“If there was a case where this pest landed on shore and the government moved forward to contain that pest through quarantine (and) went to take the next step to eradication, we just (need to) make sure that the beekeepers who are involved with this … get compensation,” said Ian Steppler, chair of the Manitoba Beekeepers Association.

WHY IT MATTERS: The honey sector has suffered a string of bad mortality years, with hives struggling to make it through the winter, as well as stubborn issues with varroa mite parasites. The last thing they need is another damaging bee pest to worry about.

Tropilaelaps, also called tropi mite, has earned particular worry because of how quickly it can infest and take down a hive (by some reports, six times faster than varroa mite). Like varroa, the mites live in brood cells, feed on bee larvae and transmit disease. Unlike varroa, they don’t tend to hitch a ride on adult bees — limiting their exposure to many mite control products — and reproduce fast inside the capped brood cells.

It’s also physically smaller than the varroa mite, making it harder to detect, said Canadian Beekeepers Federation president Curtis Miedema. The jury’s still out on how it might weather Canadian cold, he noted during a Nov. 25 press event, but its apparent adaptability is not encouraging.

Better known in South and Southeast Asia, with the giant honeybee, Apis dorsata, as its historical host, tropi mite, at some point developed a predatory taste for Apis mellifera, the western honeybee kept by beekeepers around the globe. It’s moved steadily westward, with detections in Ukraine, Georgia and southern Russia. Its presence is also suspected in Iran, Turkey and other European locales.

CFIA containment plan

Quarantine and depopulation, along with control zones with extra biosecurity and traffic rules around an infected site, are standard tools in the CFIA’s playbook when it comes to federally reportable animal disease and transmissible issues. Along with that mandated depopulation come CFIA compensation mechanisms.

One step, therefore, is getting tropi mite on the “federally reportable” list, Steppler said.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada counts reportable issues based on how significant they are to human or animal health or to the Canadian economy. The estimated contribution of honey bee pollination to the Canadian economy is $7 billion per year.

After that though, there would still likely be questions to answer. CFIA compensation has been an occasionally thorny issue on other animal health topics.

African swine fever, for example, has earned considerable federal response, zoning plans and financial investment. The prevention effort has mobilized a fleet of stakeholders nationwide for years. Despite the attention, pork producers have had to push hard for concrete details on “day one” farmer compensation. The industry argued those details were needed so farmers could feel secure knowing they would have enough cash flow to pay staff, buy feed and generally keep their farms running.

In March of this year, the government announced $567 million for pork producers should African swine fever hit Canada or the United States and markets closed.

Ocean travel a tropi risk

Like other foreign animal health threats, Canada’s plan is still heavy on prevention.

Steppler serves on the Canadian Honey Council’s tropilaelaps mite committee. The organization is working with the CFIA to keep it out.

If tropi mite lands in Canada, or anywhere in North America, there’s a good chance it would arrive by ocean freight, warned Steppler.

Global shipping brings ships all over the world. As those ships dock “a honeybee swarm might cast off a colony within a region that does have the tropi mite in it, land on a container ship, and then get shipped across the ocean to another country, and then that swarm relocates itself onto mainland, introducing that pest into the country,” Steppler said.

There was a recent close call with a container ship arriving from India (where tropi mite has been found), he added. The ship arrived in U.S. waters with bees aboard.

“The container ship crew found the nest,” Steppler said. “They destroyed it. They followed all the protocols they needed to and then they reported that to their destination, which was New Jersey, and they followed through accordingly.”

A less experienced or attentive crew might not have recognized the danger.

“We hear, just through the grapevine, that in some ocean ports throughout the States that those protocols don’t necessarily get followed and maybe some of those swarms get relocated onto mainland out of ignorance, not understanding the severity of the potential issue,” he said.

Any tropi mite strategy will require the full understanding of the Canadian Border Services Agency, which manages security protocols at port, Steppler noted.

He fears some security officials may ignore the problem out of a well-intentioned but misguided “save the bees” sentiment.

“You destroy the swarm to save the bees because you could potentially be relocating a very serious pest on mainland which could wipe out the bees,” he said.

The mite hasn’t been found yet in either Canada or the U.S. Nor has it been found in any country the CFIA currently allows Canadian beekeepers to import packaged bee stock from.

U.S. needs to be on board

Canada and the U.S. are already tightly intertwined by trade and common interest, and they need to work in tandem to keep tropi mite out, said Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission.

“The relationships have been there and well-established for a very long period of time. I think one of the drivers for the industries on both sides of the border is that the reality is bees are flying back and forth across the border, whether the government wants them to or not,” she said.

The recently updated North American Bee Strategy — billed as “a path for pollinator health and a fair honey market” — began three years ago with that in mind. It’s the product of four beekeeper groups: the American Honey Producers Association, the Canadian Honey Council, the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and the American Beekeeping Federation.

