Agriculture Committee on May 7th, 2013

[Grant Hicks]

There are regions from which honeybees have just disappeared. It's too bad because it's a glorious honey-producing area, but it's a terrible honeybee wintering area. That's more or less north of the Peace River. There are thousands and thousands of acres of canola and mixed farming in that area.

In June and July there are 20 hours of daylight. There used to be a bee industry there. The producers there produced terrific crops, but now that you have to overwinter them, it just doesn't work there. I would say the further north you go, the higher the attrition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you. Time flies when you're having fun.

Mr. Rankin.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, and thank you to both witnesses for being here.

Mr. Hicks, I was intrigued when you just now talked about Peace River. Is it still being marketed as an area with the world's hardest-working honeybees? I can see why now, I think.

My first question is for Mr. Nixon. You talked a little about the compensation committee. I realize that their recommendations haven't been finalized. For compensation, I guess my question would be, against whom? Against the pesticide industry? Against the farmers for practices? Against the government for negligence? What would be the claim?

[Kevin Nixon]

That's a big part of the question. The task of this committee was not to look at what happened at incidents in Ontario last year. The Canadian Honey Council was brought into the picture after the fact and didn't know a whole lot around the circumstances.

In Alberta and Manitoba, and I'm not sure what other provinces.... We have crop insurance in most provinces. A couple of provinces have overwintering insurance, which is fairly new.

One possibility is looking at adding some kind of insurance coverage, tagging on to an overwintering program or something, if it can be administered that way. There's been talk about a fund being developed: a nickel per acre of corn, throw it into a pot, and have it as a fund to draw on. We need to really hash out which one is a better scenario.

In some cases, there may be a need for producers to deal directly with chemical companies. It depends on whether the label was followed correctly or not and what the circumstances were.

I can't speak to every situation.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm sharing my time with Madame Raynault, so perhaps I should exit at this point.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

I would like to thank Mr. Rankin for sharing his time with me.

The document we received earlier indicates that Canadian beekeepers need bees in the spring to replace those lost over the winter. Bees are brought in from warmer regions further south.

Could this change affect their health? Do they react negatively to our weather?

[Grant Hicks]

It's amazing that they don't, really. They come from Australia and New Zealand. It's 14 or 15 hours by plane. I've never used that resource myself, but I did help a neighbour this spring. Those bees look great. There is a downside to them in that they're coming from an area that's just going into winter, so they're largely old bees.

A traditional area for importation of packages has been California. When they come in April, they're young bees that have hatched within the last two or three weeks as they've come off the almond crop. The hives are really stimulated in February with the almond crop and the hives are burgeoning in April.

When they come from the South Pacific, they've produced a honey crop and they're getting ready to go into winter. There's a bit of an issue there, but it's not huge. The biggest issue is the genetics of the queen. They are from a South Pacific climate and environment that does not have much in common with North America.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

The document indicates that large companies are reluctant to develop new products because the market is not very big, especially in Canada. It also indicates that the financial risk they must take on is high compared with the financial advantage they might derive from it.

Everyone knows, and everyone here knows, that if there were no bees, there would be no tomatoes, honey, fruits or vegetables. So what are you doing about this? What would you like the government to do to require companies to provide products that will not harm bees or other plants?

[Grant Hicks]

I'll take a shot at that, and then Kevin can fill in the blanks.

Yes, that is a huge issue. We're behind the eight ball all the time. I asked that question of the cattle industry: what's going to be their next antidote to infectious diseases or the various fly treatments? Well, they say the veterinary college looks at it and then they talk to the pesticide industry. There's enough profit to be generated from the cattle industry that it's worth their while then to proceed to explore that new product line. With our industry, we're so small that the profit margin really isn't there, so we basically are piggybacking on products that have already been developed for other purposes.

A further pet peeve is that Canadian beekeepers contribute between $1.5 billion and $2 billion of value to the canola industry, the blueberry industry, and the cucumber industry, for which we receive no remuneration.

So I see it as a goal that we as an industry need to really pursue in terms of working with stakeholders who require the services and who benefit from the services we provide. That's a possible solution to our issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Payne.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for coming today. This study is certainly at its peak because of what happened in Ontario and Quebec last year.

