Western Canadian agriculture faces significant challenges this summer, notably lack of rain in some regions and fallout from a port strike in British Columbia.
But there’s another aggravation buzzing around the sector that has been an irritant for years. A bee in the ointment, so to speak, and one that could soon be offered some relief.
The federal government had until recently refused to allow beekeepers in this country to import bee packages from the United States and had refused to launch a reassessment of that ban.
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Domestic honey producers need replacements on a regular basis to make up for losses from disease and winterkill. They can multiply existing populations themselves, but it decreases productivity for a time.
To avoid that pitfall, they import bee packages, which are two- to three-pound units containing 3,000 to 5,000 bees per lb.
It makes more sense to buy bees from other places, but because of the ban on American bee packages, producers have to look much farther afield, to Chile, Australia and New Zealand.
In the 1980s, Canadian producers supported the ban on U.S. bee imports as a way to protect their hives from threats such as tracheal mites, varroa mites and hive beetles.
But things have changed in the ensuing 40 years, and many beekeepers had been saying it was time to recognize new realities. Some still support the ban but others argue that the matter deserves another look.
John C. Hamilton, apiary manager for wild blueberry producer Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd. in Nova Scotia, told members of the House of Commons agriculture committee this spring that Eastern Canada’s wild blueberry industry is being held back because it can’t supply enough replacement bees for pollination.
He said he voted for the ban in 1986 as a commercial beekeeper in Saskatchewan, but now all the “monsters” he feared back then have arrived anyway.
It might not yet be time for an immediate lifting of the ban, although many producers would surely welcome such a move. However, a reassessment by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which lists bees as “regulated animals” under the Health of Animals regulations, is definitely a step in the right direction.
Such an initiative was announced last week at the agriculture ministers meeting in New Brunswick.
We wonder, however, why it took so long.
Federal Conservative agriculture critic John Barlow wrote a letter to agriculture minister Marie-Claude Bibeau more than a year ago asking for a reassessment of imported hives, but did not receive a reply.
The last assessment was done in 2013. Is it credible that no new data about bee health, honey production and pollination has come available in the last 10 years?
It is an issue that has deserved more attention from the federal government than it has received.
The country’s honey producers are a major contributor to the national economy. The value of honey alone in 2022 was more than $250 million and that figure doesn’t include other benefits derived from a healthy industry.
Bees are also vital to several Canadian crops, and from a western Canadian perspective, canola is among the most notable. The oilseed crop is a major economic driver and depends heavily on the pollination provided by bees under the care and management of beekeepers.
We welcome the CFIA’s reassessment but wish the government was agile enough to have made the move sooner.