The document outlines an array of challenges, including bee health and biosecurity, export controls, environmental health and the roles of both federal governments in developing co-ordinated response plans.

While helping to develop the strategy, Phillips learned a few things from beekeepers to the south.

“They lobby like mad, where this industry in Canada has not tended to do that so much, but I think are beginning to realize that they do need to do that more just because government has changed so much and if you want to talk to them, you’ve got to have a good lobby,” she said.

Outside of beekeeping though, general relations between the U.S. and Canada aren’t exactly at a high point. Trade tensions and tariffs continue to weigh.

Although indicating some concern about unpredictable U.S. policy, CBF director Peter Awram argued that beekeepers on both sides of the border are facing the same challenges.

“If it shows up in either (the) U.S. or Canada, both industries are going to be in trouble because we have this common border. Bees are flying across the border all the time,” Awram said.

“If we get it here, we’re going to give it to them. If they get it, they’re going to give it to us.”

The U.S. has an historically solid record of bee-related biosecurity, he said, including its decision to shut off bee imports from Australia in the late 2000s following the discovery of a bee-susceptible virus there.

“The U.S., on the whole over the years, has done a better job of security that way. So we’re hoping that they will keep that implemented and continue to behave that way. And we want to be on the same page with that,” he said.

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On that day, backbench Conservative MP Arnold Vierson — who represents the Peace River-Westlock riding in Alberta — stood next to members of the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission to highlight obstacles facing the honey sector.

Those included some now well-known problems that have seriously cut at honeybee stocks and hurt producers’ bottom lines in recent years, as well as a brand new parasite threat looming — tropilaelaps mites, or t-mites.

WHY IT MATTERS: Packaged bee trade, and whether or not the U.S. should be allowed as a source, has been a hot topic among a beekeeping sector where persistent production problems have pushed some farms to the edge of viability. Beekeepers in favour of the idea aren’t backing down.

Parts of Canada, including Manitoba, have suffered a string of hard winters where many colonies failed to survive. The industry is embroiled in an increasingly difficult battle with varroa mites, with products previously used to control the parasites no longer delivering the same results.

Linked to those, the debate over bulk packaged bees from the U.S. has roared to the forefront in recent years. Without replacement stock, beekeepers with poor bee survival often split hives, something that limits their honey harvest that year.

Some beekeepers want the U.S. border thrown back open, after decades of restriction due to pest and disease risk. Earlier this year, the CFIA shut down a list of industry proposals that had been submitted in the hopes of convincing the agency that those pest risks could be mitigated. That, in turn, frustrated beekeepers, who felt the agency had dismissed them out of hand.

That same day, Vierson brought a new motion forward in the House of Commons, the M-22 Honeybee Importation and Regulation motion.

Vierson’s motion would put five recommendations on the table for the CFIA:

• restore free trade of honeybee packages from safe zones in the United States (something that industry had argued for in its rejected list of proposals),
• develop a clear, consistent methodology for assessments,
• work with beekeepers to review and update the national farm-level biosecurity standard,
• partner with Animal Health Canada to create a tropilaelaps mite emergency plan, and
• improve and speed up the approval process of management tools for bee pests, such as varroa mites.

Drama on honeybee trade

The blanket ban on U.S. packaged bees doesn’t make sense, argued Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation. Awram said the CFIA has held the line on the packaged bee ban since 1987, despite mounting evidence that there are significant risks from bees brought in from the list countries that the CFIA does allow.

“They want to say the U.S.A. is dangerous, yet they are allowing from places that are easily 10 times, if not 100 times, more dangerous,” he said.

The cross-section of the beekeeping sector that stood with Vierson Nov. 25 suggests that perhaps Canada should halt packaged bee shipments from these designated safe countries. That’s partly from concern over emerging pest threats, and partly to underline what they see as CFIA’s inconsistency.

They note beekeepers are free to import queen bees from approved zones in the U.S., which suggests risk can be appropriately managed.

The CFIA, meanwhile, argues that the risk of queen bees is a much different thing than bringing in packages that contain hive material. The industry’s rejected submission, which would have set up trade from select areas of the U.S., also needed zoning approval from U.S. officials, the CFIA said in a summary report earlier this year.

Danger from abroad

The current list of approved countries doesn’t take proper account of t-mite risk, the motion’s advocates say, nor do they seem to acknowledge that countries on the approved list aren’t varroa-free. Australia, one of the last bastions against varroa, had its defences breached in 2022. In 2023, authorities decided that eradication of the mite was no longer achievable.

The current list includes:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Chile
• Italy, and
• formerly included Ukraine

Australia is only 93 kilometres from tropilaelaps-infected Papua New Guinea at the closest point between the two countries’ nearest borders, those in favour of M-22 worry.

