Evidence of meeting #58 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 44th 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.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
I'm pretty fair to you. I would have given you a few seconds, but you were just winding up, and then that would have been another minute and a half. You'll get another crack at it.
I'm going to go to Mr. Viersen for five minutes. Then we're going to go to the Liberals. We'll do two and a half and two and a half minutes, and then we'll do a third round.
Certainly, Alistair, if you have any further questions, we won't be too strict here tonight.
Mr. Viersen, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Mr. Hamilton, can you just restate your opening request about opening the border?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
My initial request was that I am here to speak in favour of allowing packages of honeybees to be imported into Canada from northern California.
Conservative
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
I would recommend that, but I understand that we have to have the risk assessment.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
I'm from northern Alberta. Falher, Alberta, the honey capital of Canada, is in my riding. I think we need to make it clear for this committee that honeybees wouldn't exist in northern Alberta if people didn't bring them there. Is that a correct statement?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
That's very correct.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Everybody I talk to about all the honeybees dying and things like that.... Really, these bees wouldn't exist if we didn't bring them here. Then we lock them up in a little box, wrap it in a sleeping bag for the whole winter and then open it up in the spring and hope that some have survived in there. Is that a correct statement?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
In my case, it is indoors, but it's still putting them in a dark room for five months.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Out our way, they wrap them in what looks like a black sleeping bag and hope for the best.
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Yes.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
What's interesting about Australia, New Zealand and Chile is that they don't have minus 40°. California doesn't have minus 40°. Trying to make these honeybees survive minus 40° is what the game is all about, is it not?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Yes.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Would you say that DNA testing has gotten dramatically better since 1987?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
I would say so, yes.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Therefore we can test quickly for Africanized bees. It's a lot cheaper now than it was in 1987.
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Yes, I think so. It's a lot quicker, too. They're doing a lot of it. As I said, when I talked to the Florida breeder, I was really quite surprised that they could not sell queens until they had a lab result.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Okay, so that works out well.
You talked about the seasonal changes. Is it just the fall bees that we're getting from the southern hemisphere?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Yes.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
It's a generational change to get them to be spring bees. Is that correct?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Yes, but the first—
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Well, the trick when we hive a package is to get the first eggs to hatch. You have an insect, so it's egg, larva, pupa and adult.
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
It's about, I think, 21 days for an adult worker bee. What you want to do is try to get your package to sustain itself until you get some young bees. Then the difference is just almost surprising, because you can see these little young bees running around the hive. We see it in our wintered hives as well when we pull them out of the buildings and set them down. When you get that first hatch, it's quite impressive. It's “Oh, we have young bees.”