An intentional poisoning of bees has shocked many people in Manitoba’s honey production industry.
The RCMP announced in mid-September that it wants to know who killed thousands of honey bees near Brandon after beekeeper Jason Loewen discovered 60 of his colonies had been destroyed with pesticides.
Police said the poisonings occurred between Aug. 14 and Sept.3.
Loewen, a honey producer from Steinbach, told several media outlets that another beekeeper had previously threatened to burn the hives. The local beekeeper felt Loewen was infringing on his territory.
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Loewen estimated his losses at $30,000 to $40,000 in hives and lost honey production.
Allen Campbell, Manitoba Beekeepers Association president, said disputes over hive location do occur, but intentional poisonings are ex-tremely rare.
“It does come up … because we’re kind of a secondary type industry. You’re kind of following the growers around and what they’ve got out for you is what you’re counting on for forage,” said Campbell, a honey producer from Dauphin, Man.
“Some people definitely say, ‘oh, you’re too close to my hives.’ ”
Will Nissen, president of the North Dakota Beekeepers Association, said intense battles over hive locations and territory are a common occurrence in his state.
He said intentional poisonings do happen in North Dakota but are nearly impossible to prove.
“Oh yeah. It’s quite common…. It’s happened several times.”
Campbell said Manitoba honey producers have an informal rule when it comes to hive locations. If a beekeeper has established a bee yard in a particular location, the next beekeeper should locate his hives at least a mile (1.5 kilometres) away.
“Around here, most guys generally follow the one mile rule.”
Nissen said there is a similar code of conduct in North Dakota.
“We have a gentlemen’s agreement, but there aren’t too many gentlemen left around.”
Nissen said beekeeping in North Dakota is highly competitive because there are more than 500,000 bee colonies in the state during the summer. Most of those hives are from other states.
In comparison, there were 677,824 bee colonies across Canada last fall, according to the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.
Manitoba’s bee industry is less concentrated than North Dakota, but honey producers do move hives around and some beekeepers can be territorial.
“Because they’ve been in (a) municipality all by themselves for some time, (they) might feel they have the right to keep it to themselves,” Campbell said.
“(But) you can’t do that to other people.”
The bee poisoning case generated national and international coverage, as print, broadcast and digital media pounced on the story.
Campbell said some of the coverage was inaccurate. Several stories connected the poisoning to the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments, which the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association blames for bee deaths and high rates of colony losses.
Earlier this month, two Ontario honey producers filed a $450 million class action lawsuit against Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science, two neonicotinoid manufacturers, for financial losses related to bee deaths, hive losses, reduced honey production and loss of queen bees.
Campbell said the intense media coverage of that issue might have drawn journalists to the Manitoba poisoning case, but the two are unrelated.
“This was definitely a direct poisoning and a matter for the RCMP.”
The RCMP is asking for the public’s help with the case. Anyone with information is asked to call Brandon RCMP at 204-726-7522 or Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.