Mr. Hicks, you talked about the research centre in Beaverlodge, I believe you said. Could you tell us what kind of research is going on and when that facility was put into place? Do you have any details on that?

[Grant Hicks]

It's in my area, but I don't really have a whole lot of details. It has been open, I believe, for a year and a half or two years, and it's fully staffed. It's funded for five years, so they can have a chance to get programs off the ground.

The instrumentation and the staff there are capable of doing any of the work that the bee industry would require. It's an arm of Grande Prairie Regional College, which is a very aggressive institution in our area. I know they have brought in some instrumentation recently that may be useful with the pesticide issue, in terms of analyzing for very low levels of insecticides. So it's the kind of thing that could be a real boon internationally to the Canadian industry and to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, because it has those kinds of capabilities.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Kevin, do you have any comments on that? No?

You talked a bit about the import of queen bees and bees in general. What about the genetics? Can you fill us in on anything that would be more beneficial for the Canadian industry, in terms of genetics? Is anything happening around that?

[Kevin Nixon]

There is some work being done around it. A little bit is being done in Canada; more of it is done in the U.S. But there is selection of traits for breeding queens for resistant stock, resistance to mites, and hygienic behaviour. It has been going on for years, and it has not been developed far enough yet to bring it to a commercial level.

Realistically, will it? I don't know. We import into Alberta about 100,000 queens a year, I believe, and we need them in May. Can a large commercial queen producer achieve that with genetic selection and hygienic behaviour selection? I'm not a queen breeder. I don't know, but there is work being done on it.

[Grant Hicks]

I think Kevin is being a little humble, or his memory is slipping.

He's been to Chile and has imported Chilean queens into Canada. One of their goals was to ship Canadian stock to Chile so they could breed it there and ship it back to Canada. Their season would let them do that in March and April, when you can't do it in this area. Because Canada hasn't defined a national bee health status, Chile refused to accept Canadian bee stock.

One thing that Alberta, Manitoba, and the CFIA are going to move ahead with is a national bee survey that will be acceptable and recognized in international circles, so we can move our genetics more easily around the world.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

How far off would that be? Do you know?

[Grant Hicks]

It's a five-year project, being funded through Growing Forward.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Kevin, I think you talked a bit about injecting chemicals into the hives to kill off the mites. Is there any impact on the bees from the chemicals you're using in there, or are they all resistant to the chemicals?

[Kevin Nixon]

We have one chemical that is working well on the varroa mites. We're on year four, year five now, so it's due to run out any day. We don't have anything to replace it yet.

It's definitely a concern of the industry. As beekeepers we have to be conscious of what we put in our hives and make sure that we are using it according to the label. If we overdose or overexpose, resistance will happen that much faster.

We need to have enough alternatives on hand to have rotation to reduce that resistance and to ensure that we're producing a safe and healthy food product. We have to be cautious of what and how much we put in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Time flies.

I'm going to go round the table one more time and give everybody one question.

Ms. Brosseau is going to start.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

We know there is a two-year ban in Europe. I know that we have to base our decisions on sound science, but so much goes into this very complicated issue.

Can you comment on what the European Commission is doing? I think on May 1, the beekeepers of Quebec decided they were also asking for a ban. Do you think that's the way to move forward, to ban and wait until we have more science, or do you believe that we have enough science to back a ban? It's a complicated issue. Can you comment on banning in general?

[Grant Hicks]

In our experience, that's not the way we need to go. We're seeing no ill effects.

For me to comment on a situation that I'm not terribly familiar with probably wouldn't be fair.

That's the best I can do. Sorry.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I guess we need more sound science, or do you not have a comment because you're not affected by it?

[Kevin Nixon]

I would agree with Grant. What happened in Ontario last year is significant. We don't want to discount that in any way. It looks as if it strongly correlates to the exposure of dust last year. I believe the dust situation is being addressed as quickly and as well as possible by the other stakeholders.

There is a definite need for research to see if there are any long-term effects that aren't being caught. There is room for science to be done there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Valeriote, you have one question.