Alberta Beekeepers

by Jay Smith

Beekeeper Tim Townsend on TPLR Honey Farms’ production line near Stony simple, Alberta
Photo Ryan Girard

Desperate times require hopeless actions. That’s why, in 2012, whenever 150 of beekeeper Bill Termeer’s 3, 000 hives were stolen, he immediately suspected another commercial beekeeper.

“You can’t negotiate. We will get weight to Apivar. But there’s no sign of it anywhere in the united states.” – give Hicks, chair, Beekeepers Commission of Alberta

Termeer alongside beekeepers around Peace River had seen many years of catastrophic populationlosses over the winters when you look at the mid-2000s, when from 40 to 45 per cent of these bees died off every year. The absolute hopelessness of the circumstance, and financial effects that then followed, might have driven one of is own rivals to take his hives to compensate for his own losings. Termeer estimated the theft are priced at him $60, 000 in lost hives, gear and honey – and people weren’t covered by insurance coverage. To blame had been never ever discovered.

It’s no secret that bees, which are prized both with regards to their capability to produce honey and their particular crucial role as pollinators for many farming crops, are under risk. Nonetheless it’s not just from covetous beekeepers with an eye with their neighbours’ hives. Colony failure disorder (CCD), a condition in which ordinarily ­communal-minded bees become suicidal hive-­abandoners, is an important issue for both beekeepers and the industries and people that ­depend on the labour. In Canada, one of several crucial frontlines in the battle to better realize and protect the bee is here in Alberta, in which nearly 200, 000 hives crank out 40 per cent of the country’s honey.

It’s not easy becoming a bee, either. They should handle a wide variety of potentially lethal risks, from mites and viruses to a popular course of pesticides known as neonicotinoids (or neonics), which are known to be troublesome to their stressed and protected methods. Jerry Hayes, the honeybee health lead at Monsanto, describes exactly how this occurs. “The honeybee, independently, is just a bug, ” he says. “Communally, it’s a super system. Whenever a bee is feeling sick” – because it’s affected by varroa mites, viruses, nutritional issues or perhaps is responding to pesticides – “it makes the colony so that it doesn’t reveal its sisters towards the illness. Bees will go away in to the environment and give up by themselves.” At these times over a brief period of time and only a small number of bees and queens stay, it is considered CCD. In Ontario, where overwinter losses being up to 60 %, beekeeping advocates, with the belief that utilization of neonics tend to be behind CCD, have now been pushing for a ban on purchase of pesticide.