[Pollinator] Decimation of honey bees catastrophic for local honey producers

[ole at nrtco.net]

Decimation of honey bees catastrophic for local honey producers


Debbi Christinck, Eganville Leader, May 3, 2022


(https://www.eganvilleleader.ca/breaking-news/decimation-of-honey-bees-catastrophic-for-local-honey-producers/)


Eganville – The decimation of honey bee hives this winter has been 
devastating for honey producers, with far-reaching impacts for other 
crops which rely on the bees for pollination and a mystery as to what 
has caused these overwhelming losses reaching as high as 100 percent 
for some beekeepers.

“I would say in Ontario the mortality rate is unusual, but locally 
it is unprecedented,” Jim Anderson of Tanglewood Honey said. “The 
average mortality rate in Ontario is around 45 percent. If you put 
this in perspective with other agricultural industries and they faced 
a mortality rate that high, you see the impact.”

With over four decades of experience as an inspector in the industry, 
he is known for his expertise in beekeeping, and has taught many of 
the local beekeepers their trade. Now semi-retired, he continues to 
teach courses and keep hives, although not as many as when the 
business was in full operation. With close ties to the industry, he 
said it appears the worst hit areas are Western Quebec and Eastern 
Ontario.

In his 70s, he said it seemed to him the winter was unusually long and 
cold and that may have been a factor locally in the losses. However, 
the weakening of the hives began in late summer; he believes when the 
varroa destructor mite got out of hand. This parasitic mite can 
decimate a colony quite quickly.

“I was trying to remember what was unusual about last summer,” he 
said. “The mites built up in late July-early August.”

Many bees died early in the winter, which is unusual, he added.

“They were infested and weakened,” he said.

While beekeepers would treat their bees for the mite in September, the 
bees need to be strong to get into the winter.

“This last summer the mites got away from us, so we had this severe 
mortality,” he said. “Not only is the mite itself a problem, but 
the activity of the mite.”

The mite is a vector for viruses and the weakened bees can’t fight 
them off.


“And it was a very cold winter which is not normally a problem for 
the bees unless it is long periods of cold,” he said. “It means 
the bees can’t break the cluster.”

The bees overwinter in the protected hive where they keep a core 
temperature of about 80F which melts the honey so they can eat it and 
keep up their strength. On slightly warmer winter days, they can break 
the cluster and fly around, he explained.

“You need to see bees flying in winter,” he said. “When I 
didn’t, I knew we were in trouble.”

Mr. Anderson, who used to run 350 hives at the peak of his operation, 
still keeps a smaller number of hives and had catastrophic losses this 
year. He was surprised at what he encountered in some of the hives 
when he examined them.

“There were no bees left in the hive at all,” he said. “They 
basically absconded because of the mites in early winter.”

Importance of Pollinators

While the honey production of the bees is basically the gravy for the 
beekeepers, there is also an acknowledgement of the important role 
bees play in the food production system.

“The pollination they provide for practically everything is 
invaluable,” he said. “It will be severely missed. We will 
probably see poorer fruit crops and it will be harder to get a crop 
from the veggie garden.”

He also wonders what effect the loss of the honeybees will have on 
native pollinators. Honeybees are an introduced species, he noted.

“We just hope the other species will have survived,” he said.

Bees fly around a radius of four kilometres, so their impact is 
widespread.

Mr. Anderson said some of the larger producers still can’t access 
all their hives because of winter conditions and spring thaw, so just 
how bad the decimation is for them is still unknown. He expects more 
information will be forthcoming through the Ontario Beekeepers 
Association.

The impact on small beekeepers from this will be challenging, he 
noted.


“There are a lot more hobby beekeepers now,” he said. “The 
large-scale beekeepers in this area are a thing of the past.”

Paul Hamilton had 54 hives in his yard and he lost them all. Although 
he considered quitting the business, he is going to give it another go 
this year and build up the apiary.

Catastrophic Losses

Paul Hamilton of Whispering Pines Honey has been developing his apiary 
for the last five years and this winter he lost all of his hives.

“It is catastrophic,” he said.

As a young man he worked for a beekeeper and always had an idea of 
coming back to it. Following his retirement from the finance industry 
which saw him working all over Canada, he bought a property on Grist 
Mill Road in North Algona Wilberforce Township and bought some hives.

“I always wanted to have a bee farm,” he said. “Until this 
winter, it was going fine. I had a five-year plan, and I was ahead. 
Now I have been set back about two years.”

He had grown his business to 54 hives. Now they are all gone. 
Fortunately, he saw what was happening in the fall and ordered 30 
hives to replace his anticipated losses.

“I think I was lucky enough to realize there was a problem in 
November,” he said.
Some of his colonies were dying off and he could not figure out why. 
He had done his mite treatment and was feeling confident the hives 
were healthy.

“Then when it was time to cover them up for winter, I discovered I 
had a problem and it was a very big problem,” he said. “Several 
colonies had piles of dead bees in the front.”

While it is expected to have dead bees in front of the colony in 
spring, this is not the case in the fall. The hive needs to have 
thousands of bees to keep the warmth for the honey and to survive the 
winter. The loss of some bees for the hive would not allow this to 
happen.

“I thought it was poisoning,” he noted.

In doing some autopsies on the bees, he saw many had their tongues out 
and this shows they died from poisoning. As well, in some of the hives 
the bees had simply absconded and left the queen behind, so he knew 
those were expected losses.

