“We kept hearing anecdotally that these Californian honeybees were surviving with way fewer treatments. I wanted to test them rigorously and understand the driving force behind what the beekeepers were seeing,” said Genesis Chong-Echavez, a UCR graduate student and lead author of the study, in an article from the university.

WHY IT MATTERS: Varroa mites can devastate Canadian beekeepers’ hives, and go-to control methods have become less effective, leading producers to look for new methods to protect honeybees.

Varroa mites are an invasive parasite that has plagued North American beekeepers since the late 1980s. The mites weaken the bees by feeding on their fat stores, and also can carry viruses. Varroa mites are a consistent contender among the top four causes of winter bee loss in Canada, as noted by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.

Chong-Echavez’s team found bee colonies led by locally-raised Californian hybrid honeybee queens had about 68 per cent fewer mites, on average, than hives with commercial queens.

While these populations were not entirely varroa mite-free, they were more than five times less likely to hit the threshold at which chemical treatment is necessary.

Local bee larvae attract fewer mites

The resistant bees came from a genetically-mixed population established in southern California — often from “feral” colonies living in trees, the UC Riverside article said. They were found to have mixed ancestry steming from African, eastern European, Middle Eastern and western European genetics.

Varroa mites must enter bee brood cells to reproduce. In lab experiments with developing honeybee larvae, researchers found mites were less attracted to the locally-adapted bees than commercial bees.

“What surprised me most was the differences showed up even at the larval stage,” Chong-Echavez said. “This suggests the resistance mechanism may go deeper than some kind of behaviour and may be genetically built into the bees themselves.”

The research team next intends to investigate the signals that may make the locally-adapted larvae less attractive to mites.

The post Southern California honeybees show resistance to varroa mites appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

On that day, backbench Conservative MP Arnold Vierson — who represents the Peace River-Westlock riding in Alberta — stood next to members of the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission to highlight obstacles facing the honey sector.

Those included some now well-known problems that have seriously cut at honeybee stocks and hurt producers’ bottom lines in recent years, as well as a brand new parasite threat looming — tropilaelaps mites, or t-mites.

WHY IT MATTERS: Packaged bee trade, and whether or not the U.S. should be allowed as a source, has been a hot topic among a beekeeping sector where persistent production problems have pushed some farms to the edge of viability. Beekeepers in favour of the idea aren’t backing down.

Parts of Canada, including Manitoba, have suffered a string of hard winters where many colonies failed to survive. The industry is embroiled in an increasingly difficult battle with varroa mites, with products previously used to control the parasites no longer delivering the same results.

Linked to those, the debate over bulk packaged bees from the U.S. has roared to the forefront in recent years. Without replacement stock, beekeepers with poor bee survival often split hives, something that limits their honey harvest that year.

Some beekeepers want the U.S. border thrown back open, after decades of restriction due to pest and disease risk. Earlier this year, the CFIA shut down a list of industry proposals that had been submitted in the hopes of convincing the agency that those pest risks could be mitigated. That, in turn, frustrated beekeepers, who felt the agency had dismissed them out of hand.

That same day, Vierson brought a new motion forward in the House of Commons, the M-22 Honeybee Importation and Regulation motion.

Vierson’s motion would put five recommendations on the table for the CFIA:

• restore free trade of honeybee packages from safe zones in the United States (something that industry had argued for in its rejected list of proposals),
• develop a clear, consistent methodology for assessments,
• work with beekeepers to review and update the national farm-level biosecurity standard,
• partner with Animal Health Canada to create a tropilaelaps mite emergency plan, and
• improve and speed up the approval process of management tools for bee pests, such as varroa mites.

Drama on honeybee trade

The blanket ban on U.S. packaged bees doesn’t make sense, argued Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation. Awram said the CFIA has held the line on the packaged bee ban since 1987, despite mounting evidence that there are significant risks from bees brought in from the list countries that the CFIA does allow.

“They want to say the U.S.A. is dangerous, yet they are allowing from places that are easily 10 times, if not 100 times, more dangerous,” he said.

The cross-section of the beekeeping sector that stood with Vierson Nov. 25 suggests that perhaps Canada should halt packaged bee shipments from these designated safe countries. That’s partly from concern over emerging pest threats, and partly to underline what they see as CFIA’s inconsistency.

They note beekeepers are free to import queen bees from approved zones in the U.S., which suggests risk can be appropriately managed.

