.

Some beekeepers may experience delays in their honey season, since it is taking longer for their workers to arrive.

“So guys will have to downsize a lot, and they won’t have as many hives this season because it won’t be manageable without the labour,” said Toma.

Most temporary workers who work in beekeeping operations come from the Philippines, Mexico, and Central American countries.

“All the bigger operations, they need labour and there’s no one domestically that they can hire,” said Toma. “Without these temporary foreign workers, a lot of businesses would have had to shut down.”

Beekeepers are required to provide medical insurance, and some insurance companies are no longer covering workers if they become ill from COVID-19, leaving beekeepers to look for other ways to insure their workers.

“There’s still some wrinkles to be ironed out,” said Phillips.

Many beekeepers in the province have been hit hard by cool and rainy weather in recent years and have seen production fall sharply. Not being able to hire seasonal workers would have been a major blow, said Phillips.

“Some people would not recover, especially after the last two or three years,” she said.

The post Decision on temporary foreign workers a boost for Alberta beekeepers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

And that has some commercial beekeepers in the province facing a dire economic situation.

Most producers have substantially lower honey yields this year, said Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission.

That was borne out by a recent survey by the commission, which has 178 members whose 312,000 hives collectively produce about two-fifths of Canada’s honey.

“Every single one of the producers who responded is below the average of their three-year production of honey,” said Phillips. “The bulk of the people who responded are 50 per cent or more below. It’s a huge concern for everybody — their livelihood depends on being able to sell the honey.”

Conditions were poor in both spring and summer. May had a period of smoky weather, and July and August were cool and wet. Bees did not die off, but only produced enough honey to sustain themselves.

“Generally, the hives look good,” said Phillips. “They’re just not making honey in the kind of quantity they normally would.

“They need the sun to be warm and generate body heat. They don’t like to fly when it’s raining.”

But it isn’t just the poor crop that is hurting beekeepers.

The companies that purchase honey have set a really low price for honey this year.

At Apimondia, the world’s largest bee conference (which was held in Montreal last month), Phillips heard that companies were lowballing Canadian honey producers because they could purchase honey from other countries for a lower cost.

“The price is low this year, so all the packers follow suit,” she said. “The big concern this year is half the amount of honey, which means half your income. I’m not sure some of the producers are going to be able to recover from that.”

Jeremy Olthof, president of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, operates Tees Bees near Lacombe.

“We’re doing a little better than most guys in the province, but we were well below average,” he said.

“Early on in the summer, it was looking pretty bad and we ended up getting a little bit of a surprise and we ended up getting some late honey, which doesn’t always happen. I’m still counting up my numbers, but I will probably beat what I expected. (However) it’s still going to be 150,000 pounds less than normal.”

Olthof takes a quarter of his bees down to the south for pollination, so that will help his cash flow.

“With the price right now, it’s not the best,” he said. “There’s talk it might go up a little bit with companies that buy strictly Canadian honey. It might be tough for them to find honey, so that might drive the price up a bit.

“(But) with the price and the crop the way it is, guys won’t be able to pay their bills right now. It is a tough one.”

The northern area of the province fared the worst, but the south didn’t do great either because of dry conditions.

“Down there, it’s a crappy year, but it’s not a wreck,” said Olthof.

Many beekeepers in the south also do hybrid canola pollination, which is another source of income. However, some southern Alberta beekeepers have started feeding their bees early for the winter because dry conditions this year reduced the supply of forage to feed on.

Up north, Ryan Hicks of Hicks Honey Farm has heard some sad tales from his neighbours.

“The summer that we had was not conducive to a lot of flight,” said Hicks, who raises bees at McLennan. “The highest number that I’ve heard is 80 per cent loss of a normal crop. More typical is 50 per cent loss.”

In the Peace Country, it was generally around 15 C or 16 C most days, which was not hot enough for bees to want to leave their hives. While daylight hours may be longer, the bees still didn’t get out and forage because it was too cold for them.

“We had bees out on clover fields. Typically, that’s where you might expect a bigger crop,” said Hicks. “Our operation ended up with 60 per cent of a normal (honey) crop.”

In some parts of the Peace, beekeepers encountered European foulbrood, a bacterial infection infamous for its damage to hives and persistence of its spores. It is normally found during damp conditions.

“Lots of our neighbours go to B.C. and to the Fraser Valley, where it rains every day,” said Hicks. “They will have it in their operation, but as soon as they get back to the Prairies, it should clear up. This year, it dragged out longer than normal. Guys were fighting European foulbrood throughout the spring and their bees weren’t building up as well as they should have.”

Another complication for the beekeepers’ economic situation is that Agricultural Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) programs don’t work well for them.

A lot of beekeepers have stopped using the insurance programs because they are expensive and the thresholds for loss are so high that a beekeeper might as well be out of business, said Phillips.

“When we did the survey a few years ago, about 70 per cent of the people who participated did use the safety programs, but now only 20 per cent do,” she said.

Olthof bought AgriStability coverage for many years, and only got a payout once.

“It’s just not worth it,” he said. “Guys aren’t paid anything on these bad years. The programs are up for review and we want to be at the table to make it a little more effective for beekeepers.”

The commission officials will be meeting with Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen this month and asking for a review of AFSC’s programs for beekeepers.

They’re also hoping for some sort of federal assistance.