“But my strong hives were chock full of bees, so I was confident 
about them, but I was worried,” he said. “That is why I ordered 20 
hives and then two weeks later I ordered 10 more.”

Now he is glad he did order the hives when he did because obtaining 
them now without pre-ordering would be impossible.

“And there are beekeepers that lost hundreds of hives and they 
can’t replace them now,” he said.

Canadian regulations restrict the importation of bees from the United 
States, so the market is limited, he added.

In January he usually looks at the hives very briefly on a warm day. 
He started with his strongest hives, expecting to find the bees well.

“It was devastating. They were dead all the way through,” he said.

The bees were in the frames or laying at the bottom of the hives. With 
about 60,000 to 80,000 bees per hive, it was a tremendous loss.

“And I have around 2,000 pounds of honey which should have been 
eaten by the bees sitting in the hives,” he said.

For about a month he thought about quitting but has decided to clean 
up and prepare for the arrival of his new bees. It will be a two-year 
rebuilding process if nothing goes wrong.

The dead bees are inches thick at the bottom of the hive.

Insecticide Impact

Mr. Hamilton is concerned about the impact of neonicotinoids – a 
group of insecticides used widely on farms – which can be toxic to 
bees. Seeds of some crops are infused with this insecticide which is 
made from tobacco leaves and then the plant grows and is infused with 
the insecticide.

“The bees collect the pollen and bring it back to the hive and use 
the nectar to feed the larva,” he said. “They are poisoning their 
hive.”

When a debate about the use of neonicotinoids was held in Europe, the 
European Parliament banned the use in five days.

“Canada gave them five years, so that is where we are at,” he 
said.

Now he is disposing of the dead bees and anticipating the arrival of 
his new crop. Fortunately, last year he had a bumper crop of honey, so 
he still has lots to sell. His honey, which is from the pollen of area 
wildflowers, has proven to be quite popular in the area.

“Even my Mennonite neighbours like my honey,” he said. “They 
come in and buy it by the five-gallon pail.”

Worst Winter Since 1979

Murray Borer of Oak Grove Honey came to the Ottawa Valley in 1979 to 
start an apiary. The area was known as the best place in Ontario for 
honey production.  Although he has drastically reduced the number of 
hives he has, this year he lost all but two.

“When we moved here, we were told the Upper Ottawa Valley was the 
best place in Ontario for beekeeping,” he recalled. “And we are 
still one of the best areas.”

The farming in the area was a great source of pollen for bees, he 
explained. While farming has changed, the abundance of pollen for bees 
still is available locally. In his heyday he produced between 30,000 
and 65,000 pounds of honey a year but pushing 70 he has slowed down to 
more of a hobby operation and focused more on selling bees.

“We have never seen a winter like this one,” he said. “I think 
it is a virus. It is funny how a virus can change things.”

In the winter of 2020-2021, they overwintered 64 hives and didn’t 
lose a single one. They sold off 40 hives to other beekeepers and it 
was a great year, so the remaining hives multiplied to have 57 in the 
fall.

“Now we have two left out of 57,” he said.


Concerned about mites last summer, he treated his bees two weeks 
earlier than usual, but he thinks the bees had already been infected 
with a virus introduced by the mites.


“If it was just the mites, it would not be a problem,” he said. 
“It was the virus.”

While there is a concern about pesticides, Mr. Borer said it is an 
issue, but it cannot be the cause of the widespread problems this 
year.

“The farming industry is reducing the use of pesticides and doing 
best practices,” he said.

As far as his own hives are concerned, he is lucky one of the hobby 
beekeepers he sold hives to is selling hers back to him.

“So, we have six now,” he said with a laugh. “And if you have a 
good year, it is not hard to turn one hive into four.”

However, honey production will be sacrificed to make the hives strong, 
he said.

Mr. Borer said it will be interesting to see when the total bee losses 
in Ontario are tabulated. He thinks it might be 60 percent of the 
hives lost. Alberta, which is the largest honey producing province in 
Canada, is reporting loses of about 50 percent.

When the Dandelions are Out

Sheldon Berndt of Golden Lake has been beekeeping for about five years 
and since he is down with an injury, he has not been to check on all 
his bee yards yet, but he is optimistic.

“My daughter has seen some bees flying around, so that is good,” 
he said.
In the one bee yard, he lost four out of his six hives. He still has 
to check the other two bee yards. He went into the winter with 20 
hives.

“In the one yard we lost some and we will see when we open the hives 
up, probably next week,” he said.

Like other beekeepers he treated the hives and got to them early to 
deal with the mites. The mites are an issue when things appear to be 
going very well, he added, passing on a bit of a folklore saying.

“If you have a healthy yard, you have healthy mites,” he noted. 
“And the bees were doing well, bringing in a lot of honey. So, the 
mites in the yard were healthy too.”

With the weather being on and off cold, he said he will check soon to 
see the state of all his hives.

“It is all a learning curve,” he said. “I want to stay at it and 
keep going.”

Looking out the window, he said it is nice to see everything greening 
up which is just what the bees need when they appear from their winter 
homes. The old folk sayings about bees also hold true, he added.

“When the dandelions are out the beehives are safe,” he said. 
“They have food.”

People should leave the dandelions for the bees, he added.