The CFIA, meanwhile, argues that the risk of queen bees is a much different thing than bringing in packages that contain hive material. The industry’s rejected submission, which would have set up trade from select areas of the U.S., also needed zoning approval from U.S. officials, the CFIA said in a summary report earlier this year.

Danger from abroad

The current list of approved countries doesn’t take proper account of t-mite risk, the motion’s advocates say, nor do they seem to acknowledge that countries on the approved list aren’t varroa-free. Australia, one of the last bastions against varroa, had its defences breached in 2022. In 2023, authorities decided that eradication of the mite was no longer achievable.

The current list includes:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Chile
• Italy, and
• formerly included Ukraine

Australia is only 93 kilometres from tropilaelaps-infected Papua New Guinea at the closest point between the two countries’ nearest borders, those in favour of M-22 worry.

The packages from the approved regions are also simply not very good for Canadian production, Awram said. Mismatched seasons and 16-hour flights take their toll on the bees, killing many of them before reaching Canadian shores.

“The danger from outside of North America is far greater than any benefit we get,” he said.

“We import a very tiny amount of stock from Australia, New Zealand, Chile (and) Italy. The stuff we get from those areas, it’s poor for a number of reasons. Some of it is the genetics. The genetics from those regions just are not well-adapted for what we have.”

Awram has verified at least one example of high varroa mite content in packages from New Zealand.

“The lowest was at four per cent varroa in there, which means four mites per 100 bees in a package — up to 20 per cent. According to the regulations from CFIA, it shouldn’t be more than one per cent, but this is the way it is.

“It’s just a bad idea from a biological point of view to be pulling (packages) out of the southern hemisphere.”

The promise of U.S. bees

The situation would change if beekeepers were allowed to bring their packages north from the U.S., he said. They would arrive much faster, and in trucks, which allow greater control over shipping conditions.

“You can have somebody who actually knows how to take care of them watching the temperature and things like that,” Awram said. “This is what was done for decades and decades before 1987. They were brought up by truck, and we never had (these) sort of transport problems.”

CFIA report creates bad blood

Some beekeepers — Awram included — saw the CFIA’s denial of their proposals earlier this year as the final straw.

Along with set safe zones for trade, industry associations across Canada had pitched measures like transport inspections upon entering Canada, current import conditions of queens being expanded for packaged bees, using of best management practices to limit risk and evaluating the impact on inter-provincial movement.

The CFIA, however, responded that “after careful evaluation of all input received, the CFIA concluded that no feasible, scientifically-supported (sic) mitigation measures are currently available to bring all identified risks within acceptable levels,” an Aug. 6 agency statement read.

“As a result, Canada will maintain its current import restrictions and will not permit the importation of honeybee packages from the United States at this time.”

Awram — who maintains the recommendations were based on sound science — sees the feedback as evidence that the CFIA cannot be engaged on a scientific level.

“We’ve been fighting this non-scientific nonsense forever. They did this new risk assessment and despite the fact that there’s plenty of scientific evidence to the contrary, they still made the same claims.

“We’re not talking about an issue that is going to be solved by showing the scientific data or being logical. There is a block somewhere in the CFIA,” he said.

Industry ban not a done deal yet

Those who appeared in Ottawa in November, however, don’t represent the whole honey sector in Canada.

Ian Steppler of the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, who serves on the Canadian Honey Council’s (CHC) tropilaelaps mite committee, said the CFIA has been actively working to minimize beekeepers’ woes. He has been among those representing beekeeper interests with the CFIA on several fronts.

Manitoba’s official beekeeping organization was among those pushing the CFIA to reassess risks posed by U.S. bee shipments in the face of high winter losses.

Steppler says not every beekeeper will want to cease importing packages under the current protocols.

“There’s also a lot of beekeepers who will say, ‘Well, we utilize these packages from overseas to make up replacement losses, which is important to our industry, and if (the countries are) following all the surveillance protocols and preventative measures to ensure the pest doesn’t get in their country, then that should be enough to mitigate the risk.’”

Although the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission have made their stance on these packages known, any industry-wide decision to push for reducing or stopping the import of bee packages from CFIA-approved countries will depend on what the various industry organizations say at their annual general meetings, Steppler noted.

“Our (MBA) meeting is in March and we’re going to be presenting that question to our membership to see where they would like to land on that position,” he said.

