Ontario and British Columbia are reluctant to open the border, citing disease and pest risks
Beekeepers in Manitoba are not giving up.
Despite a 28-year ban on importing American bees into Canada, the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association continues to lobby for an exemption from the embargo.
Association members asked the federal government to lift the U.S. import ban in 2013, following a year when 46 percent of Manitoba bee colonies failed to survive the winter.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency denied the request that fall because its scientists said American bees pose a “high probability of introducing diseases and pests into Canada.”
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The association has now proposed an alternate solution in a discussion paper posted on its website: maintain the ban but allow Manitoba apiarists to import packaged honeybees from northern California.
President Allan Campbell, said the association posted the document to stimulate discussion around the issue.
The Canadian Honey Council passed a resolution at its annual meeting this winter encouraging its members to review Manitoba’s idea.
Canada banned the import of packaged bees from the United States in 1987 when the varroa mite parasite was found in American bee colonies.
Varroa mites spread to Canadian bee colonies many years ago, but the ban remains in place to protect Canada’s beekeepers from other threats, such as the Africanized honeybee, small hive beetle, antibiotic resistant American foulbrood and varroa mites with resistance to miticides.
High winter losses force Manitoba beekeepers to import bee packages — a queen and two or three pounds of worker bees — from Chile, Australia and New Zealand, but the cost is significantly higher than U.S. bee packages.
Manitoba Agriculture and the provincial beekeepers association, which collaborated on the discussion paper, said permitting imports of California bees would increase the supply, lower the cost of bee packages and help apiarists rejuvenate Manitoba’s bee industry.
The association evaluated the biosecurity threat and concluded that packaged bees from California are unlikely to jeopardize Manitoba or Canadian bee colonies because the risks for Africanized honeybee, small hive beetle and antibiotic resistant American foulbrood are negligible. The risk associated with resistant varroa mites are low.
The association said Manitoba beekeepers already import queen bees from California and would likely buy bee packages from the same suppliers. As a result, the biosecurity risk around pests such as the American hive beetle wouldn’t change significantly.
Banning bees from the U.S. isn’t totally effective because the two countries share a border, said Rheal Lafreniere, Manitoba’s provincial apiarist.
North Dakota has more bee colonies than any other state and bees can easily fly into Manitoba.
“A complete importation ban doesn’t (completely) protect us from risk… There’s always going to be a level of risk,” Lafreniere said.
“With all the bees that come to North Dakota, we have to recognize that those risks are basically coming to our doorstep.”
Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, said Alberta and Manitoba beekeepers strongly support opening the border to U.S. bees, but apiarists in Ontario and British Columbia are hesitant because of the biosecurity risks.
Scarlett said part of the issue is time and weather because spring arrives earlier in B.C. and Ontario.
“I think they (Alberta and Manitoba beekeepers) can get domestic supply but a month later than when it’s needed. So it doesn’t do any good.”
Lafreniere said Manitoba might be missing an economic opportunity because demand for bees for honey production and pollination services is increasing in North America.
Transporting bees to locations where pollination is needed, such as California’s almond orchards, has become a massive industry.
Almond growers pay $180 to $200 for a hive of bees, and California uses 1.6 million colonies a year. Using those estimates, almond pollination is worth $288 to $320 million a year.
Lafreniere said Canada’s pollination industry is likely to grow as blueberry production increases in the Maritimes and orchards expand in Ontario and B.C.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but we might have a migratory (bee) industry here at one point in time, and Manitoba may be involved in that industry.”
