Yi Zeng, senior director for Asia and global commodities at the Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership (STEP), said the area has high population and strong purchasing power.

China and India each have markets of 1.4 billion people, and 12 other major countries have about 600 million combined.

Zeng said the markets are there, as long as exporters know what they are getting into.

WHY IT MATTERS: Canada exported about $685 million worth of organic products in 2023 and continues to seek additional markets.

He includes Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as “Tier 1” countries because they have organic equivalency agreements with Canada. However, in South Korea, that includes only retail packaged foods and not commodities.

Japan presents an interesting proposition for organic exporters because of the health-conscious, aging population and the concept of living an organic life.

“They’re not only eating organic, they use everything organic,” he told the recent Advancing Organics conference in Regina.

They favour clothing made from organic cotton and silk, for example.

“Organic grain and organic pulses and also the organic ingredients for bakery purposes are the major products we can sell into Japan,” Zeng said.

Consumer cultures differ

However, he said exporters should keep in mind that Japanese consumers shop differently than those in North America. They shop daily after work instead of stocking up for a week or more. Packaging requirements are different because the purchases are carried home.

Honey is a good example.

In Canada, someone might buy a kilogram or more of honey. In Japan, “they are packing honey like we do cosmetics,” he said.

Small packages of 30 to 100 grams are better suited to the market. Similar packages would be required in Singapore and Hong Kong, he said.

Japan does not accept flax for human consumption.

Regardless of whether the flax is organic or conventional, the genetically modified content has to be zero. Japan also requires cyanide and glyphosate levels lower than 10 parts per million, Zeng said.

“All naturally grown flax in Saskatchewan, in Canada, cannot meet this safety standard,” he said.

Roasting the flax can be a way around this because it lowers those levels, but most imported flax is used for industrial purposes.

Hemp is another product to be cautious about when exporting.

Only Japan and South Korea accept it under their own national standards.

To meet Japanese specifications, the seeds must be treated so they don’t germinate. In South Korea, hemp seeds are considered a super food, but they must be hulled to be accepted.

Zeng said organic wheat, oats and barley are widely imported. Barley tea is popular, and both Japan and South Korea look for an organic pearl barley to make this product.

South Korea does not accept wild rice or quinoa and considers them both rice, even though neither of them are.

It also has a honey import quota of 200 tonnes from Canada, and Zeng said he knows of one major company that takes the majority of that quota. It would be difficult for an individual organic honey producer to gain much of the market.

Both countries have free trade agreements with Canada and rely on it for food security, he added.

Taiwan does not accept hemp, and none of the other countries aside from Japan and South Korea do.

Other markets, different challenges

Zeng considers the two city state countries of Singapore and Hong Kong as the second tier. Singapore has about five million people and Hong Kong seven million, and neither has farmland to produce what they need.

They will accept Canadian organic certification, although they don’t have official agreements, he said.

“Because they are more like cities, they are more interested in retail packaged organic products or the ingredients which they can use for bakery purposes,” he said.

Organic demand is small, and pretty much any product can enter except hemp.

Tier 3 markets include China and South Korea for commodities. Products have to be recertified to enter these markets.

Zeng said China should not be ignored because it already buys a lot of organic products from Saskatchewan, particularly for making plant proteins for beverages, starch and ingredients for the health industry.

He classifies emerging markets as Tier 4, saying the organic market hasn’t reached the same level as other countries in the region due to economic levels. These countries, which include India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Pakistan, need food and they aren’t necessarily picky when it comes to conventional or organic.

Zeng encouraged potential exporters to participate in trade missions with STEP and said the organization can help with things such as paperwork.

He also said they can meet international buyers at the Saskatchewan-Asia Trade Conference in Regina in September.

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Ermanno De Chino, CEO of Melita Bees, a firm based on the Mediterranean island of Malta, said Italian and Maltese bee biosecurity and quality are the subject of unwarranted “smears” coming from a Canadian beekeeping contingent. He said they’re “pushing for the opening of the border with the United States,” a country he said is extremely vulnerable to the tropilaelaps (tropi) mite threat.

“There’s little science and a lot of politics in all of this,” he wrote in a Feb. 10 email.

In a separate email, De Chino described the risk of tropilaelaps entering the U.S. as “very high” due to the “enormous” number of cargo ships from Asia arriving at the ports of California, Texas, and Florida: three states with tropi mite-friendly weather conditions.

“Swarms of Asian bees arriving in containers would have an easy time establishing themselves in these areas. The enormous concentration of hives in California’s Green Valley, dedicated to almond pollination, would make their spread almost immediate.”

De Chino said Italy and Malta’s biosecurity efforts are being “undermined” by the “political games” of a handful of Canadian beekeeping industry players — including the Canadian Beekeepers Federation (CBF) — wishing to re-open the border to U.S. bee “packages” (two or three pounds of bees with a mated queen).

“This comes after the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), the only body with the authority to establish biosecurity criteria, reiterated that bees from Italy and Malta meet Canadian requirements,” he said.

“The CFIA is in constant contact with European authorities, who are gradually increasing their level of surveillance.”

An example is the ongoing development of a molecular testing protocol De Chino said will allow countries to certify bees sourced from tropilaelaps-free apiaries.

The initiative is a collaboration with United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Reference Center for Beekeeping, Bee Health, and Biosecurity.