Awareness efforts pay off

Connie Phillips, Alberta Beekeepers Commission executive director, believes the press conference, in addition to the delegation’s well-attended Honey on the Hill reception, broadened awareness of the plight of beekeepers in Canada.

“In addition to what Arnold put forward, we had brought materials and information to that event that we could hand out or people could take away. That just reiterated what Arnold was presenting in his motion.”

The delegation, which Philips was a part of, also met with the Conservative Party of Canada caucus, officials at the Mexican embassy and representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture . She believes these meetings were fruitful.

Phillips is optimistic about the future of the Canadian beekeeping industry but urges mindfulness when planning the future.

“I think they’re just really on the cusp of a big paradigm shift in the industry and a needed one. So that’s good. But I also think we have to be careful how we go about it so that you have time to grow into that change, rather than just ripping the Band-Aid off all at once.”

The post Canadian beekeepers call for regulatory accountability appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“We are very concerned about another mite coming in with the potential to totally devastate our industry and cause significant problems,” said Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation.

The federation called a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday to highlight the rise of the tropilaelaps mite (colloquially referred to as the “t-mite”).

The t-mite – which feed on developing bees and serve as a vector for viruses — has not yet been detected in Canada. However it’s been reported in Russia, throughout Asia and in Papua New Guinea. Papau New Guinea is 93 kilometres away from major bee trade partner Australia. Bee experts also warn the mite is headed for Europe.

Awram said the combination of the t-mite and the varroa mite – presently the industry’s most destructive disease pest — would be calamitous.

“We’ve already been suffering considerable problems with bee health because of our long winters,” he said. “A lot of it is in relation to another mite that’s been here for some time, but we are seeing massive bee losses overnight.”

Keeping the t-mite out of Canada

Keeping the mite out of Canada may require limiting trade exposure to infected countries. Alberta Beekeepers Commission President Curtis Miedema called on the federal government to prioritize policy that could help stem this tide.

“We’re hoping to see the government intervene and stop the imports of bees from offshore,” Meidema said. “We feel like North America needs to become a stronghold and keep this mite out.”

Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen has brought a motion to Parliament to address t-mites and a range of other trials facing beekeepers. He said the U.S. is already testing for the mite and searching trade vessels such as container ships.

“We’re hoping that the Canadian government can do something similar: monitor for it and work with the Americans so that we can keep this mite out of North America,” he said.

The motion proposes to restore free trade for honey bee package imports from regional safe zones in the U.S., to prepare an emergency response plan for t-mite, and other measures.

Vierson suggested the development of a North American bee strategy that would coordinate U.S. and Canadian efforts.

The post Canadian beekeepers warn of advancing tropilaelaps mite appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In late 2024, the agency opened the door to potential risk mitigation suggestions, following a push from some corners of the beekeeping sector. While still contentious among honey producers, several beekeeping organizations had been pushing for the CFIA to again allow packaged bee imports from the U.S., citing significant winter losses, difficultly in sourcing replacement stock and new knowledge gained since the last official full risk assessment back in 2013.

U.S. packaged bees haven’t been allowed into Canada since the ’80s due to issues such as resistant American foulbrood, small hive beetle, varroa mites and Africanized genetics.

The CFIA’s consultation ended Jan. 31, 2025.

In a recent summary document, the CFIA said that, after analyzing the submitted risk mitigation proposals, the measures would be insufficient.

“The CFIA does not have a duty of care to protect the economic interests of stakeholders,” the document read. “The CFIA’s regulatory mandate under the Health of Animals Act and regulations is to help protect Canadian animal health, which includes the health of the Canadian honey bee population.”

Submissions included a suggested limited regional trade strategy, an evaluation of the impact on inter-provincial movement, a pilot project to import from Northern California, risk mitigation for all identified hazards, transport inspections upon entering Canada, using current import conditions of queens for the importation of packages and the utilization best management practices post-importation.

The CFIA’s comprehensive import risk analysis “clearly demonstrated scientifically” the risks the proposals presented, read the agency response, which is available on the CFIA website.

In several cases, the CFIA noted, proposals had to do with further research rather than active risk mitigation measures. Others, the agency dismissed as lacking in robust scientific backing or said they did not properly address the risk in question.

Glacier FarmMedia will be following up on this story in following weeks.

