Evidence of meeting #14 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bee.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
This study is really around bee health monitoring. Are there different results or is there more usable information coming from small or large apiarists? Are there differences that way? I know with our local bee club, when I belonged, there was a fairly good exchange of information internally among members, but I don't know if that always got up to the provincial apiarists' level. I'm just wondering if the information coming in is available and is being shared efficiently.
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
I know that over the past couple of years, with the huge growth in beekeeping, it's mainly been urban and hobby beekeeping where there's been a huge interest across the country. The provincial apiculturists have done a good job, a great job, and they continue to do so, but it puts extreme pressure on these provincial apiculturists to maintain this growing group of beekeepers. As we've heard, beekeeping is very complex. It's not as easy as it seems or as people may think.
It's a concern to large commercial beekeepers as well. If this group does not pan out as they had hoped and we end up with a bunch of abandoned bee equipment around the country, it will be a risk factor to those who are continually keeping bees.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Nixon, and thank you, Mr. Arnold.
Mr. Peschisolido, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Mr. Chair, thank you.
Guests, thank you so much. Your comments have been very helpful to me. I've been trying to wrap my head around an issue that I've discovered very recently is very important.
I want to follow up on Mr. Drouin's question about our federal nature here in Canada. The anecdotal conversations I've been having with folks in the past few days seem to be that there is a problem in Ontario but not so much in the Prairies. Is that accurate? If that is the case, I'm wondering what best practices we as a government can implement to deal with the “problem”, and to address the differing nature of our country—Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba versus Ontario, versus the Atlantic, versus my neck of the woods in B.C.
This is to any of the witnesses.
Professor Emeritus, School of Environmental Sciences, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, As an Individual
I can take a crack at that.
Making interprovincial and inter-regional comparisons will be very useful for giving insights into how best to tweak our management practices. I do say “tweak”, because Canadian beekeepers by and large are very successful. It's a very successful industry. It may not be a very wealthy industry, but it is a successful and well-managed industry with a great deal of harmony. That's brought about through the Honey Council and the meetings they have with the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists. I'll admit that I haven't been to those meetings in recent years. I've been busy with international things. But I think is an important component whereby people are exchanging a lot of information. That is a healthy sign.
I'm not sure if I answered your entire question.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
That is extremely helpful.
Just to follow up, you're right. It's a healthy industry. What strikes me is not so much the honey industry, or the beekeepers industry, but just the importance of pollination to the overall agricultural sector. With canola and soybeans you are looking at billions of dollars, almost $8 billion for canola and $2.5 billion for soybeans, which is part of the pollination process.
There is one thing I'd like to ask. Is that just through wild bees or is that planned? How is the relationship between bees, pollination, and not honeybees and beehives but just general horticulture?
Professor Emeritus, School of Environmental Sciences, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, As an Individual
That I can answer. Worldwide, where experiments have been done with canola, it has been shown that adding managed pollinators to the mix will raise production between 10% and 15%. There have been trials done in Quebec out of the Université de Montréal in the past, but most of that scientific literature is not taken up by the agronomists, who ignore it. I don't understand why because there are a good number of papers.
On soybeans, that may be a bit of a different problem partly because of the pollination mechanism in soybeans. They pollinate within the flower. There is no movement of pollen outside the flower necessarily in order to get a set, but in Brazil there have been studies that said if you add bees to it you get an 8% percentage yield boost. Similarly with sunflowers, there's an up to 20% yield boost, so a number of crops that are recognized as being self-fertllizing, self-pollinating, still benefit quite a lot, significantly, from the activities of pollinators. It's not that you need the pollinators to get a crop. It's that you get a better crop, a bigger crop, better seeds, and so on, by adding pollinators to the mix. That adds some complexity to it.
In Europe there have been interesting studies very recently done, and worldwide, through the global biodiversity initiative out of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, showing that wild bees are contributing 30% or even higher amounts to crop yields than just managed pollinators, so it is a combination of the two things that seems to be providing that. But that's very new information. It's only just been published in the last couple of years.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Dr. Kevan, I was intrigued by your statement that industry would prefer that some of your insights or research not be done. Would you like to elaborate on that?
Professor Emeritus, School of Environmental Sciences, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, As an Individual
I'll give you one example without naming the industry. I proposed years and years ago to do some work on learning and cognition in honeybees that would be given minute doses of neonicotinoid pesticides. I've done work with the institute of neurobiology at the Free University of Berlin on learning and cognition in bees. I was told by the scientist privately—he's now retired from the company—that yes, they were interested in having the work done, but if the work that was done had shown detrimental effects on learning and cognition on honeybees, then it would look bad on them. The original imidacloprid thing—
Professor Emeritus, School of Environmental Sciences, Ontario Agricultural College, University of Guelph, As an Individual
—was French “mad bee disease”, and it had to do with exactly that question.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Peschisolido.
That might be a question that Mr. Arnold would want to pursue.
It seemed interesting, but anyway it's your time, for five minutes.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
I thank Mr. Gourde for passing his questions on to me.
On the question of bee stress from a number of different sources, it always seems to be the actual cause of colony collapse. Whether it's massive colony collapse or stress, from what I understand, bees typically don't die from one particular cause, but from a combination of stresses, whether it's disease and lack of food, or a combination of diseases and other stresses such as temperature, humidity, and so on.
Hive monitoring also includes stress on the hives. I'm wondering if there have been any studies done on the stress caused to the hives through closer monitoring, or more repetitive monitoring, or through the movement of hives, with multiple moves throughout the year from different pollinating sites. I know that in many areas bees will move from initially an apricot orchard, into possibly a cherry orchard, and then to an apple orchard. They end up with multiple moves that are stressful for the bees. I'm wondering if there have been any studies done on the additional stresses and the related mortality possibilities.
