A need to raise more research money has pushed Alberta beekeepers to move from an association to a commission.
Bob Ballard, president of the new Alberta Beekeepers Commission, said the group needed to change its format to raise money for research and fight the serious problems of varroa mite and foul brood in bee colonies.
There are 250,000 bee colonies in the province. Alberta has about 40 percent of the total in Canada.
“The additional funds that are being generated by the commission are mostly going to research and they will mostly be going to projects to ensure bee health in the province,” Ballard said.
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The refundable checkoff has been set at 65 cents a hive for beekeepers who have more than 100 hives or colonies. The average Alberta beekeeper has about 2,000 colonies, but some are as large as 10,000 colonies or more.
Beekeepers with fewer than 100 hives can also pay the checkoff if they want to have voting privileges at the commission’s annual general meeting.
Long gone are the days when the federal or provincial government funded research for bees, said Ballard. Governments are now looking for matching research dollars from beekeepers.
Even though the beekeepers had only a limited research budget before switching to the commission, they managed to cobble together money for some projects.
They have supported research on foul brood at the Agriculture Canada research station in Beaverlodge, Alta. They have also finished a two-year study on the use of oxalic acid for control of varroa mite in large operations in northern climates.
“We really tried to focus in on a delivery system suitable to a large commercial operation.”
They are also looking at the components of honey to see if they can find superior aspects of Alberta honey to use as a marketing tool, especially in times of depressed honey prices.