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ApiSave Health, the brainchild of ApiSave Bee Health Sciences out of Port Coquitlam, B.C., has gotten Health Canada’s approval as a veterinary health product (VHP). The key ingredient of the product, a hops-based organic plant extract, has been added to Health Canada’s list of permitted substances.

Why it matters: ApiSave hopes to eventually hit the market with a pesticide against common bee threats, but first decided to focus on the less cumbersome veterinary health product approval.

“This is a major milestone for our company,” wrote Russ Crawford, vice-president of business development with ApiSave, in an email.

ApiSave Health is intended to boost bees’ immune systems.

It’s a needed product, the company argues, pointing to widespread bee colony losses throughout Canada, the United States and elsewhere.

According to the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists, which has reported on winter bee colony losses since 2007, average losses have averaged 32.2 to 45.5 per cent in the last four years. In 2022, losses were almost twice the long-term average.

This spring, the United States in particular posted serious bee losses. Survey results shared by the Honey Bee Health Coalition noted that, of the 702 beekeepers canvassed, mid-sized operations (50 to 500 colonies) averaged 54 per cent colony loss from June 2024 to February 2025.

Commercial operations (over 500 colonies) reported 62 per cent loss on average.

Future pesticide applications

ApiSave claims the extract is also able to control foulbrood pathogens and varroa mites, both major thorns in the sides of beekeepers.

The company hopes to one day market their extract in a second product based on that premise.

For now, however, approval is limited to the company’s health booster. The regulatory fate of that eventual pesticide, coined with the name ApiSave Varroa, will be in the hands of Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

The company recently placed first in a pitch night held by Edmonton-based Startup TNT. Winners of the competition typically win around $200,000 in investment funding.

In a recent interview with the Manitoba Co-operator, Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, expressed cautious optimism over ApiSave’s potential for his sector.

“The toolkit for beekeepers is getting so precariously low, any introduction of a product that has a semblance of effectiveness is going to be welcomed by beekeepers,” he said.

The post New bee health product receives federal approval appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

In 2024, the Alberta Beekeepers Commission had 160 commercial producers, said Renata Labuschagne, tech transfer program lead with ABC.

“To be an eligible producer, a beekeeper needs to have 100 or more colonies,” Labuschagne said during a webinar hosted by Adrienne Herron with the Alberta Agrisystems Living Lab.

About 319,243 colonies were registered with ABC in 2024. In 2023, Alberta produced 37 million pounds of honey, which equals 40 per cent of all honey produced in Canada.

A great deal of revenue also comes from beekeepers who do contract pollination.

“On average, 75,000 colonies go into hybrid seed production annually. Contract pollination by our Alberta honeybees is valued at about $5 billion in additional harvest value,” Labuschagne said.

Honey exports bring in a significant amount of revenue.

“The United States is the largest export market at just over 50 per cent, and the second is Japan,” she said.

The three strategic priorities for ABC are honeybee health, market position and profile of Alberta honey, she said.

Honeybee health is the number one issue affecting the beekeeping industry.

“Overwinter losses for the past 10 years have averaged about 28 per cent. That is high,” she said.

These losses cost the industry an average of $25.2 million annually. To compensate for these losses, beekeepers must buy new packages of bees or split colonies to produce more bees.

“Since 2017, production of honey has been declining because of the increased mortality overwintering losses. In 2020, 2021 and 2022, overwintering losses were extremely high, the highest in the last few years,” said Labuschagne.

“In some regions, beekeepers lost about an average of 60 per cent of their bees,” she said.

The number one threat to honeybee health is the varroa mite, which is like a tick for honeybees. Beekeepers must also deal with climate change, as well as weather and climate in general.

Some years are extremely hot, wet or dry, and these factors impact honeybee health. Poor nutrition is associated with climate, while pesticides can affect honeybee health.

“The other issue impacting the industry is evolving market demands. There’s been an increase of pesticides in honey, and this is changing the maximum residue limits of some countries. They are requesting a change in the maximum residue limits, and that impacts beekeepers because they must deal with that. Japan is one of the countries that has changed maximum residue limits and now beekeepers must try to achieve that, as well as a myriad of sustainability goals from different buyers.

Canada also has issues around seasonal labour.

“Most Albertan beekeepers rely a lot on seasonal workers that come from many different countries, and they have a driver’s licence from their countries,” she said.

Commercial insurers have changed their practices and now refuse to provide vehicle insurance to workers that come from overseas.

