Sask. beekeepers hope to avoid sting of killer parasite, tariffs on honey production
Saskatchewan is one of the largest honey exporters in Canada
Simon Lalonde warns the guests touring his apiary that the yellowish goo his bees are depositing on their clothes isn't honey.
It's basically bee poop, Lalonde says.
It's a sunny spring day at From Hives to Honey, an apiary a short drive from Clavet, Sask., and the bees are leaving their hives for the first time since hibernation.
"They're doing their cleansing flights, which is … they haven't been able to go to the bathroom since November of last year," Lalonde said.
"They're stretching their wings again. They'll start drinking some water, they'll start working different protein sources just to get the hive up and running. So these first few days are going to be huge to get the hive working to increase their population."
Geoff Wilson is the agriculture ministry's apiculture specialist — the province's chief bee inspector. He said early reports from Saskatchewan hives suggest winter was one of the worst on record for the bee population.
"We're anticipating losses somewhere around 35 per cent on average," Wilson said in an interview.
"That would put us right in the highest we've ever had in the province. This is just guessing at the moment. We don't know for sure.… We'll have beekeepers that have done well and we'll have beekeepers that have lost more than they'd like to."
Population decline isn't the only concern among apiaries. The hives are under attack from a bee-killing parasite and now honey producers are bracing for impacts of a tariff trade war.
Natural honey is on Canada's list of U.S. imports subject to a 25 per cent tariff. There is not currently a U.S. tariff on Canadian honey.
In 2023, Canadian hives produced 91.8 million pounds of honey with a production value of $277 million, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Saskatchewan's share of that was just over 20 million pounds.
Saskatchewan exported about $4 million of honey in 2023, down from $6.6 million the previous year, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The Prairie provinces accounted for 73 per cent of all honey exports in 2023.
Tariffs could affect beekeepers by raising prices on equipment, supplies and even queen bees, said Lalonde, who is also the president of the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Commission.
New queen bees are developed by hives every year, but in Saskatchewan that doesn't typically happen until June. Lalonde said apiaries here import queen bees from the U.S. to insert them into new hives so honey production starts sooner.
"[There are] about 800,000 hives in Canada and we brought in about 260,000 queens from the U.S. last year," Lalonde said. "So value-wise that's probably somewhere around two to three million [dollars] out of beekeepers' pockets if a tariff happens to go on to the queen bees."
A honeybee parasite called the Varroa mite continues to ravage Saskatchewan hives. In 2022 the mites, which feed on honey bees, proliferated during winter hibernation and the bee mortality rate spiked.
That was the same fear heading into this past winter, Wilson said. Summer drought conditions left honeybees less prepared for winter and more vulnerable to the killer pest, he said.
"Bee health is getting harder and harder because there's getting to be resistance to those control products that we use for the Varroa mite," Wilson said. "It's getting harder and harder to control the pest."
From Hives to Honey only lost about 15 per cent of its bees over winter, Lalonde said. Even amid the uncertainty, he's feeling upbeat.
"At this time of year, you're always as optimistic as you can be and hoping to produce the best hives that you can for the honey crop coming up."
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