Mite adapting

CBF director Peter Awram said De Chino’s argument underestimates growing knowledge about tropi mite, which is proving itself hardier in cold weather and out-of-brood survival than previously thought.

“It’s in South Korea, which is much, much colder than all the tropical places that were thought to be a problem. And we’ve seen it in Ukraine. We’re seeing it in Georgia.”

“The idea that it can’t survive in Canada has been proven to be totally false and the idea that it can’t survive in packages has also been shown to be false.”

Awram said Italy and Malta could be a tropi vector for a couple of reasons:

1. they’re part of a trade route starting in tropi-present India and,
2. a host of the mite called Apis florea — the Asian red dwarf honeybee — has been found in Malta.

“So the idea that all these ships that are coming from India through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean don’t pose a threat is totally false.”

Its discovery in the transcontinental, Eastern Europe-bordering country of Georgia is also problematic, he said.

“If you look on a map, (Georgia is) not that far, on a land basis, from Italy.

“And there’s no doubt if it can survive in Georgia, it can survive in those countries that are further south that are between it and Italy.”

U.S. safer bet

The CBF also questioned whether the CFIA’s list of approved bee package sources (Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Ukraine and Chile) are worth the risk to commercial apiarists. Honeybee queen trade is limited by the CFIA to those countries — except for Ukraine — plus the U.S., Denmark and Malta.

“From Italy we were getting 4,000 packages out of a total of around 50,000 to 60,000.

“And the reality is most of those replacements go to hobbyists.”

Awram also said the packages from some of the source countries, particularly New Zealand, are subpar and sometimes carry varroa mite (currently Canada’s most destructive insect parasite of bees) populations far above the maximum threshold.

“I’ve tested some myself and we see like six per cent mites in some of the highest ones. What is supposed to come in is less than one per cent,” he said

Many beekeepers consider these packages enough of a threat to call on government to consider the complete discontinuation of trade of all bee packages imported from offshore.

Last year, the Alberta Beekeepers Commission passed a resolution to work with Alberta Agriculture and Irrigation, Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Health Canada and CFIA to close the Canadian border to all packaged honeybee imports, including queens from outside North America except for Hawaii.

The CBF considers the U.S. to have better biosecurity. In a Jan. 8 Co-operator story, Ian Steppler, chair of the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, recounted an incident in which the quick thinking of a New Jersey-bound, India-originating container ship crew prevented a hive of tropi mites from landing onshore.

Awram does not think the U.S. is impenetrable to the mite, but the incident — along with its highly-regulated stance on foreign bee entry — makes it a path of relatively high resistance.

“We are trying to do our best to minimize the easy routes,” noted Awram.

“To me and the CBF and to a lot of the beekeepers … this is an easy thing that costs a minimal amount that we can do to try and slow down the chance that we get (tropi mite). Certainly we can get infected. We don’t know how long these mites can survive, right?”

Certainty needed

Not all Canadian beekeepers are completely onboard with the CBF approach.

Another faction, led by the Canadian Honey Council (CHC), is working with CFIA and other government agencies on what executive director Rod Scarlett describes as a “comprehensive, integrated” tropi mite risk management plan.

In addition to CFIA, the council has also teamed with a who’s-who of agencies and individuals to keep tropilaelaps off North American shores. These include Canada Border Services, provincial apiarists, chief veterinary officers throughout the country and Transport Canada.

Although Scarlett also has some concerns about the CFIA-approved countries adjacent to tropi-present regions, he’s putting his faith in the agency’s judgment.

“We’ve been assured by CFIA that they have the complete faith in the inspections and the work done by individual countries to ensure that tropilaelaps is not in their country,” he explained.

The industry needs to find out for certain if CFIA-approved bee packages are the most likely vectors of the tropi mite, said Scarlett. That may mean a careful look at queen bees imported from California and Hawaii. This idea was floated at Bee Tech 2026 in Calgary held by CHC and the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists Feb. 12-14.

“We know … that queens from California and Hawaii are absolutely essential for the beekeeping sector in Canada. But we heard at Bee Tech that queens could be a bigger risk of tropilaelaps than packages.”

“We have to really be careful about how we are going to address the issue as a whole, not just piecemeal.”

Lead with research, says honey industry rep

Research on the tropilaelaps (tropi) mite needs to be a front and center priority for the Canadian beekeeping industry, says Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council.

The body of scientific knowledge on tropi mite is still in its infancy compared to varroa mite, currently Canada’s largest insect threat to honeybees, said Scarlett.

“There’s thousands and thousands and thousands of published works on varroa. There might be 100 on tropilaelaps,” he said.

And it’s not the only area where beekeeper organizations need to step up the research game. “Beekeepers have been saying we have amitraz resistance, but we’ve never had a scientific paper put out that says we have it.”

Science has been a bone of contention recently between some Canadian beekeepers and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

In 2025, a series of apiarist recommendations — including the rezoning of approved honeybee trade regions — met with Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) dismissal based on what it called a lack of robust science.

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The last thing they need, they argue, is food fraud.

WHY IT MATTERS: The honey industry has spent years pushing against “fake” honey, which is cut with other sweeteners and which beekeepers say undermines their business and reputation producing the real deal.

Unfortunately, the effort against adulterated honey has been a long slog, with little sign of letting up.

Industry largely blames international sources for the flow of fake honey, and its detrimental impacts on the market.

At risk is the financial sustainability of the beekeeping and honey industries, said Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeepers Federation.