The packages from the approved regions are also simply not very good for Canadian production, Awram said. Mismatched seasons and 16-hour flights take their toll on the bees, killing many of them before reaching Canadian shores.

“The danger from outside of North America is far greater than any benefit we get,” he said.

“We import a very tiny amount of stock from Australia, New Zealand, Chile (and) Italy. The stuff we get from those areas; it’s poor for a number of reasons. Some of it is the genetics. The genetics from those regions just are not well-adapted for what we have.”

Awram has verified at least one example of high varroa mite content in packages from New Zealand.

“The lowest was at four per cent varroa in there, which means four mites per 100 bees in a package — up to 20 per cent. According to the regulations from CFIA, it shouldn’t be more than one per cent, but this is the way it is.

“It’s just a bad idea from a biological point of view to be pulling (packages) out of the southern hemisphere.”

The promise of U.S. bees

The situation would change if beekeepers were allowed to bring their packages north from the U.S., he said. They would arrive much faster, and in trucks, which allow greater control over shipping conditions.

“You can have somebody who actually knows how to take care of them watching the temperature and things like that,” Awram said. “This is what was done for decades and decades before 1987. They were brought up by truck, and we never had (these) sort of transport problems.”

CFIA report creates bad blood

Some beekeepers — Awram included — saw the CFIA’s denial of their proposals earlier this year as the final straw.

Along with set safe zones for trade, industry associations across Canada had pitched measures like transport inspections upon entering Canada, current import conditions of queens being expanded for packaged bees, using of best management practices to limit risk and evaluating the impact on inter-provincial movement.

The CFIA, however, responded that “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,” an Aug. 6 agency statement read.

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

Awram — who maintains the recommendations were based on sound science — sees the feedback as evidence that the CFIA cannot be engaged on a scientific level.

“We’ve been fighting this non-scientific nonsense forever. They did this new risk assessment and despite the fact that there’s plenty of scientific evidence to the contrary, they still made the same claims.

“We’re not talking about an issue that is going to be solved by showing the scientific data or being logical. There is a block somewhere in the CFIA,” he said.

Industry ban not a done deal yet

Those who appeared in Ottawa in November, however, don’t represent the whole honey sector in Canada.

Ian Steppler of the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, who serves on the Canadian Honey Council’s (CHC) tropilaelaps mite committee, said the CFIA has been actively working to minimize beekeepers’ woes. He has been among those representing beekeeper interests with the CFIA on several fronts.

Manitoba’s official beekeeping organization was among those pushing the CFIA to reassess risks posed by U.S. bee shipments in the face of high winter losses.

Steppler says not every beekeeper will want to cease importing packages under the current protocols.

“There’s also a lot of beekeepers who will say, ‘Well, we utilize these packages from overseas to make up replacement losses, which is important to our industry, and if (the countries are) following all the surveillance protocols and preventative measures to ensure the pest doesn’t get in their country, then that should be enough to mitigate the risk.’”

Although the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission have made their stance on these packages known, any industry-wide decision to push for reducing or stopping the import of bee packages from CFIA-approved countries will depend on what the various industry organizations say at their annual general meetings, Steppler noted.

“Our (MBA) meeting is in March and we’re going to be presenting that question to our membership to see where they would like to land on that position,” he said.

Awareness efforts pay off

Connie Phillips, Alberta Beekeepers Commission executive director, believes the press conference, in addition to the delegation’s well-attended Honey on the Hill reception, broadened awareness of the plight of beekeepers in Canada.

“In addition to what Arnold put forward, we had brought materials and information to that event that we could hand out or people could take away. That just reiterated what Arnold was presenting in his motion.”

The delegation, which Philips was a part of, also met with the Conservative Party of Canada caucus, officials at the Mexican embassy and representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture . She believes these meetings were fruitful.

Phillips is optimistic about the future of the Canadian beekeeping industry but urges mindfulness when planning the future.

“I think they’re just really on the cusp of a big paradigm shift in the industry and a needed one. So that’s good. But I also think we have to be careful how we go about it so that you have time to grow into that change, rather than just ripping the Band-Aid off all at once.”

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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.

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From Asia to Europe

Tropi’s natural host is the giant honey-bee (Apis dorsata), common across South and Southeast Asia. At some point, the mite jumped to the western honey-bee (Apis mellifera), the species kept by beekeepers around the world. Because this host is widespread, the parasite has steadily moved westwards.

It has now been detected in Ukraine, Georgia and southern Russia, and is suspected to be in Iran and Turkey. From there, it is expected to enter eastern Europe, then spread across the continent. Australia and North America are also at risk.

