Report shows improvement in Ontario honeybee colony winter survival rates

by SUSAN MANN

This year’s overwintering honeybee colony losses in Ontario are among the lowest since the 2006/07 winter, says a new national report from the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.

The report shows overwintering honeybee colony losses fell to 18 per cent during the 2015/16 winter season.

The province’s percentage is in line with the national overall colony winter loss of 17 per cent, the report said.

The lower loss number in Ontario this year reverses a trend that’s been in place since 2013, when losses were typically three times higher than in other parts of Canada, the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association said in a July 21 press release.

Nationally, 611 of 2,598 commercial and part time beekeepers responded to the survey. The beekeepers surveyed operated 61 per cent of all registered colonies that were wintered in 2015.

Respondents ranked the top four possible causes of overwintering losses as poor queens, varroa mites, weak colonies and weather conditions. In Ontario, poor queen quality was ranked as the number one cause of overwintering losses.

In Ontario, 67,250 colonies were wintered in the fall of 2015. The estimated total number of the respondents’ colonies that were alive and viable in the spring were 55,195.

Tibor Szabo, president of the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association, said the mild winter helped the compromised bees and smaller hives make it through the season. However, Ontario can still do better than an 18 per cent winter colony loss.

Szabo said he lost less than two per cent of his colonies. “It was very good wintering.”

Szabo said strong, healthy hives are able to survive whatever winter weather comes their way. “It can be minus 40 degrees Celsius and it doesn’t matter, they’re going to make it without a problem.”

Smaller, weaker hives “are depending on weather. They need the heat energy to make it through winter and also in the summer to grow,” he said. A small hive is below 25,000 bees and that’s considered a smaller colony for overwintering.

The overwintering numbers, however, aren’t the whole story. “We had crazy summer losses last year where hives were dying in the summer, and in the fall there were lots of dead bees piling up in front of the hives from the poisons they’re bringing in,” he said.

Summer loss numbers aren’t tracked, he noted.

Grain Farmers of Ontario chair Mark Brock said in a July 20 news release that data indicating strong bee populations reinforces their belief the province’s rush to restrict neonicotinoids was unnecessary.

Brock was referring to Ontario’s regulations to restrict the sales and use of neonicotinoids that are used as seed treatments to protect corn and soybean seeds from soil borne pests. The regulations began July 1, 2015 and are being phased in over two years. The 2016 growing season is the first one under the new rules.

Szabo said insecticides kill insects and bees are insects. Neonicotinoids are killing bees. BF