Countries that produce honey at a low cost — often through adulteration — have weakened domestic beekeeper and honey producer returns, he said.

“Places like India, Vietnam, Brazil are all providing us with these huge amounts of honey at really unbelievably low prices,” he said.

According to Statistics Canada, Canada imported 10,452 tonnes in 2024. Of that, New Zealand was the top source by value (just over $18 million worth). By volume though, Brazil was far and away top of the list, shipping 3,728 tonnes onto Canadian shores. India shipped the second highest amount, at 1,213 tonnes, with Thailand and the U.S. close behind. New Zealand was only seventh on the list of sources by volume.

Vietnam did not make the top list of honey sources by either volume or dollar value.

Pollination impacts

Canada needs a robust beekeeping sector, Awram argued. As well as honey, their honeybees provide critical pollination for crops like canola and alfalfa.

And while there’s a line between pollination services (which includes leafcutting bees) and honey production, Awram said the two streams tend to cross. When either’s prices are too low, it tends to drag the other down as well.

“When the honey price drops, there’s more beekeepers that want to (pollinate),” he noted, and that supply glut lets growers lower the price of pollination services.

“We’ve seen that in the last few years,” Awram said.

While adulterated honey itself might not be a risk to human health, he said, “the ‘health risk’ is our food supply in general is going to disappear if the beekeeping industry cannot stay healthy and cannot be out there (pollinating) all the blueberries and raspberries and the canola and all the other things … Everything that’s a fruit needs pollination of some sort.”

Syrup a culprit

The 2001 European Honey Council Directive outlines several practices to create adulterated honey.

A few include harvesting immature honey, pollen addition to disguise honey origins and dehydration of immature honey through mechanical means (rather than let the natural process run its course in the hive).

The most infamous for the beekeeping sector though, is the practice of diluting or sweetening honey with syrup — historically corn syrup, although rice syrup has seen a surge. Today, if a honey product’s ingredient list includes fructose-glucose, chances are it’s rice syrup, Awram said.

Protecting Canada’s reputation

Most adulterated honey is used as an ingredient in more processed honey products, like honey mustard, Awram said.

Adulteration misleads consumers and hits Canada’s reputation worldwide as a honey producers, he argued.

“I have seen some really bad ingredient honey,” he said.

“There was one thing that went onto honey hams and, to this day, I really don’t know what it was. It was some sort of waxy, weird stuff. It went on thousands of hams around the country.

“(When) they say honey hams … you’re expecting a certain quality, so the consumer is being deceived. They’re paying more for things that aren’t real and it’s a serious problem.”

For want of a test

The testing for adulterated honey is it’s own problem, according to the industry leader.

The predominant test for corn and cane sugar addition to honey — stable isotope ratio analysis (SIRA) — is sometimes considered inconsistent by scientists. But is the go-to bar for food exporters to pass, and Awram argues that if one lab fails the test, it’s too easy to go to another lab for a more desirable outcome.

A more reliable test, he argued, would be using a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine, a kind of “fingerprint” testing method that compares honeys across a large, reliable database of authentic varieties.

The problem, he said, is that Canadian beekeepers lack such a comprehensive database and there are nearly countless varieties of the sweet stuff.

“Anybody will tell you that honey from one part of the world can look entirely different from another, or even in the same part of the world,” he noted.

CFIA called to step up

Awram suggests the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) should become involved in developing this database. He would also like the agency to test imported honey with the same rigour he claims it does with domestic product.

“In imports, the oversight is pretty minimal because they don’t have the resources or the ability to go and check out the production in other countries,” he said.

The CFIA does put out an annual food fraud report. The most recent, covering 2023-2024, cited domestic and imported honey testing, using for SIRA and NMR methods, although it covered only 84 samples. Of those, 10 samples (or 12 per cent) failed to meet authenticity standards. All but one of those were from imported sources.

In the late 2010’s, however, there was a spate of more concerted attention. The years from 2018-2020 saw dedicated CFIA annual reports, testing and honey surveillance. The most recent (2019-2020), reported on test results from 275 samples.

Awram noted those efforts.

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“We are very concerned about another mite coming in with the potential to totally devastate our industry and cause significant problems,” said Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation.

The federation called a press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday to highlight the rise of the tropilaelaps mite (colloquially referred to as the “t-mite”).

The t-mite – which feed on developing bees and serve as a vector for viruses — has not yet been detected in Canada. However it’s been reported in Russia, throughout Asia and in Papua New Guinea. Papau New Guinea is 93 kilometres away from major bee trade partner Australia. Bee experts also warn the mite is headed for Europe.

Awram said the combination of the t-mite and the varroa mite – presently the industry’s most destructive disease pest — would be calamitous.

“We’ve already been suffering considerable problems with bee health because of our long winters,” he said. “A lot of it is in relation to another mite that’s been here for some time, but we are seeing massive bee losses overnight.”

Keeping the t-mite out of Canada

Keeping the mite out of Canada may require limiting trade exposure to infected countries. Alberta Beekeepers Commission President Curtis Miedema called on the federal government to prioritize policy that could help stem this tide.

“We’re hoping to see the government intervene and stop the imports of bees from offshore,” Meidema said. “We feel like North America needs to become a stronghold and keep this mite out.”

Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen has brought a motion to Parliament to address t-mites and a range of other trials facing beekeepers. He said the U.S. is already testing for the mite and searching trade vessels such as container ships.

