Agriculture committee  The problem is, of course, that the variability from a year to year is often more significant than a general trend in climate change. Certainly, climate change will have a huge impact on the presence and the well-being of many feral populations as well as the honeybees, but this is stretching over a human lifetime, while there is much greater variability from a year to year, which will have a far greater impact on bees.

Agriculture committee  Everybody agrees to the principle of natural beekeeping and the wonderful things we can do with the bees, but the reality is as follows. With the severity and the sheer virulence of many of the pests that our honeybees face today, they cannot survive without the serious help and assistance of beekeepers.

Agriculture committee  No, it was 2013.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely, a lot of things can change in 10 years. The 2013 risk assessment was not universally supported by everyone, and I'm not talking here from a commercial perspective; I'm talking here from a scientific assessment. Some of these arguments that were raised were somewhat moot.

Agriculture committee  I don't know how to answer that question exactly other than to tie into what Dr. Guzman just mentioned. The difficulty that we have, since the border was closed to the import of bees from the United States, which was occurring in 1987, is that since that time, 35 years later, we still do not have a very large increase in the ability of British Columbia beekeepers to produce stock sufficient to meet the requirements in the prairie provinces.

Agriculture committee  Oh boy, you've put me on the spot.

Agriculture committee  All I can say is that we could certainly learn something from the European Union, where they have had subsidies offered to farmers to preserve hedgerows, riparian zones and undisturbed habitat to facilitate the presence of wild pollinators and a lot of other creatures, not just merely those pollinators—

Agriculture committee  I cannot speak for other provinces, but here in British Columbia, to address this issue of so many people being interested in bees and beekeeping, the ministry offers a free beekeeping course every year, which has an enrolment of 700, 800 or 900 people. We are trying to do our best to convey the best management practices to as many beekeepers as possible.

Agriculture committee  Wow. Look, in order to substantiate claims about the decline or the upsurge of native pollinator populations, you would require a fair bit of field trials and studies. It is well known that the world of native pollinators is poorly researched. There is generally not enough money available.

Agriculture committee  It is also important to recognize the context in which we talk here in Canada. There are about 750,000 to 800,000 colonies in Canada, but the real bulk of the beekeeping industry resides in the prairie provinces. They operate over 550,000 colonies. British Columbia and eastern Canada operate a total of about 220,000 colonies.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation. I had submitted my speaking notes, which I hope can be distributed. They're only a two-pager, short and sweet. I'd like to really switch a little bit to the academic discussion about the risks associated with some of the causes that have led to the high mortality rate.