Alberta Bee News
August 2022
Historical Beekeeping Statistics in Alberta By Dr. Shelley Hoover, University of Lethbridge It is July as I write this, and the nectar is flowing. I am hearing about canola plants missing flowers due to early season environmental stress, hopefully the recent rains allow the plants to recover and bloom profusely. With the high colony mortality experienced across the province this spring, and the heavy splitting beekeepers did as a result, I hope it is a good crop, and we get high prices. But what is a good crop? A good price? I took advantage of a rainy day to delve into the Statistics Canada data (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/ tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3210035301) on honey production and beekeeping in Alberta, which extends as far back as 1924.
Similar to trends in other sectors of agriculture, we have seen consolidation, with fewer beekeepers now operating more colonies than in the past. There are clear “blips” of interest, for example in Figure 1 you can see the increase in the number of beekeepers during and shortly after World War II, with the peak number of beekeepers in the province occurring in 1946, when we had 11,000 beekeepers. You can also see a decline in both the number of beekeepers and colonies in the late 1980’s with the closure of the border to US packages and the introduction of Varroa.
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