Thank you, and my thanks to the witnesses for being here this afternoon.
Mr. Hicks, you were talking about the fascination of working with bees. I actually did that for a couple of years when I went back to the farm in the early 2000s. I thought that for a grain farmer bees would work really well. We gave it a good shot, and it was a good experience for me and my son to work together on it. Bees are fascinating creatures to work with and to nurture. I was lucky. I had Murray Hannigan working next to me. He was a great producer I could learn a lot from, especially about wintering.
We've just gone through eight months of winter in Saskatchewan. We're looking forward to the four months of summer, because spring and fall have disappeared. I'm sure it was a problem getting protein and sugar water out to the hives. How would this affect the bee colonies?