Evidence of meeting #82 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 bees.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
Canadian Honey Council Delegate and Director, Alberta Beekeepers Commission
Oh, man, I don't envy any of you guys. That's a loaded question, and you're asking me to comment on the process of something that I have no idea about. I can only imagine that it's convoluted, long and hair-pullingly slow.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thank you very much, Mr. Shields.
Now, Mr. Carr, you can wrap us up for four minutes, please.
November 9th, 2023 / 10:10 a.m.
Liberal
Ben Carr Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
I wanted to return to a question on bees. I was doing a little bit of reading during the testimony, and I see that roughly 35°C seems to be the sweet spot in terms of a maximum heat for bees, although they can survive and be comfortable at hotter temperatures. One question I had was around whether that is correct, or you may want to offer some further explanation.
The second part of the question would be—no pun intended—whether the impact of climate change, as we're having hotter and hotter days, is having an impact on the transportation of bees in Canada. Can you talk at all about what the maximum temperatures in trucks are rising to when you're transporting the bees? How is that creating problems vis-à-vis what we're talking about today?
10:10 a.m.
Canadian Honey Council Delegate and Director, Alberta Beekeepers Commission
When it comes to bees.... To take a step back from there, if you look at a hive, bees tend to start to fly and really start to forage once it hits a temperature of about 10°C, and there's sunlight. That's when the foragers want to leave. They want to go out and fly. They're quite oblivious to the fact that they're put on the back of a truck. All they know is that there's sunshine outside, that it's warm enough, and they want to go and see if they can find something to eat. That's the cognitive depth of thought when they're there.
When you're driving down the road, you do lose a number of bees because they want to go out and forage. The hotter it gets, the more likely they are to try to leave the hive. The hive is kind of like a living organism. It wants to be at 36°C. The closer you get to 36°C, the more ventilation they need and the more distributed they'll become inside the hive. They'll break cluster, and the foragers will want to get out and leave. That causes some problems. We do not like to move bees when it's that hot. If we do, then we try to do it at night.
We do everything we can to avoid moving bees during the daylight, simply because we know bees like to fly. They're stimulated by the light. The warmer it is, the more active they become.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
Ben Carr Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB
Is climate change, in your experience, particularly in recent years, having a negative impact on beehives and on the transportation of bees?
10:10 a.m.
Canadian Honey Council Delegate and Director, Alberta Beekeepers Commission
The weather you drive through does have an impact on moving bees. In the last three years, we've had three Las Niñas back to back, and now we're into an El Niño summer. Is that climate change? Is this just a natural progression? Is this a natural cyclical event that happens? It's not unlike things we experienced back in the early 1980s.
I've been beekeeping for over 40 years. We've never had two years that were exactly the same, as far as weather is concerned. However, the weather does affect how you're going to move your bees, when you're going to move your bees and when you're going to transport.
If I have a choice, I'll watch the weather before I look at moving. I watch for the cool, rainy days, or if it's going to be drizzling and whatnot. Hot, dry weather makes it a lot harder to move bees, and you just think that maybe we need to delay this a little bit.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thanks very much, Mr. Carr.
Thanks to our witnesses.
We're going to have a bit of committee business. Before I go to that, I just want to ask Mr. Livingston one question.
I learned a lot about the importance of your business here today. You're a keystone in the supply chain in the livestock industry.
I'm curious. Before these transportation changes were made, going from the paper to the e-logs and the impact that would have, did anyone from Transport Canada or Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada come to meet and consult with you in regard to the impact these changes would have on the movement of livestock in Canada?
10:15 a.m.
President, The Barn Feed & Livestock Co. Inc.
No. Nobody consulted me. The only consults I had were after the fact: “You have to build a bigger barn.” I said that if somebody starts throwing money at me, I'll build a bigger barn.
Nobody has thrown any money at me yet.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
10:15 a.m.
President, The Barn Feed & Livestock Co. Inc.
We can put 22 straight loads in at any given time.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Since these changes came into force in January, especially now with the fall calf run and winter hitting the roads today, have you had some circumstances when you've had overcapacity or trucks lined up that were unable to access the barn?
10:15 a.m.
President, The Barn Feed & Livestock Co. Inc.
Yes. We've had full capacity. We'll shut down at two o'clock in the morning. My night guy shuts down at two o'clock in the morning and I start at 3:30. By that time, there will be four or five trucks sitting in the laneway waiting to get unloaded. They have to wait until I load somebody and put hay in. Then I can unload them. They may sit in the laneway for two or three hours before they get unloaded. So far, everybody has worked with me. Everybody knows what the situation is. We try to make it work the best we can.
If you get a snowstorm or the road is closed, that really puts a kibosh on things. We had 38 trucks in here one day, all at one time. We were loading cattle and they were in the barn for 12 hours. We'd reload them back on the truck, take another load of cattle off and unload the first load again when his 24 hours was up sitting in the laneway. Some cattle were in the barn three times before they got out of here.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
That does not sound like a day that I would like to experience.
Thanks very much, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Greidanus.
Colleagues, we will now go in camera for a couple of minutes to address a couple of issues that have arisen. We will suspend very briefly and try to get this done as quickly as we can.
Again, thank you to our witnesses. Have a great day.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
