CAPA report tells good news story for Canadian honey bees

It was a successful winter for honey bees across Canada according to the latest report from the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists (CAPA), with overwinter losses nationally just below 17 per cent. Couple this with the fact that honey bee numbers in Canada are at an all-time high and there’s a great story to tell around bee health, though you wouldn’t know it from the alarmist claims and charged rhetoric being thrown around by certain groups.

In Ontario specifically, overwintering losses this year were just below 18 per cent. This is a significant drop from last year where losses were just under 40 per cent. As we’ve seen in recent years, and indeed through the course of history, overwintering losses fluctuate significantly from year to year based on various factors, chief among them, weather.

The last five years in Ontario serve as a perfect case study. The 2011/12 winter was particularly mild in Ontario and overwintering losses that year were around 12 per cent. Losses climbed up to the 30 and 50 per cent range in subsequent years when the winters were particularly harsh. And this year the numbers dropped again to below 20 per cent with a moderate winter, highlighting that a combination of factors including weather, nutrition and colony strength all factor into overwintering losses.

These fluctuations all happened while farmers’ use of neonicotinoid-treated seeds remained relatively consistent. So while certain politically motivated groups point to neonics as the primary cause of bee health issues in Ontario, the facts simply don’t support it.

CAPA specifically asked beekeepers across the country what they thought the primary causes of overwintering losses were this year. They identified poor queens, varroa mites, weak colonies and weather as the top four issues. Pesticides in general, and neonicotinoids specifically, did not make the list.

There’s clearly a disconnect between the beekeepers themselves and some of the provincial beekeeping organizations that claim to represent their interests. In recent years the Ontario Beekeeping Association (OBA) has spent the bulk of its time lobbying to have neonics banned. Their members would be much better served by having them focus on the real issues of concern to beekeepers in the province.

Unfortunately, the Ontario government bowed to pressure from activist groups and introduced regulations to severely limit farmers’ use of neonic-treated seeds. The government’s stated goal with these regulations was to get overwintering losses down to 15 per cent. The numbers in Ontario this year are close to that level even before the new regulations took effect. The question then is why are farmers being handicapped with these restrictions when there is no apparent impact on honey bee overwintering success?

Ontario’s regulations are burdensome and costly for farmers. They serve only to remove a useful tool from the toolbox that has allowed growers to farm in increasingly more sustainable ways. Forcing farmers to revert to using older production methods is not good for them, it’s not good for the environment, and it’s not good for Ontarians and Canadians as a whole.

I hope that these latest overwintering loss numbers and the expert commentary from Canada’s preeminent bee experts lead both the Ontario government and OBA to recognize the error in their ways. And I hope they serve as a cautionary tale for others, like Quebec, who are considering implementing similar restrictions that will hurt the agriculture industry and do little to help protect bees.

Many stakeholders are working productively together to address the primary challenges identified by beekeepers through venues such as the Bee Health Roundtable. Let’s drop the finger pointing and politics and work together towards meaningful solutions to ensure the continued success of this vital industry.

Ted Menzies,
President and CEO, CropLife Canada