The amazing little honey bee!
Queen bees blocked at border
Published: Saturday, February 27 , 2010
Emily Mathieu
Business Reporter 
A Queen bee in the pupae stage is attacked by virulent, Varroa destructor parasitic mites.
The Hawaiian queens are one to two months old when they are mated and sent away from the balmy country of their birth, travelling with a cluster of worker bees to tend to their every whim.
"She comes in a little matchbox-sized cage and the five attendants with her feed her. There is a little candy plug at the end of it with sugar to give them a little nutrition when they are in transit," said Heather Clay, chief executive officer with the Canadian Honey Council, describing one way that queen bees are shipped from Hawaii to Canada every year.
The queens are a vital component to the health and production of crops that Agriculture Canada estimates are worth more than $2 billion to the country's economy each year.
With Canada facing what Clay described as "devastating" rates of honey bee mortality, imported queens are key to replenishing stock.
Every year Canada brings in about 150,000 queens, most from Hawaii.
This year that vital process has been derailed.
A virulent parasitic mite called Varroa destructor – partly responsible for high honey bee mortality across North America – has been found on Hawaii's main island and shipments of bees to Canada have been halted indefinitely.
"It could make things very difficult," said Clay.
"We get more than 100,000 queens from Hawaii, and we only import during a very narrow window of time," from late February to May.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, "Hawaii discovered Varroa mites in their honey bee population and, as a result, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency stopped all honey bee imports from Hawaii."
U.S and Canadian officials are working on a solution to allow Hawaiian bees to be shipped to Canada.
Canadian queens are not available until June, so beekeepers wanting an early start replenishing their colonies order from other countries. Canada also imports bees from Australia, Chile, New Zealand and California. If the Hawaiian queens are kept out of Canada, those countries will likely ramp up production, said Clay.
Derrick Johnston, bee supply manager for the Alberta Honey Producers Cooperative, said bees are shipped from west to east as weather improves.
Commercial beekeepers ship queens in small boxes and large containers with about 100 separated queens in a larger container with 3,000 to 4,000 workers, he said. The large container is preferred by commercial beekeepers, since a queen and her private attendants might be overly aggressive when introduced to an existing hive.
Alberta typically gets its queens in late March or early April, said Johnston. He said it is impossible to calculate losses if the queens were delayed through spring.
"I think initially it would be catastrophic. We rely heavily on those Hawaiian queens," said Johnston.
Alberta imports about 60,000 queens a year, at about $20 to $23 each. Queens lay between 1,500 to 2,000 eggs a day, so any delays have a "huge domino effect," he said.
The $2 billion value is based on commercial crops reliant on pollination, the creation of hybrid canola seed and the increase in yield or quality in other crops, including apples. It does not account for the value of honey bees to plants in gardens and national parks.
"If you go into a grocery story and you see a lopsided apple that is a clear example of inadequate pollination," said Stephen Pernal, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada working at Beaverlodge Research Farm in Lacombe, Alberta.
Canada has been experiencing high rates of mortality among honeybees for several years.
The Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists reported that last year, for the third year in a row, national mortality rates over winter and spring hovered near 30 per cent, with 204,417 out of 603,824 commercial colonies lost. Ontario reported a loss of 24,800 out of 80,000, or 31 per cent.
Before the arrival of the Varroa destructor mite, the normal mortality rate was 15 per cent.
"If keeping bees alive is going to be that difficult I don't see beekeepers being able to do that in the long term," said Pernal.
Most commercial bee farmers in Canada deal in honey, but the number relying on pollination is rising, said Pernal. One pollination-dependent area of agriculture is the creation of hybrid canola seed, which has exploded during the last decade.
Of the 240,000 colonies in Alberta, about 60,000 are contracted out for hybrid canola seed production, he said. Renting a colony costs between $120 to $150 for a summer, he said. Once the seed is planted the wind takes care of pollination.
No honey bees mean returning to a variety of non-hybrid seed, resulting in crops with lower disease resistance, less yield and less profit.
Pollination can be done by other insects, wind or birds, but honey bees are the most easily managed for commercial agriculture, said Pernal.
A sharp decline would not result in a severe food shortage. Staple crops like wheat, corn and rice are pollinated by wind. Blueberries, apples, raspberries and to a lesser degree cucumbers and pumpkins are dependent on bees for pollination.
