- Herman Van Reekum
- Feb 18, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 18, 2024
At the recent Bee Tech Conference in Calgary, sponsored by the Canadian Honey Council, a clear directive emerged for Canadian beekeepers: it's time to prioritize domestic queen bee breeding.
Here's why:
Honeybees aren't native to North America, so we rely on either domestically bred bees or imports from warmer climates. Shockingly, Canadian beekeepers currently import over 350,000 queens annually from regions like Australia, Hawaii, California, Italy, and Ukraine.
Importing bees from abroad increases the risk of introducing harmful pathogens that have devastated bee populations elsewhere. These include Tropilaelaps mites, Asian Hornets, Small Hive Beetles, and others. By reducing reliance on foreign stock, we can minimize the spread of these threats within Canada.
Foreign-raised queens often struggle to adapt to Canadian conditions. However, Canadian queen breeders are making strides in producing queens better suited to our environment.
Commercial beekeepers at the conference reported a concerning trend: queens now survive for just one year, down from the previous three-year average. This highlights the urgent need for reliable sources of domestically bred queens.
Enter the Bee Cube™ – a game-changer in bee breeding. Equipped with sensors, these hives provide real-time insights into bee and queen health, empowering beekeepers with the data needed for expert hive management.
In collaboration with research scientists and industry experts, we're pioneering an initiative to use Bee Cubes™ for large-scale queen overwintering. This practice, unexplored in the Canadian prairies (which account for 70% of the nation's beekeeping industry), promises to nurture a sustainable commercial beekeeping sector.
Traditionally, queen rearing in the prairies occurs during summer, often too late to impact honey production and pollination significantly. With Bee Cube™, we anticipate a shift. By supplying healthy, fertilized queens in spring, these hives will drive bee population growth, ensuring robust colonies for honey production and pollination throughout the summer.
Exciting developments lie ahead. Stay tuned for more updates on the Bee Cube™ and other innovations shaping the future of beekeeping.
Herman Van Reekum
February 18, 2024