Apiarists warn of record bee die-offs this winter

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This article was published 11/12/2024 (378 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadian beekeepers are facing the possibility of record die-offs of honey bees this winter, on par or worse than the 2020-21 season, where apiarists experienced more than 50 per cent die off in most Canadian hives.

“To be clear, I believe that this upcoming year could be very, very large losses across all of Canada,” Canadian Honey Council executive director Rod Scarlett told the Sun on Tuesday. “So we are going to have extreme pressures on the stock side.

“I think everybody realizes that we’re going to have a bad year next year, and there is going to be strong demand for packaged bees.”

The problem, however, is one of supply, demand, and the strict import regulations imposed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

In fact, the politics of honey bee imports into Canada have split industry opinion down the middle.

In the community of Ethelbert, north of Riding Mountain National Park, Osee Podolsky is a third-generation apiarist with Podolski Honey Farms. Podolsky, who is also a member of the Manitoba Beekeeper’s Association, says his family’s operation went into winter knowing they were going to have high losses. He just didn’t realize the scale of how big the problem was until recently.

Using a thermal imaging camera at their wintering facility, Podolsky routinely inspects the health of his bees. Going into winter, he said they were sitting at what he thought was around the 10 to 15 per cent mark of bee colony die off — whether fully dead or not expected to make it to spring as they were too weak.

“That was about the second week of November,” Podosky said on Tuesday. “Whereas I looked just yesterday, and we’re currently sitting (at) around a 40 per cent loss. And, you know, winter doesn’t end until April in Manitoba, so I think we’ll probably, we’re probably gonna end up around a 90 per cent loss.”

Bees aren’t cheap to replace. If Podolski Honey Farms does experience a 90 per cent colony loss, Podolsky said he would incur losses amounting to more than $1.2 million in just his operation alone.

If the prospect of potential losses isn’t bad enough, Podolsky added that Canadian beekeepers are also hamstrung by the current rules that govern the cross-border live bee trade.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled against awarding commercial beekeepers damages stemming from a decades-old partial ban on shipping live honeybees across the Canada-U.S. border, which was put in place out of concerns that allowing shipments of live bees from the U.S. into Canada could bring in aggressive pests and diseases, as well as the potential of introducing DNA from dangerous Africanized honey bees.

Honey bees are regulated under the Health of Animals Act. Currently, the importation of honey bee packages from the United States has been restricted since 1987 due to what the CFIA believes is an unacceptable level of risk.

Scarlett said the court case was on somewhat shaky ground, based on the science and research done by the CFIA and the concerns they have raised over the risks of importing American honey bees. He believes the case has come to an end and won’t be appealed.

“In my reading of the case, it was pretty straightforward,” Scarlett said. “I don’t know what grounds there could be for appeal, (I am) not a lawyer, but to me, it was pretty clear.”

However, beekeepers from Western Canada involved in the suit claim the government’s risk assessments that inform the tight restrictions are hurting their businesses and are blown out of proportion.

It’s a position shared by Irwin Harlton who owns Harlton Apiaries and The Honey House near Souris — a family operation in the region since the 1960s. Harlton said the ruling makes his business less viable than it should be.

He says Canada does not have enough bees to replenish large die offs like those experienced in Canada in recent years. And with a mite infestation in his own bee colonies currently at 50 per cent, he is very concerned about his own operation.

“Usually, normal losses can range anywhere from 10 or 12 per cent, 24 per cent but when you lose up to 24 or 30 per cent of your bees, the other 30 or 40 per cent are so weak, you’re not going to get anything out of them,” Harlton said. “So you’re trying to make up that 24 to 30 per cent … and you just can’t do it.”

For the last number of years, Harlton said, he has been buying boxed replacement bees from New Zealand — one of the few locations from which Canadian apiarists are allowed to import new stock.

However, he believes that it would be more cost effective to buy replacement bees from Northern California.

It’s the same U.S. state where Canadian beekeepers are allowed to purchase new queen bees, but the partial ban does not allow for packaged bees to be sourced from the United States.

Harlton said the CFIA is very strict when it comes to American imports, but not so when it comes to bees imported from New Zealand, Australia, Italy or Chile.

“Well, they have mites over there and they have other parasites or different stuff. CFIA isn’t watching things that close,” Harlton said.

Podolsky agreed, saying the CFIA holds the highest level of scrutiny to packages being imported from the United States, but not these other source countries.

“The CFIA has either not done a risk assessment or has a very skeletal, bare bones risk assessment that doesn’t look nearly as in-depth as it does (for) the U.S.,” Podolsky said. “There’s a strong argument being made by beekeepers that if they were to hold these other countries to the same scrutiny, they wouldn’t pass either.”

A recent risk assessment by the CFIA of honey bee imports from the United States this past November concluded that the risks remained low to moderate, and decided to maintain the partial ban.

However, the organization provided a 60-day comment period where industry could provide scientific data and protocols as an attempt to mitigate the risk, such as potential rules, regulations, and best management practices.

“As of right now, the onus is on the U.S. associations to develop the product, because they need the protocols on their end to lower the risks,” Podolsky said. “If they’re able to do that … then we could go into traceability programs on the Canadian side, specifically Manitoba, to further mitigate the risk.”

In the face of impending colony losses over the winter, Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association Chair Ian Steppler said he supports the CFIA and the organization’s efforts to keep the Canadian operation safe from outside viruses and pests.

The recent court decision, Steppler said, was more about trying to claim damages for not allowing access to the U.S. honey bee supply, and was a decades-long case that finally came before a judge — and was lost.

While it is connected to the current issue of honey bee supply, Steppler was unsure if the court case had any bearing on this recent activity.

“I would say probably not,” Steppler said. “But you know, one could argue that the court case maybe brought more attention to the issue and maybe provided a bit of leverage just to be able to get this new animal health risk assessment done.”

Steppler, a beekeeper in Miami himself, remains hopeful that American suppliers will be able to meet the conditions laid out by the CFIA for mitigating potential harms.

“If they can, then I think we’ll provide opportunity for beekeepers in Canada to be able to replace our dead stock if we do run into problems, with high quality bees. And maybe provide a little better than accessing bees from overseas.”

But Podolsky remains concerned even if U.S. suppliers do manage to reopen supply chains into Canada. If faced with potentially record-setting colony losses this winter, new supplies won’t come in time to halt the exodus of Canadian apiarists from the industry altogether.

Package producers in Northern California need to know ahead of time to start getting equipment ready for orders. He said they might end up in a situation where the border could open but all the preparation work hasn’t been done to grow enough bees to send to Canada.

“If we don’t have access to these or some kind of help, external help by government, we can see businesses exiting the industry.”

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— With files from The Canadian Press