MARKHAM, Ont. — Problems for Ontario beekeepers haven’t disappeared, despite changes to the way farmers planted neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybeans this year.
Paul Kozak, an apiarist with Ontario’s agriculture ministry, said the province imported 33,000 honeybee queens, 8,100 bee packages and 1,600 colonies this year.
“These first three numbers speak to the fact that we’ve had mortality,” he said. “We have not just been building, we’ve been rebuilding.”
The bee kill reports sent to the federal Pest Management Review Agency are another sign that all is not well.
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Kozak said 345 bee kill incidents were reported by 62 beekeepers this year, which is up from 320 by 80 beekeepers last year and 240 by 40 beekeepers in 2012.
The difference this year is that fewer incidents were reported around planting time.
Jim Coneybeare, a honey producer near Fergus and Ontario Beekeepers’ Association director, said the reduction in planting time deaths may be related to the use of the dust-reducing fluency agent used by growers when applying neonic-treated seeds, as well as other measures that were implemented.
However, he said the weather at planting probably had a major influence.
Beekeepers such as Jerry Jerrard of Kawartha Lakes Honey said this year’s deaths tended to be chronic in nature rather than acute. In other words, colonies tended to dwindle over the course of the year rather than being killed outright by a heavy dose of the neonicotinoid insecticides.
OBA director Tibor Szab, who was among the beekeepers reporting bee kills to the PMRA, said some of the incident reports involved hundreds of colonies.
Challenges for Ontario beekeepers, though not necessarily related to neonicotinoids, are reflected in a provincial support program for beekeepers.
A one-time provincial program compensated beekeepers this year when more than 40 percent of their colonies were lost.
For example, a beekeeper who began the year with 100 hives and lost 50 could be eligible for compensation on 10 hives. The program pay $105 per hive, which would result in total compensation of $1,050.
Close to $2 million in compensation for losses reported between Jan. 1 and April 1 will be distributed, said Roger Donais of the Ontario government’s Agricorp agency.
Beekeepers will also be compensated for losses from April 1 to Oct. 30. The amount of compensation involved has not yet been calculated.
The province’s over-wintering losses were 58 percent this year, which is the highest on record.
