Beekeepers say Ontario needs policy changes — not handouts — to save dying bees

When the Ontario government announced a cost-sharing program to support commercial beekeepers in June - similar to one they rolled out a year earlier - Luc Peters shrugged.

It was a story he'd heard before.

The government has done this quite a bit, throwing money at the industry," said Peters, founder of the Hamilton-based urban bee farming businesses Humble Bee. And although it's a nice gesture, what we really need - what will actually create the change we want to see - are new policies.

Throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily solve it."

Peters has been a beekeeper for more than 10 years, managing hundreds of colonies across southwestern Ontario - the majority in Hamilton and Burlington, including some on urban rooftops - that each boast between 40,000 to 50,000 bees.

But lately he's been worried.

Peters said the state of the beekeeping industry in Ontario is in a freefall. Bees are dying off at alarming rates, year after year, due to a deadly cocktail of pesticides, climate change and urban sprawl.

It takes a while to understand the bees themselves, but I can say it's been getting harder each year," said Peters. We're seeing bees with brain damage because of systemic pesticides, and it's absolutely heartbreaking. It's devastating. They're dying in mild winters, where we've never normally had big losses, because they can't function."

The growing strain on bees is at the core of Humble Bee's philosophy. It manages organic apiaries, spending more time with individual colonies than an industrial farm would to ensure the bees' health comes first. And, in recent years, it's altered focus to favour bee education and the breeding and selling of queen bees over honey production.

We're more focused on bee production and raising healthy bees, and we raise and breed queens," said Peters. The demand for them is skyrocketing because of the shortened lifespan and the losses that other beekeepers are facing."

Commercial beekeepers in Ontario lost more than 45 per cent of their colonies in 2018, according to a winter loss survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).

That's nearby double the 27 per cent seen in 2017 and triple the 18 per cent seen in 2016.

The ministry - which has called bees vital to our food system and agriculture sector" - hasn't released a winter loss survey since.

But beekeepers say the situation could be worse than what the most recent colony-loss numbers suggest.

I know people who have lost everything, all of their colonies," said Roy Allemann, president of the Golden Horseshoe Beekeepers' Association. The government funding, it's hush money for the beekeeping industry. There are bigger problems. This has been a sinking ship for many years now."

The province's most recent cost-sharing initiative is meant to stem the high cost demands of commercial beekeeping. Beekeepers with 50 colonies or more are eligible for up to $10,000 in equipment or activity expenses, while those with less than 50 are eligible for up to $3,500.

Allemann, a longtime beekeeper who currently manages about 110 hives, said that won't make much of a difference. His average colony losses in the past decade have ranged from 35 to 40 per cent.

A bad year used to be 10 per cent," he said. It's unsustainable. You really have to love what you do otherwise you won't make it. There's a lot less mid-scale beekeepers around these days."

Bees are crucial to agriculture: about one-third of the world's crops - cucumbers, onions, peaches, watermelons, grapes - depend on pollinators, according to the United Nations.

To survive, they need nectar, pollen and water. But the latter is under particular threat.

Allemann said bees' favourite water source is morning dew, droplets of liquid they poach off blades of grass and plants in farm fields or urban parks. But many of those areas are sprayed with toxic insecticides - most commonly neonicotinoids - that kill bees and alter their behaviour.

When you're spraying 50-acre fields at 2 p.m. on a bright, sunny day, what do you think the bees are going to do?" said Allemann. They're going to collect it - they think it's morning dew, they think it's water - and bring it back to their hives, infecting the whole colony."

Climate change is also a factor. Research suggests bees are only half as likely to be found in areas where they were once common.

It's not only the gradual warming that is a problem for bees, but also the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events that climate change causes," said Peter Soroye, a biologist at the University of Ottawa whose research into bumblebee population declines and climate change was published in the journal Science last year. This is forcing bees to withstand higher temperatures than they've ever had to in the past, and for longer and longer each year."

Paul Kozak, an apiarist with OMAFRA, said the major driver behind colony losses in Ontario is linked to a parasite of the honeybee called Varroa mite.

It's an invasive, debilitating pest - imagine a tick the size of a dinner plate on your body, for scale" - that quickly latch onto bees, weaken their immune system and spread viruses throughout their hives.

That was determined in a study as the number one factor in winter mortality," said Kozak.

Kozak sympathized with beekeepers who are concerned about the systemic threats that are plaguing Ontario's bee population.

He said the province is in the process" of updating its winter loss surveys, but pointed to other data sources - such as the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists (CAPA) - that suggest colony loss levels are declining.

Last year, the winter mortality rate in Ontario was an estimated 19.1 per cent," he said, referencing CAPA's most recent annual survey. That's still above the threshold of 15 per cent. If you're above that, you're considered not doing well."

Peters of Humble Bee predicts tougher years ahead - both for bees and the people who care for them.

The unfortunate part of a lot of these threats, like pesticides, is they're an outside-the-hive issue I have no control over," said Peters. I can't tell the bees not to drink from that water, not to visit those plants that soak up pesticides. It's really tough."

Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com