“Many times, the beekeepers are unable to get insurance for those seasonal workers so they can drive the vehicles,” said Labuschagne.

There’s also a mixed ability to obtain Alberta Health cards for seasonal worker, she said.

Labuschagne is involved with the Alberta tech transfer program at ABC.

The tech transfer program focusses on education, extension and research.

The education portion involves putting on workshops, webinars, courses and on-farm training for beekeepers.

“We provide educational programs to transfer that knowledge to bridge that gap from science to practice in the field,” she said. The team also teaches integrated pest management on producers’ farms.

For research, the key focuses are hive health, pollination and ensuring Alberta honey is viewed by consumers and industry as safe, pure and healthy. ABC collaborates on bee research projects with Olav Rueppell, a professor in the Faculty of Sciences-Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta, as well as Shelley Hoover from the University of Lethbridge, and Steve Pernal, a bee researcher from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, stationed at Beaverlodge. The commission is also involved in applied research with the government of Alberta. The extension side is the one area where ABC is very active.

“We create and deliver extensions services, resources that address major trends, issues and knowledge gaps related to beekeeping in Alberta. Our main extension project is called the colony health monitoring service. This is a disease monitoring service that we do across the province. We work with the Alberta beekeepers and we go visit their operations and we sample their colonies three times a year if they’re pollinators, twice if they’re non-pollinators,” she said.

ABC also samples for diseases, pathogens, and viruses. For years, they have carried on the mite monitoring campaign, encouraging beekeepers to monitor and look for mites in their colonies.

The Alberta Beekeepers are joining the Pollinator Corridor Initiative, a project which started in the U.S. Alberta beekeepers have put on a resolution to join this initiative, because the province has many kilometres of paved and unpaved roads, where people could plant flowers that would attract bees, while improving the health of the environment, bees, crops and livestock.

The Alberta Beekeepers wants to work with the Ministry of Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation and the Ministry of Transportation and Economic Corridors, to develop a strategy for pollinators, assessing Alberta’s public space and roadways, said Labuschagne.

“Other countries have done similar initiatives to use the roadway as a nice place for pollinators to feed on. In the United States, they have roadside best management practices for managers and decision makers,” she said.

The post Alberta beekeepers and their bees play crucial role appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, says full numbers will be known by late June.

“We’ve had some locations and operations that have been very good and overwintered losses of 10 per cent or less, and there are other operations where it would be 60, 70, 80 per cent losses,” he said.

“In general, it seems like southern Alberta fared a little better than northern Alberta. But my expectation is it will be around 30 per cent losses in Alberta, if not higher.”

Reasons for the difference vary.

“Some of it could be that operations that put in a new stock last year wintered better than some of the older stock. It could be feed. It could be varroa mites, diseases, and pests. No one can pinpoint exactly why the operations lose and don’t lose.

“There does not seem to be a real good explanation as to why. More research is needed,” he said.

Saskatchewan is expecting losses of less than 20 per cent and Scarlett said he’s heard of only one or two operations with heavy losses in that province.

“It’s a little bit different in Saskatchewan, because I think most of their operations run around the 2,000 to 3,000 colonies. Nobody knows why their losses are less. They’re far more intensive about raising their own stock. Whether or not that makes a difference, nobody can say for sure.”

The province has about 100 commercial operations and about 100,000 colonies. Alberta’s industry is much larger, and some individuals have 10,000 to 15,000 colonies.

There is little data from Manitoba so far.

“Out of the three provinces, it’s the province I’ve heard the least feedback about. From what I’ve heard, winter losses are about 25 to 30 per cent,” Scarlett said.

Alberta has had the highest overwintering losses in recent years, followed by Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

“Manitoba has had some pretty bad loss years in the past. Across the Prairies, I think 22-24 per cent losses is probably in the range of where we’ll land. The interesting thing, or the thing that may have made losses higher, is a couple weeks ago when we had that week of really cold weather.”

Many beekeepers had just moved their bees from indoor wintering facilities when the cold snap occurred. Fewer Alberta beekeepers overwinter indoors, but it’s not a significant difference, said Scarlett.

“In fact, last year, I think most people found outdoor wintered bees did better than indoor wintered bees.”

Honeybees are a small sector of agriculture and thus subject to a limited amount of research.

“Although we have some great research done, there are so many topics that need to be covered,” he said. “Traditionally, we looked at about 15 to 18 per cent overwintering losses as kind of an average. But that has changed and is significantly higher. If somebody in the cattle or hog fields doubled their losses from two to four per cent, there would be a huge outcry.”