“We’re hoping that the Canadian government can do something similar: monitor for it and work with the Americans so that we can keep this mite out of North America,” he said.

The motion proposes to restore free trade for honey bee package imports from regional safe zones in the U.S., to prepare an emergency response plan for t-mite, and other measures.

Vierson suggested the development of a North American bee strategy that would coordinate U.S. and Canadian efforts.

The post Canadian beekeepers warn of advancing tropilaelaps mite appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

WHY IT MATTERS: The question of U.S. bulk packaged bees is divisive in the Canadian beekeeping industry, with those against wary of imported pest issues, while those in favour point to recent devastating winter losses and the need to restock.

A number of provincial beekeeping groups, Manitoba and Alberta included, have spent years asking the CFIA to reassess the risk of U.S. bulk bees — defined as units of two or three pounds of bees, plus a young queen.

Canadian regulations haven’t allowed those shipments since the 1980s, citing risks like American foulbrood, varroa mites, Africanized genetics and small hive beetle. Reassessments in 2013 backed up the ban. A portion of the beekeeping industry agrees.

Others, particularly among the big beekeepers of the Prairies, argued those risks could be mitigated, that the last reassessment was outdated and that, frankly, they need the bees. Manitoba, for example, is coming off its fourth straight winter of bad bee loss. Manitoba Agriculture recently put those colony loss numbers at 43 per cent.

Splitting hives to recover those numbers reduces honey harvest, and issues with sufficient restock options has been a hot topic since the pandemic, when grounded air traffic complicated Canada’s ability to source bees from approved markets.

Last year, the CFIA invited industry to submit ideas on how the risks of U.S. packaged bees might be addressed. When the agency released its response early this month, those proposals were roundly smacked down.

“After careful evaluation of all input received, the CFIA concluded that no feasible, scientifically-supported (sic) mitigation measures are currently available to bring all identified risks within acceptable levels,” a further statement put out by the agency Aug. 6 read.

“As a result, Canada will maintain its current import restrictions and will not permit the importation of honey bee packages from the United States at this time.”

Frustrated industry

Mike Paradis, Canadian Beekeepers Federation president and a seventh-generation beekeeper from Peace River, Alta., was disappointed, but not shocked by the CFIA’s dismissal.

“It was no surprise to me that they were going to come out with that,” he said. “I was hoping that there was going to be some understanding and common sense in that decision, but there was none — none at all.”

Industry suggested, among other things, a limited regional trade strategy allowing shipments from areas of the U.S. where Canada already gets queens, like northern California (U.S. queen bees, which do not come with hive material, are allowed under current regulations), evaluation of the impact on inter-provincial movement, transport inspections upon entering Canada, applying current import conditions of queens for packaged bees and the utilization of best management practices post-importation.

In several cases, the CFIA noted that proposals relied on “further research” rather than active risk mitigation measures. Others, the agency dismissed as lacking in robust scientific backing or improperly addressing the risk in question.

Regional trade strategy insufficient: CFIA

The proposed pilot trade strategy with northern California was among the more prominent suggestions by industry. Because of the existing queen trade, there’s an existing quarantine procedure. Beekeepers argued a similar arrangement could easily be extended for packaged bees, Scarlett noted.

However, the CFIA said the submission did not include a necessary zoning proposal from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

“The exporting country must be able to demonstrate, through detailed documentation provided to the importing country, that it has implemented the recommendations in the Terrestrial Code for establishing and maintaining a zone,” read the document.

There’s a problem with that, says Rod Scarlett, executive director with the Canadian Honey Council: APHIS lacks the manpower.

“They would have to be the ones that would do the inspections and the formal sign-off that ‘Yes, these protocols were followed,’” he noted.

In response to statements that queens are already exported from northern California to Canada, the CFIA said the assessment “clearly determined honeybee packages present a higher risk of importing identified hazards than caged queens.”

It also noted that current import conditions for queens were “insufficient” to mitigate the package hazard risk. This was also corroborated in the mid-2010s risk analysis, it read.

Industry, agency clash

Kevin Nixon, manager of Nixon Honey in central Alberta’s Red Deer County, calls the CFIA’s response “frustrating” because beekeepers don’t have much clarity on what the agency is looking for.

“We’re beekeepers. We’re not scientists. And we have ideas in our mind that we think would mitigate risk,” he said.

“But obviously, from a scientific perspective, they’re finding reasons that it’s not, so why not put a group of 10 or 12 people together, sit around a table and be like, ‘How do we figure this out? What’s it going to take to mitigate the risk?’”

Jeremy Olthof, manager of Tees Bees in central Alberta said, “It comes down to what’s more important: potentially healthier bees but a smaller industry, or a growing industry that will constantly rely on imports and the health challenges that can result.”

The Canadian beekeeping sector has been growing substantially over the past seven years, increasing from 10,523 beekeepers in 2019 to 15,430 in 2024, according to Statistics Canada.

Scarlett also wasn’t surprised by the federal response. Apiarists’ faith in their own observed science versus CFIA’s demand for peer-reviewed national scientific data was bound to create a negative outcome for beekeepers, he said.

On the other hand, “There’s very little actual national scientific data that they could rely on to change any of the opinions (in) the risk assessment itself.”

No weight for financial health

Paradis does not see the CFIA ever changing its stance on the industry’s concerns whether it offers the level of robust science the agency wants or not.