“Usually when you are in a situation like this where there are industry-wide losses, you can get something arranged,” said Phillips. “I don’t quite know what that would look like. We’d be looking for some compensation for beekeepers.”

“My bigger worry is for next winter,” added Olthof. “If guys can’t pay their bills and they’re not investing for winter, and we have a bad winter, that’s a bigger worry.

“If guys have a wreck over the winter, and they can’t pay their bills and they have high losses, we’re going to see our hive numbers drop significantly.”

The post Cool weather, price drop hits Alberta honey producers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

We were very interested in the Pest Management Regulatory Agency’s report that came out the same day as the news about the neonic ban. The PMRA report showed that bee kill incidents in Ontario were down 70 per cent in 2014. Approximately 72 per cent of all the bee deaths are attributed to three farms.

The Ontario government also says they’d like to see a reduction in overwintering losses, but they don’t outline how they’d like that to happen.

Are there differences between the Alberta and the Ontario beekeeping industries?
The biggest difference between the two is that Alberta is a commercial industry while Ontario is a hobby industry. That’s not saying one is better than the other.

I would like to believe that in Alberta, we’re a little more progressive, a little more in tune with current practices and changes in our industry. We communicate very well with each other.

In Ontario, the industry is spread all over the place and the Ontario Beekeepers Association is very much in a position of power. Some of the commercial beekeepers in Ontario have left the Ontario Beekeepers Association and have formed the Independent Commercial Beekeepers Organization.

Why do Alberta beekeepers feel so strongly about this?
I think everybody’s in agreement that reduced usage of pesticide is a greater good. Better management practices are a benefit. It was the way the government went about this decision. It wasn’t based on science.

(Grain and corn) farmers in Ontario are beyond livid right now. The Ontario beekeepers are not indicative of the Canadian bee industry.

What has Alberta done to reduce bee losses?
Four or five years ago, we were having losses of 40 to 50 per cent. The beekeeping practices we had been using had been used for 10 to 15 years, and they weren’t working as well as before.

We were slow in realizing that. We were losing bees to varroa mites, nosema, and harsh winters. When you combine all these stresses on the bees, it’s really hard for them.

We looked at a number of different strategies to solve our problem. Eventually, Alberta Beekeepers Commission sat down with government, other beekeepers, and the seed companies in southern Alberta, and we developed a hive health program that surveyed the province and educated beekeepers on what they needed to do to monitor disease and pest levels.

Over the four years of that program, we saw a huge difference in our wintering losses and the numbers of hives we had. In 2006, we had 225,000 hives in the province. Now we have around 300,000.

The post Alberta opts for better management to reduce bee deaths appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We’re not being impacted by neonics. If we are, it’s very subtly,” said Grant Hicks, president of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission. “We’re not seeing any damage to our hives.”

While beekeepers recognize some farm chemicals can have a negative impact on honeybees, they say going to the courts isn’t the way to resolve concerns about neonicotinoids.

“The Ontario Beekeepers Association has taken a very active political stance on it, whereas Alberta and some other provinces have the feeling that it is better to work together to come to a resolution,” said Kevin Nixon, an Innisfail beekeeper and vice-chair of the Canadian Honey Council.

• More from the Alberta Farmer Express: Ont. ag minister mandated to cut farmers’ neonic use

“For the past couple of years, it almost seemed like the Ontario beekeepers were speaking on behalf of the Canadian industry. It feels like in Ontario, they were almost pitting farmer against farmer and beekeepers against growers. We have a good relationship with our growers here in Alberta and we don’t want to take a negative position on it.”

In Ontario, two large honey producers have filed a $450-million lawsuit against Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, claiming use of neonics caused bee deaths and reproduction problems leading to reduced honey production and quality. While the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association is not part of the lawsuit, it issued a statement saying, “we support any effort that could help beekeepers.”

The chemical — widely used to treat corn, soybeans and canola seed — has been linked to large-scale bee kills in Ontario. The main issue is contaminated dust from neonic seed coating on corn planted using vacuum seeders. But canola growers use air seeders and that’s likely why Alberta, home to more than 45 per cent of the country’s hives, isn’t seeing the same issue, experts say.

“We’re using the same products on a lot more acres and we’re not seeing the same problems that they’re seeing in Ontario,” said Greg Sekulic, an agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada. “I think some of their attention is misfocused.”

Since the controversy erupted — following bee kills in Ontario in 2012 — chemical companies and equipment manufacturers have dealt with the dust issue, said Nixon. Moreover, less than one per cent of all the hives in Canada were affected by neonics, he said.

• Neonics ban wouldn’t immediately reverse bee declines

“In the big picture, when you look at the claims, it’s not as significant as it is made out to be,” said Nixon. “A loss is a loss. But on the flip side, if neonics are lost, what is the alternative that growers have to use?”

Hicks said he is reluctant to take on the chemical companies because he uses chemicals to control varroa mites.

“We knock those mites down with chemicals,” he said. “We have to work with the same companies that the Ontario beekeepers are suing, to keep our hives alive. To be perfectly clear, there are no good insecticides in a beekeeper’s world, except for the ones we want to use.”

And bee losses in Ontario shouldn’t be blamed solely on neonics — varroa mites, weather, and poor nutrition all contribute to bee kills, said Hicks.

“When products are used according to the label, we can coexist nicely,” he added.

The post Alberta beekeepers oppose Ontario neonic lawsuit appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.