Overwintering losses are now 25 per cent on average.

“It kind of goes unnoticed and it really has a big impact economically. But it will also have a big impact on the secondary components of beekeeping, which is pollination,” said Scarlett.

Beekeepers require commercial sugar for feeding, and the sugar shortage earlier this year may have had an impact.

“It may have meant that some operations and some beekeepers tried to cut it as close as they could,” said Scarlett. “You need to supplement, and in the fall, you need to make sure that they have feed to last through the winter. The only way to do that is through sugar supplements.”

The cost of sugar has increased dramatically and is the second biggest expense, after labour, for most commercial operations.

Scarlett said varroa mites continue to be a problem. Some beekeepers are using Apivar for control, while others use oxalic acid.

“What we really do need is another hard chemical that has good efficacy, and there are some potentials on the horizon. But beekeepers across Canada and maybe even across the world are getting to the point where they need it quickly.”

The post Beekeepers take stock of surviving hives appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The bees are now tucked away for the winter, but August and September are prime feeding seasons when beekeepers condition their colonies for winter and natural nectar sources are drying up.

“We’ve always taken for granted that the sugar’s always been there,” said Ian Steppler, chair of the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association. “The entire time I’ve been beekeeping, I’ve never thought twice about sugar availability, other than just the price going up a little bit because of supply and demand.”

“There’s not an issue right now,” said Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission. “I think the concern is, if the shortage persists, that it will be a big issue in the spring when we start feeding again.”

Anyone hoping to start December with a batch of holiday cookies likely had to reach for a different sweetener.

Sugar was at a premium in grocery stores across Western Canada in late November, leading retailers to place per-customer limits on remaining stock.

A big part of the problem was an ongoing strike at a sugar refinery in Vancouver owned by Rogers Sugar, the holding company for Lantic Inc. The facility is the second largest of the three refineries operated by the company, which is Canada’s biggest sugar supplier, and the only major cane sugar refinery in Western Canada.

Workers at the Vancouver plant have been on strike since late September.

Western Canada’s honey sector largely depends on the same company for feed sucrose, although those products largely come from the company’s beet sugar plant in Taber, Alta.

Sugar feeding

Spring and fall are the main feeding seasons, when nectar sources are thin on the ground. There is some nectar available in the spring, Steppler said, and bees would “probably be able to get by” if producers couldn’t feed.

Then the season enters honey flow. During that time, beekeepers harvest what, naturally, would be winter feed in the hive. Not only does this add volume to their harvest, Steppler noted, but canola honey — the bread and butter of beekeeping operations in Western Canada — makes poor winter feed for the bees.

Instead, the honey goes into beekeepers’ tanks and the brood is fed high-quality sugar to build up winter stores.

Few options

Both Manitoba and Alberta groups say the strike and subsequent supply chain shortages have highlighted a vulnerability in their industry.

“We need more than just one supplier of sugar. We need a backup,” Steppler said, adding that he plans to raise the issue with the national producer organization.

He questioned why relationships are not in place to potentially bring sugar from North Dakota, where there is an established sugar beet industry. In Manitoba, that would be closer than bringing it from Alberta.

But Phillips notes Alberta is the heart of Canada’s sugar beet industry, and that hasn’t helped their beekeepers develop alternatives.

“Manitoba’s right,” she said. “We need to be a little bit more certain about supply.”

Sugar beets had a good year in Alberta, she said, but that’s naturally limited by processing capacity.

Phillips also noted the sugar beet industry in Alberta has been pushing for a national sugar policy for years.

Alberta Sugar Beet Growers indicate that only eight to 10 per cent of Canadian sugar comes from their farms. Most is drawn from imported cane sugar. The group has argued for a policy that would “prioritize the production of beet sugar,” according to its website.

That would be good news for the honey sector, which prefers beet sugar to cane sugar.

Supply from the U.S. might have its own issues.

A few years ago, Alberta did run short of apiary sugar supplies, Phillips said. Several producers tried to source from the U.S., but ran into issues when bringing supplies across the border.

“The distributor agreed to sell the sugar, but then the sugar supplier to the distributor refused,” she said.

Guy Chartier, CEO of Bee Maid honey, agreed that supply might be a concern if the shortage happened in spring and fall, but the strike is at a cane sugar plant in Vancouver where most beekeepers don’t source product.