“They have let it be known to the industry multiple times the financial health of the industry is not (their) concern.”

That is, in fact, a point brought up in the summary.

“The CFIA does not have a duty of care to protect the economic interests of stakeholders,” the document read. “The CFIA’s regulatory mandate under the Health of Animals Act and regulations is to help protect Canadian animal health, which includes the health of the Canadian honeybee population.”

As for beekeepers on the “nay” side of U.S. package imports, Nixon suggests they’re fairly pragmatic.

He’s heard some express concerns that the practice could lead to U.S. exporters sending live hives in large quantities, in the process putting existing Canadian pollination contracts at risk.

Nixon does not discount this apprehension, but he doubts the reality will reflect those fears.

“(They say) people would come in and undercut or overstock an area with bees where currently honey production is, but if an area was overstocked, it would decrease the overall production per hive, so I don’t know if it would ever lead to that.”

U.S. bee problems already here

The CFIA focused much of its summary on the risks of Africanized bees and small hive beetles entering the Canadian ecosystem.

Paradis takes a dim view of these concerns. He wonders why Africanized bees are so feared when the importation of queen honeybees from the U.S. has been going on for decades.

“The Africanized bee follows the genetics of the queen. And further to that, a queen breeder in the U.S. or anywhere never breeds on genetics. We all breed on traits. Is it a good honey producer? Is it gentle? Does it create massive amount of brood? Is it disease resistant?”

Both Canada and the U.S. also have more or less the same disease and pest profiles.

“We have every disease that they’ve stated in there,” Paradis said. “(They’re) right across Canada, every bloody one, and a few of them that they don’t have in the U.S., we have a few extra here because of the importation that we’ve been doing.”

This is largely true, but there are some nuances, said Nixon.

“We both have varroa mites and (the U.S. has) had mites that have become resistant to the main treatment that we have … We’re now starting to see resistance in the treatment we have for the grower here as well.

“American foulbrood is present on both sides of the border and we’ve had resistant American foulbrood here. I don’t think we have a big problem with it in Canada, but it is around and there are flare-ups every once in a while.

“Small hive beetle is one that’s pretty common in the (United) States and we’ve had a few incursions of it come into Canada in the last 10 years, but they don’t seem to establish here in our climate. There were incursions in both B.C. and southern Ontario and they quarantined things and managed it.”

Favoured trade countries disputed

The CFIA allows import of packages from a handful of countries including Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Ukraine and Italy. Paradis’ biggest beef with the CFIA’s chosen countries is that their beekeepers’ crop years are at odds with Canada’s.

“They’re exactly on the complete opposite side of the world. Our summer is their winter, our spring is their fall. So (when) they’re coming off of their honey crop, they don’t have the ability to give you a fresh young queen,” he noted.

“You can say, ‘Yeah, but they haven’t been exposed.’ Well, that’s exactly the problem. They haven’t been exposed to our disease profiles, so they’ve never built up any kind of immunity or any kind of resistance to these problems compared to the U.S. bees.”

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This spring gave little relief from the industry’s now four-year streak of poor survival rates. Initial reports put 2024-2025 winter colony losses at 34.8 per cent, according to the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.

Since then, Manitoba Agriculture has raised that number to 43 per cent.

WHY IT MATTERS: Weather, bee health challenges and an ongoing battle with varroa mite parasites have left Manitoba’s beekeepers embattled.

Manitoba has had a significant upswing in tame bee deaths, starting in 2022. That year, coming on the heels of Manitoba’s worst drought in recent memory, saw a devastating 57.2 per cent final colony loss count, the highest of any province. Government AgriRecovery aid was later triggered.

Since then, winter losses have stubbornly remained at 30 per cent colony loss or more. The four-year provincial average is now 42 per cent winter loss

“If this trend continues, it would be a non-viable industry,” said Mike Clark, director with the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association.

Clark’s operation lost 97 per cent of its colonies in 2022 and has only recovered up to 60 per cent of pre-crisis levels, despite years of rebuilding efforts.

National honey hits

Manitoba’s troubles are part of a wider concern for Canada’s beekeeping sector. Together, the Prairies account for nearly 70 per cent of Canada’s honey production and colony numbers. Alberta makes up a large part of that, with 38 per cent of Canada’s colonies last year and 42.6 per cent of its honey tonnage, but Manitoba ranks second, producing 19.4 per cent of Canada’s honey last year with 13.7 per cent of the nation’s colonies.

“The Prairies accounted for some pretty significant losses,” said Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council. “Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick were all kind of on the upper echelon.”

Initial 2025 counts had New Brunswick at 44.7 per cent colony loss, Saskatchewan at 43.8 per cent. Canada’s lead honey-producing province, Alberta, was hit by 39.3 per cent loss.

Varroa mite resistance drives losses

Weather hasn’t done beekeepers any favours. Among other issues, like drought-dwindled nectar supplies, apiarists have pondered whether some extended falls have disrupted bees’ ability to prepare for winter.

One of the other undisputed culprits, however, has been growing varroa mite pressure.

Beekeepers have noted slipping control from products previously reliable in keeping the parasites in check. Recent years have seen a race for alternative controls, including trickier-to-use organic acids and more complicated integrated management plans.

“A lot of it has to do with the degree of varroa, the amount of varroa that’s left in the hive over winter. Varroa is kind of a pest that sucks on the bee’s guts and spreads diseases,” Scarlett said.

