'It's not looking good': Manitoba beekeepers reporting more bee deaths in their colonies

Bees owned by Alberta beekeeper Grant Hicks are seen in Keremeos, B.C. on Friday, March 10, 2017. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff Bassett)

Beekeepers in Manitoba are facing an uncertain summer after discovering in some cases at least half their bees died in the winter.

Verne Derraugh, who runs Derrco Apiaries near Anola with his son, said their hives have taken a significant hit this year—at least 50 per cent of their bees have died.

"It's not looking good. It's looking like one of our worst years for a long time," Derraugh told CTV News.

Losing some bees is normal—Derraugh said typically they lose no more than 10 per cent—but a loss this big will have impacts on the apiary. However, he said they won't know the full extent of the losses until the end of April.

"It's pretty scary in the sense of, you know, what will our losses be in the end result?"

The Manitoba Beekeeping Association says it has been receiving similar reports of beekeepers discovering higher than normal losses so far this year, in some cases up to 90 per cent of their bees.

"It's really concerning, because I mean this is our livelihood," said Ian Steppler, chair of the Manitoba Beekeeping Association.

As for what is causing the bees to die, Steppler said the Manitoba Beekeeping Association is still diagnosing the situation, but last summer's drought could be to blame.

"There's a lot of conversation around maybe the aftermath of last year's drought, which caused a lot of stress onto our colonies, and in a lot of ways kind of screwed around with the cycle of our honeybees and maybe provided an opportunity for pests to take a better foothold," he said.

Pests such as the varroa mite—a parasitic mite which attacks honey bees and pass diseases. That is what Derraugh is concerned about.

"Last summer, the weather was across the prairies hot and dry, and the mites seem to flourish in that environment," he said. "The bees are in the winter, they're cooped up, and they're passing around these viruses they get from the mites."

Steppler said not all apiaries in Manitoba were hit hard—some are reporting modest losses.

Brad Hogg, who owns Faith Apiaries near Libau, said he had a good winter and is not experiencing unusually high loss.

"I'm standing here as a beekeeper thinking, why did I get 10 per cent loss when a beekeeper I know 20 miles away got 90 per cent loss? What's the difference?" he said. "They've been keeping bees for 40 years, I've been keeping bees for eight. It's not a skill thing. It's not because something I did. So that means it's environmental."

The problem is not unique to Manitoba.

"We're hearing of losses right across Canada," Steppler said, adding the losses add a layer of stress to producers who now have to replace their bees which typically come from other countries.

"A lot of producers are actually standing in line waiting for replacement stock—it just adds a lot of stress because now they have all this loss and they don't have any function to be able to recoup their losses with."

Facing a challenging summer, Derraugh said he would like to see the province step in.

"There's never much help for us beekeepers in the sense of government help compared to other farmers," he said. "There's not much there to help us recoup from these things and they don't realize that the pollination that is needed for everything is dependent upon bees."

A provincial spokesperson told CTV News, Manitoba Agriculture is aware of the higher-than normal losses, and is having ongoing discussions with the beekeeping industry. They said the province is working with the industry to collect data to determine the extent of losses.

They said the province supports programs such as Overwinter Bee Mortality Insurance as well as AgriStability to help producers manage risk.

Steppler said beekeepers will work through the challenges.

"Beekeepers are very stubborn. We're very determined. We love our craft," he said. "We've gone through problems like this before and it just takes so long to rebuild. But, you know, we have our operations and this is what we do. We regroup, and we try to move forward."