Problems would arise if Canada’s sugar supply was so disrupted that supplies from Taber were used up.

“Who knows,” he said. “If this strike keeps going for more months… until spring, could that become an issue? I’m not sure.”

Corn syrup

Without sugar, Manitoba beekeepers might turn to cheaper high-fructose corn syrup, but that comes with animal health issues.

Corn syrup degrades quicker than sucrose, Steppler noted. That’s a problem in a Prairie winter, when bees might be confined for five months or more. The less-pure sugar source also leads to more waste, which is hard on the bees’ digestive system.

“Beekeepers do find issues with dysentery when they feed corn syrup,” he said.

That’s sometimes less of an issue in spring, when the bees can fly and defecate outside, he noted. But in fall, lack of sucrose could be disastrous.

On the production side, Phillips said corn syrup can add characteristics that make honey test as adulterated.

Alberta doesn’t use corn syrup but that is more common in the east, she added.

Looking ahead

As of print deadline, the future of the sugar market was unclear. Even if supply does increase, getting sugar back on the grocery shelves is different from obtaining supply for bees.

However, there may be a silver lining. There are lots of consumers looking to bake for the holidays and without sugar, they could boost honey sales.

– Alexis Stockford is associate editor for the Manitoba Co-operator.

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“It’s very exciting,” said Canadian Honey Council hive health specialist Osee Podolsky.

The new vaccine targets American foulbrood, a spore-producing bacterial disease that gets its name from the unpleasant smell in infected hives. The disease is serious enough that standard industry practice for most symptomatic colonies is to destroy them.

“Combs with visible symptoms must be destroyed,” a resource from the Government of Alberta reads. “Combs from an infected colony that do not have visible symptoms can be reused only if irradiated. Other infected equipment can be reused only if sterilized by one or more of irradiation, bleach, torching, or paraffin wax dip.”

If sterilization isn’t an option, that equipment should be burned.

“Currently, for prevention of American foulbrood, we use antibiotics prophylactically, which means even if the hive is not sick, we’ll use them, which is not a great practice and is a good way to build resistance if you’re not careful,” Podolsky said.

The vaccine, which is non-genetically modified and suitable for use in organic farming, was developed by Dalan Animal Health, based in Athens, Georgia. It uses inactivated complete Paenibacillus larvae (P. larvae) bacteria, the pathogen responsible for AFB.

It is blended into the worker bees’ diet and they infuse it into the royal jelly consumed by the queen. Vaccine fragments are deposited in her ovaries, granting immunity to subsequent larvae.

The vaccine was previously released in the U.S.

“The Alberta Beekeepers Commission is excited to learn about the vaccine developed by Dalan Animal Health,” executive director Connie Phillips said in an emailed statement. “AFB is a serious disease. The bacteria … in some instances, has developed resistance to antibiotics. Having options to treat brood diseases like AFB is important.”

Dalan Animal Health is expected to make a presentation at the commission’s conference and trade show in November.

“This will present a good opportunity for the company to learn more about beekeeping in Alberta and the needs of its producers, as well as for producers to learn about the new vaccine,” said Phillips.

Vaccine development is an encouraging shift for the beekeeping sector, said Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association chair Ian Steppler.

“It’s a sign of investment in new technology in the beekeeping industry, which we’re desperate for.”

He said the honey industry is often overlooked when investment dollars are handed out because the market is so small.

“This is showing that there is some attention towards our issues and there is the initiative and effort being put towards our industry to help us manage some of these issues.”

Beyond foulbrood

Steppler was particularly optimistic about inoculating an entire hive by inoculating the queen, which could be a game-changer for other diseases.

“That’s not to say that, for beekeepers having trouble with American foulbrood, it couldn’t be very useful to help them climb out of that rut, but that same technology and the medium could be used to apply to problems like European foulbrood, for instance, which is a different bacteria than American foulbrood,” he said.

Podolsky says the concept could go even further.

“There are other viruses, like black queen cell virus, acute deep paralysis virus, and deformed wing virus, that we can look at down the road,” he said.

That last may be of particular note because it is linked to varroa mite infestation, a persistent and growing issue in Canada’s honey sector.

Samantha Muirhead, Alberta’s provincial apiculturist, was more circumspect in her reaction to the new vaccine.

