7 / 52
Winter
2018
grainswest.com7
WHILE THE MAINSTREAMMEDIA
continues to paint a dire picture of honey-
bee populations in North America, com-
mercial beekeepers in Alberta celebrated
record hive numbers as the summer of
2017 came to a close. What makes the
news even sweeter is that the robust sea-
son came directly on the heels of devastat-
ing winterkill the previous year.
“Losses were, on average, just under
30 per cent,” said provincial apiculturist
Medhat Nasr of Alberta Agriculture and
Forestry. “To put that into perspective,
for the previous four years, our losses
were around 16 per cent a year. This was
certainly not expected.”
Last year’s winterkill was the result
of several factors including an ongoing
battle with Varroa mites, a parasite that
plagues hives across the continent. The
other significant factor was heavy rain
in late summer and early fall of 2016,
leading to less-than-ideal conditions
as hives overwintered. Nasr said com-
mercial beekeepers were faced with a
difficult decision—hold off on treatment
to salvage what was left of a dissapoint-
ing production year, or attempt to save
the bees with treatments for mites. Once
a beekeeper decides to treat hives for
mites, no more honey can be extracted
from the hives that season.
Commercial beekeeper Kevin Nixon of
Nixon Honey Farms near Innisfail said
even if an apiculturist decided to sacrifice
production in favour of treatment, the
plan was not failsafe. Bees were plagued
by Varroa mites as well as nosema, anoth-
er parasite that causes severe dysentery,
meaning that sometimes more than one
treatment was necessary.
“Some of our treatments are temper-
ature and humidity dependent and we
just didn’t have the weather on our side
last fall,” said Nixon, a 20-year industry
BY SHEL ZOLKEWICH
THE
FARMGATE
HOWSWEET IT IS
HONEYBEES RECOVER AFTERMASSIVEWINTER 2016/17 LOSSES
veteran and chair of the Canadian Honey
Council.
When beekeepers cracked open their
hives this spring and discovered record
losses, they wasted no time in building
up their populations. That involved split-
ting hives—a process used to increase
production and create new hives—as well
as purchasing additional bees to stock
hives.
“Commercial beekeepers are incredibly
resilient,” said Nasr. “They responded
quickly and worked hard to get their num-
bers back to where they were.”
In fact, Alberta saw a slight increase in
the overall number of hives in the summer
of 2017, to 315,000 from the previous
year’s count of 305,000. The majority—an
estimated 295,000 hives—are tended by
commercial beekeepers while the remain-
der belong to hobbyists.
Simply put, more bees is good news for
Alberta agriculture.
“Of course, bees play a huge role in the
pollination of our crops, canola being the
biggest among them,” said Nixon. “Bees
are also so important for smaller-scale
operations like those that grow fruits,
vegetables and berries.”
Nasr said that while Alberta bees pro-
duce over $100 million in honey annually,
their pollination work on canola and
forage crops is perhaps more valuable.
Alberta produces more than 70 per cent of
the pedigreed canola seed used by farmers
around the world. Across the three Prairie
provinces, over 22 million acres are plant-
ed in canola. In Alberta alone, the value of
that crop exceeds $1.3 billion.
“Alberta canola producers place a
huge value on the health and prosperi-
ty of Canada’s honeybee industry, and,
by extension, beekeepers,” said Canola
Council of Canada agronomy specialist
Gregory Sekulic. “As well, canola has been
shown to exhibit increases in yield as well
as reductions in days-to-maturity when
honeybees are placed in canola fields.”
“Bees are, in a word, critical to Alberta
agriculture,” concluded Nixon.
Photo:Ryan Jackson
Provincial apiculturist Medhat Nasr, pictured here, said Alberta’s bee keepers have worked hard to rebuild their
hives following high bee mortality caused by parasites and poor overwintering conditions.