The Canadian Honey Council has flagged the need to find new chemical treatments against varroa mite.

“We certainly need at least one, but preferably two, new hard chemicals that beekeepers could use to collect to combat varroa,” Scarlett said.

Research is ongoing, and Canadian beekeepers are working closely with their U.S. counterparts to expedite approval processes for any effective treatments that emerge, Scarlett added.

The problem of rebuilding

The overwintering losses also represent only part of the problem, Scarlett said. Beekeepers face additional losses during spring dwindle, potentially adding another three to five per cent to colony mortality.

Hive recovery may then hit at the farmer’s honey harvest. Replacement stock supplies have been tight in recent years. At times, high winter losses ran headlong into pandemic air shipment bottlenecks. The lack of replacement has led to a controversial debate in the industry as to whether Canada should reopen U.S. packaged bee trade — cut off for decades due to concern about spreading pests.

The alternative is splitting hives, but those split hives won’t produce as much honey for the season.

“The work that beekeepers do to maintain numbers can, in fact, impact honey production,” Scarlett said.

Environmental pressures compound challenges

Manitoba beekeepers have also noted mounting environmental challenges.

Eckhard Rinsdorf, a beekeeper in Minitonas who operates in the Swan River Valley, has witnessed dramatic biodiversity decline over his 25 years in Canada.

“The first time I came to the Swan River Valley was 1999, in the fall, and the farmers were plowing the fields … there were three tractors going along the highway, and each tractor had 500 to 1,500 seagulls behind it, picking the worms that live out there. And if I drive now along the fields, whether farmers are plowing or not, there’s a few crows on the field, but that is it,” he said.

He pointed the finger at intensive chemical applications. It is his view that agriculture needs more focus on “the biology of farming.”

Water scarcity adds operational burden

Like any other kind of livestock, bees need water. That’s been a problem during the province’s drought years, 2025 included.

According to the province’s July 27 crop weather report, only a few areas had topped even 80 per cent of normal moisture for the year. Between May 1 and July 27, some areas of the Interlake had seen as little as 50 millimetres of rain (26 per cent of normal).

Clark now hauls water to three of his 30 bee yards during dry years, setting up 35-gallon drums with straw and wood to prevent drowning.

“The (bees) use water, of course, to drink, but they also use water to dehydrate and fan to create artificial air conditioning,” he said.

The water shortage affects more than managed honeybees, he added.

“If there’s other wild bees or other pollinators in there, and my bees can’t find water, then the natural pollinators definitely can’t find water, either.”

Spraying conflicts persist

Despite awareness campaigns and tools to avoid insecticide drift, beekeepers still say they’ve seen issues. Canola is a major feed crop for Prairie beekeepers, but it’s also a major income driver for grain producers, who want to protect their yield.

By the beekeepers’ view though, protecting pollinators also has a key role in crop performance.

“It’s very disheartening when you see your bees already struggling and then notice a sprayer moving through a field of canola in full bloom in the middle of the day,” Clark said. “In those moments, it’s hard not to think about how the bees are being harmed and how the farmer may also be unintentionally reducing their own crop yield.”

He noted that bees exposed to agrichemicals can then bring those problems home to the hive since bees socially groom.

Financial strain threatens viability

Honey prices have had some good times in recent years, although recent prices pale in comparison to peaks seen during the pandemic.

Clark, however, thinks prices are still depressed below what is acceptable, given the years and years of productive loss.

“When you see these losses, you should be seeing honey prices skyrocketing,” he said.

In Clark’s opinion, depressed honey prices are attributed to “unethical” fraudulent honey imports, a thorn in the side of Canada’s honey sector for years.

Little help coming

AgriStability programs initially helped beekeepers survive the crisis, but now provide minimal support due to the program’s five-year average calculations,” Clark noted.

“There’s no safety net for the bee industry anymore. It’s been used up,” he said.

Clark’s operation, which once employed up to 15 people managing over 3,000 colonies, has been reduced to a solo spring operation to cut costs, though he does hire on high school students to help during harvest.

Clark has also deferred truck maintenance and pushed off normal operational expenses.

Despite the challenges, industry leaders maintain measured optimism, particularly if honey prices respond to supply constraints.

“There’s always room for optimism, particularly based on honey pricing. If the price of honey goes up, you don’t need as many colonies to make money,” Scarlett said.

For Rinsdorf, the path forward requires balancing biological and mechanical approaches to agriculture.

“I see a future for the beekeeping industry, but we have to learn. We have to make sure that we breed queens that are resilient enough for our weather,” he said. “We’ll have to update to the challenge that is there, but it will be a challenge for the rest of agriculture as well, to switch things around and think a little bit more about biology.”

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The amount of honey that Canada sends to the U.S. is not insubstantial. About 7,600 tonnes headed to our southern neighbour in 2024, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all Canadian honey exports in 2024 according to Statistics Canada data.

Even if all exports headed to the U.S. though, the volume would be dwarfed by the amount of Canadian produced honey that stayed in the country. While Canada exported just over 11,000 tonnes of the sweet stuff across all international partners in 2024, it produced about 35,470 tonnes (78.2 million pounds) the same year.

WHY IT MATTERS: The export market is a smaller slice of Canadian honey sales compared to the beef or pork industries, but Manitoba exports the most out of any province.

