B.C. beekeepers brace for another challenging season after difficult winter

Beekeepers and experts are voicing their concerns for British Columbia's bee colonies after another difficult winter.

Leonard Foster, a professor at the University of British Columbia's department of biochemistry and molecular biology who specializes in bee research, says it remains to be seen whether this year will be as bad as last year, which saw colony losses of around 45 per cent.

"My personal guess is we'll be slightly better than last year, but that has to be taken with a grain of salt because last year was the worst ever by a large margin," he said. 

He said losses of 45 per cent are well above the long-term average of 12 to 15 per cent prior to 2007. 

"So that's extremely hard on keeping bees as a viable source of income," he said.

Foster says bees play a key role in the province's agriculture sector, particularly when it comes to blueberries. He said blueberry growers need to import bees from Alberta to fully pollinate crops.

Foster says the main threat to the health of bees over the past 15 years has been parasitic varroa mites, which attack and feed on bees, leaving them vulnerable to secondary diseases.

Kevin Hamilton, an apiary inspector for the Ministry of Agriculture based in the Okanagan, says losses from bee colonies that overwinter in their hives appear to be significant.

"Very few beekeepers [I've] spoken to have come through winter unscathed," Hamilton said. "Most have sustained significant losses in their livestock."

He suspects one factor may be the warm weather that extended well into October of last year, followed by a "two weeks of fall and then ... winter came very suddenly."

"What I believe has happened is that the queen bees inside the hives didn't have enough time to lay a sufficient amount of baby bees, which would be your winter bees," he said. 

Calls for a quarantine

Some apiarists on Vancouver Island are concerned that imported bees could be a factor in the decline of the region's local bee population and a quarantine on the Island may be in order.

Don Lambert, vice-president of the Capital Regional Beekeepers Association, says there is a grassroots group of people calling for a quarantine that would ban the import of bees that aren't from the area as an added safety measure.

"I think that's a great idea," he said. "Is it practical? Probably not."

Lambert says he's heard reports of substantial colony losses on the Island and beekeepers are bringing in bees from overseas.

"If you have high losses in the winter, then how do you get bee colonies started in the spring if you don't have lots of bees coming in?" he said. "So that's the challenge."

Lambert says habitat degradation remains a challenge. 

Hamilton, meanwhile, says he has been telling farmers that monoculture farming, which involves growing one type of a crop at a time on a specific field, is not the way to go. 

"They need to set some of their land aside to help with promoting natural pollinators and not just being so reliant upon honeybees all the time," he said.

Hamilton says people can do their part to help by planting bee-friendly plants. According to the City of Vancouver website, that includes lavender, rhododendrons, sage, rosemary, mint, and oregano, among others.