“My initial reaction is always, ‘OK, let’s step back and take a look,’” she said. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a silver bullet, but I do think more tools in the toolbox are great.”

Muirhead raised concern over whether bacteria would remain in a colony with a vaccinated queen.

“If there are still the bacteria present in the hive, other bees can come and rob that colony and potentially bring that bacteria back to their hive.”

Steppler said that’s a valid concern.

“Beekeepers will still need to employ best management practices,” he said, but added that lingering bacteria concern exists even if hives are treated conventionally with antibiotics.  

Alberta doesn’t currently have a big problem with American foulbrood, said Muirhead.

“We’re pretty good at monitoring and keeping on top of it. And the beekeepers are really good. If they see a hive pop up with it, they will remove it from their operation right away,” she said.

The vaccine will be available for Canadian producers in the spring of 2024.

– This article was originally published at the Manitoba Co-operator.

The post American foulbrood vaccine gets green light for Canadian beekeepers appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“There are increasingly bee breeders who are operating locally and quite innovatively to provide queens where they are needed,” said Olav Rueppell, a University of Alberta professor who is an expert in honeybee biology.

“There might be a historical reason for why we are re-queening all the colonies before the spring but maybe there is a possible way to re-queen them before the winter.”

Alberta’s large beekeeping sector is highly dependent on imported honeybee queens, partly because there is little time to raise stock and distribute them during the short beekeeping season, he noted.

However, queens and other bee stock are often imported from southern regions, where they can be raised early and shipped very easily.

“That raises the question of whether those bees that have been bred and selected for success in other parts of the world, under very different conditions, are best for our local conditions here,” he said.

Rueppell was recently awarded $437,000 to study this question and other matters regarding bee health and vitality — a sign of how important the bee sector is for Prairie farmers.

Although honeybees pollinate a wide range of plants (such as fruit trees, veggies and pulses), they are key for canola production. And while native pollinators also play a critical role, studies have concluded honeybees can raise canola yields by double digits.

Rueppell’s study will look at three different stocks of bees (one local and two from stocks commonly imported here) in three different regions (near Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Lethbridge).

“That will tell us whether there are interactions, whether one type or one stock might be doing better in one area than another,” he said. “This particular project is not only about comparing the different stocks. It’s about how we can predict, at an individual level, the success of a queen.”

The three-year project will include identifying and examining genetic markers to see if they are better predictors than looking at phenotypic (that is, observable) traits, with the queens being the key focus.

“The queen is the heart and soul of the bee colony,” said Rueppell.

Researchers will also be studying colony level markers and assessing behavioural traits of the honeybees, such as how they clean their hive and react to substances that can cause brood diseases. Three collaborators (from AgCanada, the Alberta Beekeepers Commission and the University of Lethbridge) will monitor bee colony success, disease incidence, population buildup and other traits. They’ll be particularly interested in which stocks have the best overwintering success, and will also be doing a deep dive into the genetic makeup of the bees.

“Genetic analysis is quite involved. We’ll be looking at the whole genome of these stocks and compare them for genetic markers that have been previously identified.”

Although Alberta is Canada’s top honey producer, there hasn’t been a lot of genetic research done on bees here, but a major Genome Canada project has identified several good genetic markers, said Rueppell.

The research could also lead to a shift in bee selection. Along with production ability, bees are often selected for gentleness — and therefore less likely to sting their beekeeper.

But the study hopes to gain insight into whether, in the bee world, nice guys finish last.

The idea is that more aggressive bees might actually be ones that are “more sensitive to stimuli.”

“That alert mechanism may be a good defence mechanism against disease because they smell better or they notice something is wrong,” said Rueppell.

“We can optimize both traits if they are at the same gene or locus. But if they are independent and we can tweak one without the other, we can try to optimize multiple traits at the same time. That’s a more long-term goal.”

A more immediate one is to find “top colonies” that overwinter well and provide beekeepers with tests they can use to assess the quality and predict the survivability of their colonies.

“You can manage your quality accordingly,” he said. “If we know a colony is high quality, maybe you don’t need to treat pre-emptively against varroa mites or against other brood diseases — they are already genetically good enough to deal with that themselves.”

Having more robust bees is a lot better than “blanket treating everything all the time,” he added.

“Ultimately, I hope it will lead to a reduction in the cost of beekeeping because those chemical treatments are costly and labour intensive,” said Rueppell. “If we have stock that can take care of themselves, that would be the best solution.”

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