That apparent insulation doesn’t stop beekeepers from being worried with the rest of Canadian agriculture as the tariffs fly between the U.S., Canada, China and the rest of the world.

The bigger impact, beekeeping leaders say, could be felt in crucial supplies such as queen bees and bee feed (pollen patties and sugar for sugar syrup, for example), inputs largely imported from the U.S.

With trade ground uncertain and rapidly shifting, it’s not clear when, if or how badly some of those inputs could be dragged into the tariff-counter tariff tug of war between Canada and the U.S.

The economic consequences of dealing with tariffs on U.S.-purchased supplies would be “substantial,” said Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council.

“We only produce about eight to nine per cent of our own sugar, and beekeepers feed sugar syrup to their bees to keep them alive both in the spring and in the fall. Some beekeepers will spend over $100,000, $200,000 on feed alone to keep those bees alive.”

Unpredictable trade

As of the time of writing, Canadian products compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) were still exempted from the 25 per cent tariffs the U.S. slapped on Canadian goods in early March. That includes the exemption of queens, sugar and some beekeeping equipment.

That ground may be tentative, however, Scarlett worries, pointing to the unpredicatability of trade policy coming out of the White House and the executive orders of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Canadian industries and government got a taste of that whirlwind April 9, after messaging came out of the White House that suggested that further 10 per cent tariffs, which the U.S. had imposed as a baseline rate against most U.S. imports the week prior and of which Mexico and Canada were exempt, would suddenly apply to the U.S.’s two CUSMA partners. Hours later, further messaging came out that contradicted the news, returning things to the status quo of the previous month.

“You don’t know whether CUSMA is going to be affected or not,” said Scarlett in an April 4 interview.

“And that’s the issue (Trump) has created across all industries in all sectors, is that you just don’t know right now, and (sugar is) only recently CUSMA-protected as of the third of April. As of the 10th of April, he could change his mind.”

Bee genetics could be hit

Canadian retaliation could further complicate the scenario, although a review of the current Canadian list of counter-tariff target items yielded no results for “honey,” “queen bees,” “sugar” or “beekeeping supplies.”

The U.S. is the main international source for Canadian beekepers to import their queens from, representing 75.9 per cent of the imported queens in 2023.

“We import between 250,000 to 280,000 queens from the U.S.,” said Scarlett.

“Take a 25 per cent (retaliatory) tariff as an example. Our queens cost about $50 apiece. The increase would be (up to) $65 a queen.”

The industry is working with Alberta Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) to keep important input items off the Canadian counter-tariff list.

Although he has not yet met with Kody Blois, the newly-appointed federal minister of agriculture, Scarlett caught the ear of former ag minister Lawrence MacAulay and expressed concern over retaliatory tariffs that could hurt the honey industry.

Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, has also submitted a request to AAFC that queens and pollen patties not be placed on a retaliatory tariff list.

“The pollen patties provide essential amino acids and they all come out of the U.S. I haven’t heard from anyone yet, but we have provided that information back to Agriculture and Agri Food Canada.”

At the same time, she acknowledged, there are a lot of Canadian industries asking the government for similar counter-tariff exemptions.

“Us and the cattle industry and canola and everybody is negotiating right now with the federal government to keep their animals or crops or inputs off that list,” she said.

Beekeepers caught in canola fallout

Other indirect impacts, particularly in Western Canada, tie into how tariffs play out in canola, a crop that does have significant exposure to both the U.S. and China — which has imposed their own 100 per cent levies on Canadian canola oil and meal.

About 75 per cent of honey produced in Alberta comes from bees fed with canola, said Phillips. Beekeepers on the rest of the Prairies similarly rely on canola acres.

“If producers grow less canola and they switch to grains, that’s not a food source for bees,” warned Phillips.

“Canola is a tremendous traditional (food) source for bees … So there’s kind of direct and indirect implications and I don’t think anyone knows quite yet what that’s going to look like.”

The effects of Chinese tariffs are already reverberating through the local industry, she says.

“We have a group of about 18 beekeepers that put their bees in hybrid canola seed in southern Alberta and, with the tariffs on canola, (farmers are) rolling back numbers of acres. There’ll be less acres, less bees (and) less revenue derived from pollinating hybrid canola seed.”

Like many Canadian industries, honey producers are also taking hits from the U.S.’s 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum (tariffs which are not muted by the CUSMA exception). That impacts honey production equipment, such as the standard 45 gallon drums for honey storage.

“You can buy the drums in Lloydminster, but the lid and the bottom come out of the United States,” said Phillips.

There’s also the danger of tariffed products stacking multiple tariffs as they make their way through the supply chain. She further pointed to agriculture’s thin profit margins, leaving little room for such disruption or incremental cost increases.

“It’s not going to be good,” she said.

Domestic opportunities

If there’s a silver lining to all this, it may be found in the domestic market, says Scarlett. With many Canadian consumers boycotting U.S. goods, this is a good time for domestic sales of Canadian honey. But no one knows how long the “Buy Canadian” zeitgeist is going to last.

“I do know the demand has gone up and right now people are willing to purchase Canadian honey over alternatives that might be out there on the shelf.”

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Statistics Canada reported 78.18 million pounds of honey were produced in 2024, which compares with 95.65 million pounds the previous year.

The value of honey produced was estimated at C$214.13 million, down from C$283.53 million in 2023.

