Good afternoon. I am Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's lead scientist specializing in honeybee research. I'm here today to represent the science and technology branch.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada appreciates the opportunity to provide you with information on the important ongoing work we are doing to help improve the health of honeybees in Canada and to provide an update on our current diagnostic capacity for testing and measuring bee health.
AAFC has its national honeybee research program located in Beaverlodge, Alberta, which is led by me and employs two permanent technicians. A recent addition to our staff has been a new term scientist, Dr. Marta Guarna, who will be employed until March 31, 2017. Currently, three graduate students and one post-doctoral fellow are working on projects associated with our lab. During the summer of 2016, we're employing four co-operative education post-secondary students as well as two casual beekeeping technicians. AAFC also has a scientist working on native bees located in Ottawa, and native bee biologists in Kentville, Nova Scotia, and Calgary, Alberta.
AAFC is working on several ongoing bee-related projects. For example, we're developing recommendations for detecting and treating colonies infected with Nosema ceranae, a newly introduced parasite associated with higher rates of colony losses. In addition, we're developing techniques to disinfect beekeeping equipment exposed to this pest, and methods to detect therapeutic compounds that may be deposited in hive products.
We are also continuing to analyze samples for agricultural pesticide residues in honey, pollen, and beeswax throughout Alberta. Moreover, we're examining concentrations of products currently registered for control of diseases or mites of honeybees that may also accumulate in these matrices.
Analytical chemistry support for these activities has been provided through a long-standing partnership with the agrifood laboratories branch in Edmonton, part of the Province of Alberta's Department of Agriculture and Forestry.
In the last two years, AAFC has funded several new projects involving bee health. For example, we are currently in the last year of a project that examines the interactive role that certain risk factors, namely, Nosema ceranae parasitism, nutrition, and pesticides, have on honeybee colony survival within honey-producing and pollination beekeeping operations across different regions of the country. A second component of this project also examines diversity of wild pollinators in agricultural ecosystems and factors that may affect their abundance and overall health.
With partners funded through the agri-innovation program, we've also assisted in the evaluation of probiotic bacteria as a novel control against honeybee diseases.
The department also recently approved a new internal project that, beginning this summer, will document the prevalence of newly introduced parasitic threats in Canadian honeybee populations, namely, Lotmaria passim and Crithidia mellificae, as well as their potential impact on bee health.
AAFC has also funded a national four-year honeybee surveillance project through the agri-marketing program's assurance system stream. This project was awarded to the Alberta and Manitoba beekeepers commissions, and is now in its third year. As active surveillance for honeybee threats is not performed by agencies such as the CFIA, this project is designed to provide a baseline of endemic and exotic disease and pest threats to Canadian bee populations.
AAFC's honeybee program has also been successful in garnering significant extramural funding from scientific and industry-led funding consortiums to address other concerns to the beekeeping industry. These include studying factors related to the viability of sperm in newly mated honeybee queens imported into Canada, as well as looking at the role that honeybees and native bees can play to maximize the pollination of canola crops.
In 2015-16 we embarked on a large-scale genomic project with several other research groups across the country to develop genetic markers to breed bees that are more resistant to mites and diseases. This is the largest collaborative project involving honeybees in Canada, and brings together experts from universities and government with many unique and complementary skills.
In terms of diagnostic capacity, AAFC operates a laboratory at the Beaverlodge research farm capable of performing basic diagnostics as well as more advanced microbiological and molecular biology techniques. Recently, our ability to provide diagnostics has substantially increased through a formalized partnership with our local post-secondary institution, Grande Prairie Regional College.
The college, receiving support from Western Economic Diversification Canada and the rural Alberta development fund, built the national bee diagnostic centre, or NBDC, at Beaverlodge farm in 2012. This custom-built diagnostic laboratory has been fully operating since the spring of 2013 and actively partners with our AAFC research program, thereby extending our diagnostic capacity. As an example, the diagnostic testing for the national surveillance project is performed at the NBDC. Existing and future AAFC projects will benefit from the use of diagnostic platforms made available at the NBDC.
AAFC has been working diligently to seek answers concerning bee health in Canada and in creating working partnerships to provide the diagnostic capacity it requires to engage in leading-edge research.
In closing, I would like to thank the committee for providing me this opportunity to speak to you today.