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.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
I'm afraid, Mr. Chair, that I'm not able to speak to that, but I'm sure that if the committee is able to hear from some of my colleagues at a subsequent hearing, they could speak to it.
Liberal
Rechie Valdez Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
No worries. I'll move on. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Berg, do you know which sectors within bees have the highest mortality rates? Is it honeybees, alfalfa leafcutting bees or bumblebees?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
Alfalfa leafcutter bees and bumblebees would be a different sector altogether. We're typically only dealing with honeybees in the honey production and also in this type of pollination.
Liberal
Rechie Valdez Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you.
In your opening, you were saying that honey production has been depleted significantly. Can you give us any context in terms of how it's declined year over year?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
Honey production in the last couple of years has declined slightly, although it's not so much related to hive health as just hive numbers.
The bigger problem here is the actual hive loss that occurred in 2022. That loss was spread across all forms of honeybee occupations within that sector. Honey production and pollination both had very large losses, and I don't believe there was much differentiation between the bees that were used in honey production and the bees that were used in pollination.
Liberal
Rechie Valdez Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you.
In your opening, you mentioned research. What recommendations to this committee can you make to help with the research and innovation you were speaking about?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
The one big thing this committee could recommend would be the increase in funding for the tech transfer teams and then also helping to expedite the development of new varroa control products. The varroa control products are really our Achilles heel in this situation.
Liberal
Rechie Valdez Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you.
Are you familiar with the national bee farm-level biosecurity standard?
Liberal
Rechie Valdez Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
It's the national bee farm-level biosecurity standard.
Liberal
Rechie Valdez Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I was going to ask that.... I'm just trying to readjust my questions because the witnesses have changed, but no worries. I will move on.
My final question is for Mr. Hamilton.
We know that bee diseases and pests can spread between countries through the international trade in bees, especially packaged bees. In your opening, you were trying to support and encourage bringing them into Canada. Can you describe what opportunities you would see opening up for us here in Canada?
Apiary Manager, Nova Scotia Apiaries Divisions, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.
Well, we'd be able to produce a lot more wild blueberries if we had packaged bees. A package of honeybees is basically as clean a product as you can bring. All you're bringing is bees. You're not bringing any of the comb or honey or any of the other products that can carry disease, so that actually limits it.
As I said in my presentation, we're already bringing in queens from northern California. I think Mr. Robertson figured that because of all the queens we brought in.... To date, we've brought in about 6,000 packages already, just in little crates, at three or four at a time. If we can get the queens from there, why can't we get packages from there?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
Thank you, Ms. Valdez.
Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.
We're going to go to Monsieur Savard-Tremblay, but before we do, I want to recognize that we have some visiting members: Mr. Viersen and Mr. Shields on behalf of some Conservative members, and Monsieur Lauzon for Monsieur Drouin.
Welcome to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food.
Mr. Savard-Tremblay, you have the floor.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Hello.
I want to thank the committee again for having me. I'm starting to become a regular and a serial substitute. It's always a pleasure to join you.
I also want to thank all of the witnesses for their presentations and their testimony.
My question is for Mr. Berg.
Mr. Berg, one witness, Mr. Hamilton, told us about the losses in beehives. How do you explain such phenomenal and gigantic losses?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
The gigantic losses that have been occurring are typically being cited as lack of varroa control, poor queen quality and also small cluster size or small colony size in the fall prior, probably rated in that exact order, with varroa control being the number one issue here.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Exactly, a lot of beekeepers are telling us about varroa. It would seem that this problem is going to be increasingly common and severe. We really are talking about a parasite that literally feeds on pollinators.
First, can you confirm the link with climate change that many beekeepers seem to be saying exists?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
I don't know that I could confirm that there's a link between varroa and climate change. Varroa has been an ongoing issue in Canada since the early 1990s. It was an imported pest brought into Canada in packaged bees. That was before my time in beekeeping.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
I understand that the problem started before the beginning and amplification of climate change. But is climate change going to contribute to exacerbating the problem?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
I don't know that we could make that particular link. The big link that needs to be made is that the beekeeping industry as a whole needs more varroa control product, and/or a new one.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
What measures do you think we can we take, as parliamentarians? What can we do? How can we help out in the fight against the threat associated with parasites?
Chair, Canadian Honey Council
An increase in funding in research in varroa mite control products would probably be the best solution in this case.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
So you are telling us that funding for research to develop new products to combat varroa needs to be increased.
Is that right?