Meanwhile, the number of beekeepers in the country hit the highest level since 1988, at 15,430. The 829,120 bee colonies reported were the second largest on record of the past 100 years of data.

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As of Sept. 25, there was a 75 cents per pound gap between American and Canadian white canola honey prices as reported in the U.S. Department of Agriculture national honey report. It’s one of the largest price discrepancies in the last five years.

Why it matters: Fraudulent honey imports are one battle weighing on domestic honey prices and stocks.

According to Rod Scarlett, president of the Canadian Honey Council, it’s partly due to U.S. tactics.

“Mostly, I think it’s impacted by the U.S. packers and their reluctance to pay equivalent prices for premium Canadian honey,” he said, noting their desire to reduce supply costs.

The U.S. has a steady domestic supply and there has been less concern about honey colour in recent years. Simon Lalonde, a honey producer near Clavet, Sask., said U.S. honey packers began to change their narrative about honey colour in the early 2000s.

“Retailers started getting convinced by the U.S. packers that, ‘who cares what colour the honey is? As long as it says honey on the label, it shouldn’t matter what colour it is,’” he said.

Darker coloured honey is sold at a lower price. Less emphasis on colour led to higher volumes of cheaper, darker honey, which reduced demand for Canadian white honey.

It also set the stage for fraudulent honey, product mixed with syrups and other sugars, or “scrubbed” honey, from which pollen and antibodies are removed. Those products, often said to come from overseas, make their way into Canada and the U.S. at a much cheaper price point than domestically produced, pure honey.

“If you look at the retail shelves in the general U.S. stores, honey is actually, right now, quite dark,” Lalonde said.

U.S. packers aren’t even buying as much of their own, American-produced honey, he added.

“They’re buying the cheapest honey they can get and putting it on the shelves.”

Until the U.S. experiences enough demand for imported honey of a certain quality, the “economic first” policy of the packers won’t change, Scarlett said. Canadian honey prices will rise when the “demand shortfall is there.”

Chris Hiatt, president of the American Honey Producers Association, said domestically produced honey previously made up 60 to 66 per cent of U.S. consumption. That has dropped to between 25 and 30 per cent.

Saturation of imported product on the U.S. honey market led American honey producers to push for an anti-dumping case against Vietnam, India, Argentina and Brazil, in addition to honey tariffs previously imposed against China. They came out on top of that dispute, and tariffs came into effect three years ago.

Hiatt says this influenced the rise in prices.

“After the dumping suit win, two, three years ago, we had record high honey prices. So that was great.”

Prices have since softened, which he said echoed results of similar trade actions taken against China in 2001.

More testing needed

While Canadian producers would like to see higher prices, they’re not going about it the same way as the U.S. Scarlett said tariffs and the accompanying “legal rigmarole” create their own issues, such as trans-shipped honey, as well as being expensive to administer.

Instead, the council is pushing for more honey testing to better identify pure honey and limit the amount of adulterated honey being imported.

“If there was a way to limit imports, it may impact pricing,” said Scarlett.

When honey is imported to Canada, it must be have papers of analysis or be tested. Canada has been testing for fraudulent honey for five years, and was the first country to do so, but fake honey still slips through the cracks.

In 2022, Canada imported 10,556 tonnes of honey. In 2023, the total was 7,405 tonnes.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency Food Fraud Annual Report for 2022-23 found that 84 per cent of honey samples were satisfactory. Of the 16 per cent that failed to pass muster, all were from imported sources. Some 89.77 tonnes of honey were detained.

Those numbers encompass only a small number of tests, however. Across all food types, 767 samples were tested. That included only 82 honey samples, 20 domestic and 62 imported.

“What we’ve asked is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency increase the amount of testing on imported honey for honey fraud,” Scarlett said. “And I think we, as an industry, would be satisfied if the honey being imported was truly honey, but we have a strong belief that a vast majority of honey imported from certain countries is fraudulent.”

He said that, because honey blended with syrups is not a health issue, honey fraud is low on the CFIA’s priority list.

“The biggest thing is they just need funding to be able to do it, and funding is getting cut, it’s not getting added,” said Lalonde. “We have kind of started, fairly informally, amongst beekeepers trying to say, ‘hey, can we raise enough money with a possible levy or something like that on honey or on beehives, that could go towards authentication of these honeys coming in?’”

The suggestion of a levy, about one cent per pound of honey, has had a generally positive response. Lalonde said the ultimate goal would be to test all honey being imported, but to be fair, honey leaving Canada would also have to be tested.

That might be a sustainable way to increase and steady honey prices, the industry says.

Buy local

Another way to raise prices is to reduce demand for imported honey through greater consumption of domestic product. Scarlett said domestic consumption has increased, but it’s still not large compared to other countries. The council is also working to expand export markets.

The organization is particularly interested in the Indo-Pacific region and Europe. The catch with EU trade, however, is standardizing the definition of honey. EU biotech regulations were changed 10 years ago, allowing pollen to be listed as an ingredient.

“They changed the definition of honey so that it meant that our canola honey had to be labelled as a GM (genetically modified) product… They’re the only region in the world” to do so, Scarlett said.

“Basically, what they said was that the pollen in honey is an ingredient, and so if pollen registers over a percentage of a GM product, then the honey becomes a GM.”

The Canadian honey sector disagrees with that policy. Scarlett said the council wants the Canadian government to raise the issue in discussions with the EU.

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