Pernal describes it as a system reaching a breaking point in North America and Europe
The Hawaiian queens are one to two months old when they are mated and sent away from the balmy country of their birth, travelling with a cluster of worker bees to tend to their every whim.
"She comes in a little matchbox-sized cage and the five attendants with her feed her. There is a little candy plug at the end of it with sugar to give them a little nutrition when they are in transit," said Heather Clay, chief executive officer with the Canadian Honey Council, describing one way that queen bees are shipped from Hawaii to Canada every year.
The queens are a vital component to the health and production of crops that Agriculture Canada estimates are worth more than $2 billion to the country's economy each year.
With Canada facing what Clay described as "devastating" rates of honey bee mortality, imported queens are key to replenishing stock.
Every year Canada brings in about 150,000 queens, most from Hawaii.
This year that vital process has been derailed.
A virulent parasitic mite called Varroa destructor – partly responsible for high honey bee mortality across North America – has been found on Hawaii's main island and shipments of bees to Canada have been halted indefinitely.
"It could make things very difficult," said Clay.
"We get more than 100,000 queens from Hawaii, and we only import during a very narrow window of time," from late February to May.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, "Hawaii discovered Varroa mites in their honey bee population and, as a result, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency stopped all honey bee imports from Hawaii."
U.S and Canadian officials are working on a solution to allow Hawaiian bees to be shipped to Canada.
Canadian queens are not available until June, so beekeepers wanting an early start replenishing their colonies order from other countries. Canada also imports bees from Australia, Chile, New Zealand and California. If the Hawaiian queens are kept out of Canada, those countries will likely ramp up production, said Clay.
Derrick Johnston, bee supply manager for the Alberta Honey Producers Cooperative, said bees are shipped from west to east as weather improves.
Commercial beekeepers ship queens in small boxes and large containers with about 100 separated queens in a larger container with 3,000 to 4,000 workers, he said. The large container is preferred by commercial beekeepers, since a queen and her private attendants might be overly aggressive when introduced to an existing hive.
Alberta typically gets its queens in late March or early April, said Johnston. He said it is impossible to calculate losses if the queens were delayed through spring.
"I think initially it would be catastrophic. We rely heavily on those Hawaiian queens," said Johnston.
Alberta imports about 60,000 queens a year, at about $20 to $23 each. Queens lay between 1,500 to 2,000 eggs a day, so any delays have a "huge domino effect," he said.
The $2 billion value is based on commercial crops reliant on pollination, the creation of hybrid canola seed and the increase in yield or quality in other crops, including apples. It does not account for the value of honey bees to plants in gardens and national parks.
"If you go into a grocery story and you see a lopsided apple that is a clear example of inadequate pollination," said Stephen Pernal, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada working at Beaverlodge Research Farm in Lacombe, Alberta.
Canada has been experiencing high rates of mortality among honeybees for several years.
The Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists reported that last year, for the third year in a row, national mortality rates over winter and spring hovered near 30 per cent, with 204,417 out of 603,824 commercial colonies lost. Ontario reported a loss of 24,800 out of 80,000, or 31 per cent.
Before the arrival of the Varroa destructor mite, the normal mortality rate was 15 per cent.
"If keeping bees alive is going to be that difficult I don't see beekeepers being able to do that in the long term," said Pernal.
Most commercial bee farmers in Canada deal in honey, but the number relying on pollination is rising, said Pernal. One pollination-dependent area of agriculture is the creation of hybrid canola seed, which has exploded during the last decade.
Of the 240,000 colonies in Alberta, about 60,000 are contracted out for hybrid canola seed production, he said. Renting a colony costs between $120 to $150 for a summer, he said. Once the seed is planted the wind takes care of pollination.
No honey bees mean returning to a variety of non-hybrid seed, resulting in crops with lower disease resistance, less yield and less profit.
Pollination can be done by other insects, wind or birds, but honey bees are the most easily managed for commercial agriculture, said Pernal.
A sharp decline would not result in a severe food shortage. Staple crops like wheat, corn and rice are pollinated by wind. Blueberries, apples, raspberries and to a lesser degree cucumbers and pumpkins are dependent on bees for pollination.
Pernal describes it as a system reaching a breaking point in North America and Europe
posted by Clare L. Pieuk at 9:00 AM
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