Prof. Chris Cutler
I can say a few words about that. I think there has been some work done to show that obviously the more stress that bees are under in terms of transportation and confinement on transport trucks, and in terms of moving from agricultural commodity to agricultural commodity, the more it can be very hard on bees in terms of spreading diseases and whatnot.
At the same time, bees can also be very healthy in those situations. I've been involved with a couple of pretty big honeybee studies that were looking at the question of neonics and canola. We intensively collected data in terms of monitoring the bees, including measuring different endpoints, their reproduction, their weight, and the numbers of adults, and collecting samples for disease, surveillance, and whatnot. The bees still do very well, and those were very stressful conditions where it was very hot. Any given colony may have been open for even an hour, and our bees were quite strong and vigorous. In one of the studies, the overwintering mortality was very low.
Even though those things can stress bees, the bees are also quite resilient and can power through that type of monitoring.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
The next question is in regard to monoculture such as the canola crops, corn crops, and so on. I'm wondering again about differences there in hive mortalities in larger apiaries that are moved to these monoculture crops. Do we see any differences there versus hives that may be moved from one scenario to another for pollination and multiple sources of feed through the year?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
From personal experience in being involved in the canola pollination industry, I'll say that we move bees and have heavy stocking rates compared to a honey production scenario. Frankly, we want to get them in and out as quickly as possible, because in southern Alberta when the canola is in bloom the bees do well, but once the canola starts shutting down, there is nothing else out there but prairie grass.
Unless they are along a river valley or something, where there is some natural vegetation and some diversity, they can go downhill if they're out in the prairie. There are large populations at that time of the year, and they need an abundant food source. If they're not able to get that they can go down quickly, so we try to get them out as soon as we can in those situations. There are definitely regional differences, so I don't want to speak for those across the country, but in that situation we do know that it can lead to poor fall nutrition, which will lead to higher winter losses.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Nixon, and thank you, Mr. Arnold.
Ms. Sansoucy, you have three minutes.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Ms. Fowlie.
You said the producers have been increasingly using integrated pest management for their crops. However, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency published a document on best management practices for protecting pollinating insects when planting treated seed.
Can you tell us about the producers' integrated management practices?
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Horticultural Council
Thank you for the question.
When it comes to integrated pest management—and I won't speak necessarily specifically to the treated seed—the ways they approach that and the strategies around the mix of tools or chemistries they use are very important. It's so important that there be the range of availability of chemistries, whether old, new, or non-traditional. It's that mix that really makes everything work. One of the fears that certainly our sector has, and I know others share too, is that as products are being re-evaluated as part of the regular cycle that the PMRA conducts, there is a loss of chemistry. It's a huge fear, because one of the big pieces of integrated pest management and pest management strategies in general is resistance management. You need a mix of tools so that you can mitigate resistance.
NDP
Brigitte Sansoucy NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Do the producers have access to proper information and adequate training?
Supply is another issue. A few years ago, it was practically impossible for producers in Quebec to find and purchase untreated seed. There was none on the market. The agriculture minister sent a letter to all producers asking them to use treated seed only as needed. As a result, the next summer, untreated seed was more widely available.
Do you think producers have access to proper information, and adequate training and supplies? Do they have easy access to this alternative?
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Horticultural Council
Sometimes there are alternatives, but they're not necessarily viable alternatives. That's the importance of having things that work and being able to have some choices.
In terms of information, I think communication is hugely important. All of the witnesses have spoken in one way or another to that importance. Certainly, one of the things we've seen, particularly on the pollinator file over the past number of years, is how information has become more widely available and shared. Even as interest was mounting and there was a lot more media interest and so forth around the matter, you could talk to some beekeepers, large and small, who weren't having the issues or the losses being faced by some others. In part that was due to availing themselves of information that was available. I think a lot of the tech transfer and the good old-fashioned extension work that we're starting to see go on is going to be highly valuable in how things are managed going forward and the successes that will be gained.
As I indicated in my comments, it's a growing industry, so there are a lot of opportunities, not only for the producers but also for the beekeeping and pollinator communities.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Ms. Fowlie and Ms. Sansoucy.
Mr. Breton, you have three minutes.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the experts who made statements today.
I listened attentively to the presentations and read all the documents sent to us. I must admit that I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to bee health. Of course, the experts seated now at both ends of the table know more about it. I appreciate all your comments.
However, the following information struck me. According to Statistics Canada, from 2009 to 2013, the number of bee colonies increased each year across Canada. I know that there are all sorts of problems, including issues with nutrition, illness, habitat, and harsh winter conditions, but I would simply like to understand certain aspects of the situation.
Do we want more bee colonies, even though their number has increased each year since at least 2009?
The discussions today suggest that we need to go even further. I think there may also be natural reasons why bees are disappearing in some cases. That said, I would like an opinion from one of you.
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
Again, I think we want to see the industry continue to grow, for sure, and we have the capacity in Canada to have many more bees than we do.
In the Prairies we have 20 million acres of canola. If we wanted to have half a hive per acre to increase the yield of canola, as we heard, that could happen, the potential is huge.
The growth in the blueberry industry, specifically eastern Canada, the needs that are coming in the near future, and how we as an industry are going to meet those needs is the challenge we're facing. We don't have an answer today on how we're going to meet those needs. There are some options being tossed around, but I think for sure we have a huge opportunity to continue growing this industry, and why not?