Beekeeper organizations at odds over neonics

Thursday, January 29, 2015

by JIM ALGIE

The Ontario Beekeepers' Association will seek to reinstate membership in the Canadian Honey Council following a brief hiatus over conflicted policy on neonicotinoid use, provincial president Tibor Szabo confirmed, Wednesday.

On Monday, the national council notified Ontario representatives they had lost membership “in good standing” after failing to make full payment of annual fees. Szabo said late Tuesday the decision to withhold about $12,000 in national hive assessment fees followed a resolution adopted by Ontario association members at their annual general meeting in early December.

The resolution cited potential conflicts of interest among Honey Council directors over neonics. However, Szabo also said during an interview from his Guelph-area home that Ontario will send a representative to the national council’s planned annual meeting in Moncton, New Brunswick, this weekend and will pay its fees in full.

Szabo has assurances from other provincial association presidents and Honey Council directors that “they are extremely desirous of us to stay on the Honey Council and work together.”

Ontario’s 3,100-member association has led criticism of widespread neonicotinoid use as a prophylactic pesticide in Ontario corn and soybeans. The group has also expressed strong support for restrictions on neonics proposed late last year by the Ontario government and for a continuing class action law suit over pesticide damage to bees.

Honey Council director Rod Scarlett downplayed differences between the two organizations in an interview, Tuesday. For Honey Council directors it was strictly a matter of enforcing fee payment bylaws, he said.

There may be differences in tactics over neonic use, however, as Western Canadian beekeepers have not experienced problems with widespread hive collapse which have emerged in Ontario.

“There appears to be no issue on seed treatment in Western Canada,” said Scarlett who also co-chairs a federal round table on bee health. Scarlett said he expects the round table will address the need for improved pesticide management.

“Honey Council just believes we need to work with everyone so we can come up with solutions that everyone is happy with, and that includes farmers,” Scarlett said. “We still have underlying beliefs that the prophylactic use of seed treatments and pesticides is not in the best interest of beekeepers,” he said.

Szabo expressed concern that the Honey Council has not provided “fair and unbiased representation” of Ontario concerns. He referred specifically to sponsorship payments to the Honey Council from Bayer Inc. and Syngenta Canada Inc., both of whom operate seed companies that rely on bee pollination services. As well, he spoke of the influence of at least one national director he did not identify who derives significant income from Bayer and Syngenta-owned seed companies.

The sponsorships are acknowledged on the Honey Council’s website and provide revenue for the organization for a variety of purposes along with similar donations from bee suppliers and other related businesses, Scarlett said. They do not provide sponsors with influence on council policy, he said.

Asked specifically about Szabo’s charge about a director who derives significant income from Bayer and Syngenta-related sources, Scarlett said council directors have considered that claim internally and concluded there is no conflict.

Szabo said Ontario beekeepers “want to continue with the Canadian Honey Council.” National representation is needed. “We’re trying this process to get that. It’s not easy,” he said.

A producer of mated queens and colonies for other beekeepers, Szabo said he has experienced significant losses he attributes to the use of neonics among area corn and soybean growers. He’s a third-generation bee keeper. His father, also named Tibor Szabo, is a distinguished researcher whose work with bee breeding earned him membership in the Order of Canada in 1987.

“I see it every day,” the younger Szabo said, referring to “the poisoning effects on my colonies.” When he first began working in the Guelph area in the early ’90s, before widespread adoption of neonics, Szabo described it as a “paradise” for bees.

A breeder of bees for other keepers and a consultant in accelerated breeding techniques with international clients, Szabo has moved some breeder queens to the Niagara area “where I was hoping I’d find a safer spot.”

“It’s really devastating,” Szabo said of his recent experiences. “It gets rid of the genetics bee breeders have worked on for years; you can just lose it in a poisoning event,” he said.

“I’m fully invested into bees and it’s more than frustrating to see all this happen and all the politics around it and the ignorance around it,” Szabo said. BF