B.C. honey bee industry still trying to rebuild after cold winters

British Columbia’s honey bee industry is trying to rebuild after enduring a couple of brutal winters, according to one researcher.

Alison McAfee, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia (UBC), says many of the small insects have died recently.

“Colony losses were really awful that winter between 2021 and 2022. Those were nationally some of the worst losses that we have on record in Canada,” she said.

Out of the 62,000 honey bee colonies that were around in 2021, nearly 20,000 were lost during that winter, according to a survey from the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.

Related articles: 

• B.C. berry farmers concerned about cool spring

• UBC professor calls for changes to pesticide regulations

• Deadly virus variant threatening Canadian beekeeper hives

Although McAfee says it’s too soon to tell how the colonies are doing this year, she says she has seen some losses.

“It’s kind of difficult to say yet this year how good or bad the overwintering losses have been,” she said. “I know some beekeepers who had pretty typical losses, around 20 or 30 per cent, and other beekeepers who lost nearly everything this past winter.”

As of yet, she says the losses are “pretty variable,” noting more will be known when new data comes out over the summer.

She says some of the top reasons for colony losses last year were parasite control, as well as “poor quality Queen” bees.

“There are a multitude of factors that could contribute to that, some of which are in our control and some of them aren’t.”

Why are honey bees important? 

Honey bees also do more than just create a natural sweetener, they actually contribute millions to the provincial economy, the B.C. government notes on its website.

“Crops and flowering plants cannot live and reproduce without the help of bees and pollinators,” the province says.

McAfee echoes the importance of these insects, saying they are critical for B.C. farmers and to the province’s agriculture sector.

“A dwindling honeybee population would definitely have impacts on farmers that need the colonies to fulfill their pollination contracts. In the Fraser Valley, one of the first pollination contracts beekeepers will have are blueberries. So that would be the one … that would probably be most affected by heavy winter losses just because beekeepers won’t have had the time that they would need to rebuild the colonies that they have left,” she said.

Related video: Rooftop beekeeping program launched in Vancouver 

“I don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t quite know how the rest of the season is gonna play out, but if there are heavy winter losses, and for sure that could contribute to a pollination deficit.”

Last year, the province even named a day after the pollinators, marking May 29 as the Day of the Honey Bee to help shine a light on the important work of the busy-bees.

With files from David Nadalini