04 The President’s Report

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Well, I think everyone is aware of how bad things are in the beekeeping world right now, in Canada at least, so I won’t get into that too much. This year will inevitably become a divisive one and I truly hope that at the end of the day we can all still have a beer together and keep things civilized.

With that in mind I feel I must address a few things on the border issue…

New Risk Assessment

The ABC board is pushing for a new risk assessment for package bees from (AND ONLY FROM) the established safe zone in northern California where Canadian beekeepers can currently import queens. We do not support opening the border to all packages from anywhere in the continental United States (US), nor do we support importing bees on comb. I want to make this abundantly clear.

Our belief is that packages from this safe zone can, with strict protocols, most of which are already in place for queen importation, supply Canadian beekeepers with safe, economical, and more reliable stock replacement than is currently available. This discussion needs to be about risk mitigation and what level of risk is acceptable. Not only from a disease/pest perspective, but also an economic perspective.

One of the biggest arguments against importing package bees from the US is based on the assumption that Canadian bee stock is healthier and better suited than US bee stock. Over the next few months our goal is to test that assumption. Starting in this edition of Alberta Bee News, we will begin a series of interviews with both US and Canadian beekeepers. It will include honey bee and queen breeders on both sides of the border including Olivarez Honey Bees, Strachan Apiaries and Saskatraz Bees. We will learn about protocols, inspections and biosecurity in place to ensure bees raised in northern California are healthy and pose very little if any risk to the Canadian beekeeping industry. We will also learn how Canadian genetics are a large part of the honey bee breeding program in northern California.

At the ABC Conference and Tradeshow that is being held in Edmonton on December 1 & 2, 2022, (https://www.albertabeekeepers. ca/2022-conference-trade-show/) we will be continuing the discussion started in 2021 during the panel on stock replacement. In addition to Canadian scientists and beekeepers, we have invited a number of US bee researchers to present on topics including bee genetics, Amitraz resistance, and breeding for bees with Varroa sensitive hygiene among other topics. We hope to hear all perspectives on importing packages from northern California. If there is anyone you would like to invite to the convention to engage on this topic, please contact the Commission office with your suggestions.

Self-sustainable Canadian beekeeping industry

I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but I truly believe that the idea of a completely self-sustainable beekeeping industry in Canada will never happen. This will ALWAYS be the goal but too many things can and are going wrong that are outside of our control and we will ALWAYS need reliable stock replacement options.

Beekeeping is incredibly different across Canada. Beekeeping practices are incredibly different across Alberta… Commission members range from 100 hives to 15,000, some are pollinators and some are not. What works in Lethbridge, AB, will not work in Guy, AB.

Becoming self-sustainable looks incredibly different not only across Canada, but across Alberta as well. For a beekeeper to say ‘I have a fully selfsustainable beekeeping operation and all other beekeepers should do the same’ is not realistic. Business models and economics must be taken into consideration, and each operation has different business goals, experiences different environmental factors, seasons, and challenges.

Beekeepers that import stock weren’t the only ones to experience high losses this year and until more data is available no one can say imported stock was the cause of the high losses.

Other feedback on opening the border to packages from the designated safe zone in northern California includes that it will cause Canadian beekeepers to become lazy and everyone will run thousands of hives because bees will be so cheap. Maybe it’s the capitalist in me but I think this argument is wrong. The economics will change, but supply and demand will adjust and the price of honey won’t always be at 3$/lbs. and beekeeping won’t suddenly become easy work.

So let’s just call the above paragraphs an op ed and I’ll shift over to an official President’s Report…

The Canadian Honey Council (CHC) will be hosting a large stakeholder meeting in June to discuss the stock replacement issue. The ABC will share any outcomes with producers following that meeting.

The ABC is hosting the annual Southern Alberta Beekeepers (SAB) meeting this month on June 16 at the University of Lethbridge. There is a great line-up of both local and international speakers and we hope that beekeepers will be able to join us for this event. More information can be found on page 5.

In addition to stock replacement, efforts are continuing on the irradiation facility however direct provincial funding was not offered so other options are being explored. Dr. Olav Rueppell and Dr. Rassol Bahreini received approval from Results Driven Agriculture Research (RDAR) on the miticide project and will commence work this summer.

Jeremy Olthof