Sask. Beekeepers hope to avoid the puncture of the killer parasite, rates on the production of honey
Simon Lalonde warns the guests on tour to his apiary that his yellowish bees are depositing on their clothes is not honey.
Basically it is the poop of bees, says Lalonde.
It is a sunny spring day from Hives to Honey, an apiary a short distance from Clavet, Sask. And the bees are leaving their hive for the first time by hibernation.
“They are doing their cleaning flights, which is … have not been able to go to the bathroom since November last year,” said Lalonde.
“They are lengthening the wings again. They will begin to drink some water, different protein sources will begin to work only to make the hive work. So these first days will be enormous to make the hive work to increase their population.”
Geoff Wilson is the peak specialist of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Inspector of the Ape of the Province. He said that the first reports of the Saskatchewan hives suggest that winter was one of the worst never recorded for the population of API.
“We are anticipating losses somewhere about 35 % on average,” Wilson said in an interview.
“This would put us well in the maximum we have ever had in the province. This is only to guess at the moment. We don’t know for sure
The decline of the population is not the only concern among the apiaries. The hives are attacked by a parasite that kills the bee and now the honey producers prepare for the impacts of a tariff commercial war.
Natural honey is on the list of US imports of Canada subject to a 25 %rate. At the moment there is no American rate on Canadian honey.
In 2023, the Canadian hives produced 91.8 million pounds of honey with a production value of $ 277 million, according to agriculture and agro-rehabilitation in Canada. The share of Saskatchewan was just over 20 million pounds.
Saskatchewan exported about $ 4 million honey in 2023, decreasing compared to $ 6.6 million of the previous year, according to agriculture and agro-rehabilitation in Canada. The provinces of the prairie represented 73 % of all honey exports in 2023.
The rates could hit beekeepers by increasing prices on equipment, supplies and even Queen bees, said Lalonde, who is also president of the Commission for the development of beekeepers of Saskatchewan.
The new queens bees are developed by Alveari every year, but in Saskatchewan which generally does not occur until June. Lalonde said that the apiaries here import queen bees from the United States to insert them in new hive, so the production of honey begins first.
“(There are) about 800,000 hives in Canada and we brought about 260,000 queens from the United States last year,” said Lalonde. “So from the point of view of the value that is probably somewhere around two or three million (dollars) from the pockets of beekeepers if a fare takes place at the Queen Bees.”
A parasite of Abee called Varroa Aito continues to devastate the alvear of the Saskatchewan. In 2022 the mites, which feed on honey bees, proliferated during winter lethargy and the Ape mortality rate increased.
This was the same fear that was heading towards last winter, said Wilson. The summer drought conditions have left the less prepared honey bees for the winter and more vulnerable to the killer parasite, he said.
“Bee Health is becoming increasingly difficult because there is a resistance to those control products that we use for varroa mite,” said Wilson. “It is becoming more and more difficult to check the parasite.”
From the east to honey he lost only about 15 % of his bees during the winter, said Lalonde. Even between uncertainty, he feels optimistic.
“At this time of the year, you are always optimistic as possible and hope to produce the best hives you can for the harvest of the honey coming.”
Canadian farmers are concerned that the populations of bees damaged by mites, climate change and pesticides will mean poor collected this season.
