P.E.I. beekeepers suffer 'heartbreaking' winter loss
CBC
More than half of P.E.I.'s beehives died over the winter, according to a survey by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.
It amounted to a loss of about 3,500 hives.
"Opening up your hives, one by one, and seeing that there's nothing there, or that they're not alive, it's heartbreaking," Troy Fraser, president of the P.E.I. Beekeepers Association, told Island Morning host Laura Chapin.
The blame is being laid on varroa mites and paradoxically, warm weather that led to an early start to the season in the spring of 2021. Provincial apiarist Cameron Menzies said the early start for the bees appears to have also provided the parasitic mites, which live in the hives with the bees year-round, an early start as well.
The mites will rarely kill a hive outright, but they can weaken it so it won't survive the winter.
"Sometimes that can get ahead of us before we're able to check on them and treat them right away, so we suspect these varroa mite populations just got out of hand really early," said Menzies.
It was an issue right across Canada, he said. The CAPA survey estimates almost half of hives across the country were lost.
Most hives on P.E.I. are used both to pollinate crops and produce honey, and that can make the timing of treatment difficult, said Fraser.
"We can't necessarily use certain chemicals or treatments whenever the honey flow is on," he said.
"We can't infect our honey crop; the chemical residue can't be in the honey."
He said he tried an organic treatment during honey harvesting, but it did not work as he hoped. Fraser will produce less honey this year, and focus more on improving the health of his remaining hives.
The honey harvest will not be the only impact on the Island's agriculture.
Conditions for blueberries have been favourable this year, with good snow protection over the winter and few heavy frosts in the spring, said Menzies. The lack of bees for pollinating, with a third fewer hives than usual, however, will likely blunt what otherwise could have been a substantial above average yield, he said.
Producers of apples and cranberries could be similarly affected, said Menzies.
Another of New Brunswick's new municipal councils has become embroiled in drama and bitter conflict.
Tardiness is nothing new at Via Rail, but late arrivals are reaching historic levels in a key corridor since passenger trains have been forced to slow down at hundreds of rail crossings operated by CN Rail.
Walmart Canada will stop selling machetes — a type of weapon frequently used in violent crimes — in stores across the country, after Manitoba's government pressured the retailer to restrict online sales.
The parents of two 15-year-old girls at Evan Hardy Collegiate in Saskatoon say they went to police and the school multiple times between June and August 2024 with concerns about escalating online threats from the student now accused of setting one of the girls on fire in a school hallway.
After more than two years of developing an official plan, the City of Charlottetown is getting close to voting on adopting it. Some residents have concerns with higher density housing the plan could make way for, but others are welcoming it.
Premier Danielle Smith is once again headed to the U.S. later this month to continue her diplomatic approach to tariff talks amid a trade war with the United States.
Point Roberts, a U.S. community in Washington state, is so Canadian that it advertises its gas prices in litres as well as gallons.
Ibrahim Hermus arrived in Canada in 2023 with hopes his young daughter, Cena, would receive the medical care she desperately needed for a rare condition.
Advocacy organizations won't appeal an Ontario court's decision to dismiss their Charter challenge of the province's long-term care (LTC) law, which allows hospitals to move people into homes they didn't choose or be charged $400 a day to remain in hospital.
A proposed Thunder Bay lithium refinery has taken a big step forward, getting support from both the provincial and federal governments.
As the consumption and treatment services (CTS) site winds down in Guelph, Ont., the service set to replace it will not be fully operational in time.
It's a lively March day at the Dr. John M. Gillis Memorial Lodge in Belfast, P.E.I., as residents tap their feet and sing along with a guitarist performing The Black Velvet Band in a common room.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is reinstating a $100,000 fund that supports training and in-person meetings for shelters and safe homes across the territory.