Agriculture committee  It could be pathogens. It could be environmental causes. It could be varroa, of course, the mites, or nosema. It could be management practices. It could be how beekeepers offer the treatments at different times and it has different impacts. And, of course, it could be winter.

Agriculture committee  Fine.

Agriculture committee  No, I am not neglected. This acute incident has happened to those three beekeepers. They are the ones who are experts on it. The only comment I would have is that the programs that were mentioned—AgriStability and a couple of others—are not well suited for beekeeping, mainly be

Agriculture committee  Definitely more research. We're trying to develop a database of our bee health in Canada. We need the government to help us facilitate that. Certainly, we're going to be using Beaverlodge and Dr. Pernal, who was mentioned and who is an expert in this. That's a very key major comp

Agriculture committee  I do not.

Agriculture committee  This year I have not heard of any. Certainly if you go on the PMRA website, the same issue was raised in Quebec last year. The case studies and the reports are on the PMRA website. They did indicate that there was a probable cause.

Agriculture committee  The seed treatment is a family of treatments, a family of insecticides that is apparently used in the States, and there is a bunch of research out there. I think the other three panel members have been impacted by this directly, and they're probably better versed in the direct ef

Agriculture committee  Certainly. I will not comment on the Ontario bee kill and the research involved there, because that's kind of a separate issue. On the long-term health and mortality of bees, certainly we need to do some research on weather. As I indicated in my preamble there, this year it app

Agriculture committee  It has been successful. I believe we're still on emergency use registration yet, but again, it is one of the tools that beekeepers need to be successful.

Agriculture committee  That one is a little bit more difficult. CFIA, as you are well aware, is undergoing kind of a changeover in philosophies. The small hive beetle policy, as a national strategy, has kind of been by the wayside, so to speak. We've suggested certain things to CFIA. We've passed a r

Agriculture committee  The only impact I have heard of is in second-hand discussions with the president of the OBA. It only concerns one commercial beekeeper whose operation has been very good. Other than that, I have no statistical or factual evidence to make any claims.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to begin by thanking the committee members for allowing the Canadian Honey Council the opportunity to address you this afternoon. The CHC is truly a national organization, representing all bee