Why tropi spreads so fast

Like varroa, tropi is a tiny mite that breeds inside capped brood cells, the life stages of the honey-bee when the late larvae and pupae develop inside honeycomb cells that are sealed by a layer of wax. The mite feeds on bee pupae and transmits lethal viruses, such as deformed wing virus – the deadliest of the bee viruses. But there are crucial differences.

Varroa can survive on adult bees for long periods, but tropi cannot. Outside brood cells, it lives only a few days, scurrying across the comb in search of a new larva.

Because tropi spends more time in capped cells, it reproduces quickly. A capped cell that contains a female varroa will result in one or two mated varroa offspring emerging with the adult bee. Tropi offspring develop faster inside a capped cell than varroa offspring, so a tropi “mother” may result in more offspring emerging than a varroa infested cell, more quickly overwhelming the colony.

As a result, colonies infested with tropi can collapse far faster than those plagued by varroa.

Current control methods

In parts of Asia where the parasite is already established, small-scale and commercial beekeepers often manage it by caging the queen for about five weeks.

With no eggs being laid, no brood develops, leaving the mites without a food source. This method is practical where beekeepers manage dozens of hives, but not in places like Europe where commercial operations often involve thousands.

Another option is treating the beehive with formic acid, which penetrates brood cell caps and kills the mite without necessarily harming the developing bee, provided concentrations are kept low. This treatment may offer beekeepers a practical tool.

Why varroa treatments won’t work

Many wonder whether the chemicals used against varroa could also fight tropi. The answer is, mostly no.

Varroa spends much of its life outside of a capped cell clinging to adult bees, where it comes into contact with mite-killing chemicals known as miticides spread through the colony on bee bodies. By contrast, tropi rarely attaches to adults, instead darting across comb surfaces.

Because of this, it is far less exposed to chemical residues. Treatments designed for varroa are often ineffective against the faster-breeding tropi.

Managing both mites together will be particularly difficult. Combining treatments risks harming colonies or contaminating honey. For instance, formic acid for tropi and insecticides such as amitraz for varroa might interact at even low levels, killing the bees as well as the parasites.

There is also the danger of resistance. Over-use of varroa treatments has already produced resistant strains, reducing the effectiveness of several once-reliable chemicals. Introducing more compounds to fight tropi, without careful integrated pest management, could accelerate this process and leave beekeepers with few effective tools.

The wider impact

The spread of tropi will not only devastate beekeepers but also agriculture more broadly. Honey-bees are critical pollinators of many crops. Heavier hive losses will raise costs for both honey production and pollination services, affecting food prices and availability.

Research is underway in countries such as Thailand and China to develop better management strategies. But unless effective and practical treatments are found soon, the spread of this new mite around the world could be catastrophic.

The story of varroa shows how quickly a single parasite can transform global beekeeping. Tropi has the potential to be even worse: it spreads faster, kills colonies more quickly, and is harder to control with existing methods.

— Jean-Pierre Scheerlinck is an honorary professor fellow at Melbourne Veterinary School at the University of Melbourne. The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of Robert Owen, a beekeeper who completed a PhD on the varroa mite at the University of Melbourne in 2022, to this article.

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In late 2024, the agency opened the door to potential risk mitigation suggestions, following a push from some corners of the beekeeping sector. While still contentious among honey producers, several beekeeping organizations had been pushing for the CFIA to again allow packaged bee imports from the U.S., citing significant winter losses, difficultly in sourcing replacement stock and new knowledge gained since the last official full risk assessment back in 2013.

U.S. packaged bees haven’t been allowed into Canada since the ’80s due to issues such as resistant American foulbrood, small hive beetle, varroa mites and Africanized genetics.

The CFIA’s consultation ended Jan. 31, 2025.

In a recent summary document, the CFIA said that, after analyzing the submitted risk mitigation proposals, the measures would be insufficient.

“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 honey bee population.”

Submissions included a suggested limited regional trade strategy, an evaluation of the impact on inter-provincial movement, a pilot project to import from Northern California, risk mitigation for all identified hazards, transport inspections upon entering Canada, using current import conditions of queens for the importation of packages and the utilization best management practices post-importation.

The CFIA’s comprehensive import risk analysis “clearly demonstrated scientifically” the risks the proposals presented, read the agency response, which is available on the CFIA website.

In several cases, the CFIA noted, proposals had to do with further research rather than active risk mitigation measures. Others, the agency dismissed as lacking in robust scientific backing or said they did not properly address the risk in question.

Glacier FarmMedia will be following up on this story in following weeks.

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So says Russ Crawford, vice-president of business development with ApiSave Bee Health Sciences.

The United States, for example, posted serious bee losses this spring. Survey results shared by the Honey Bee Health Coalition noted that, of the 702 beekeepers canvassed, mid-sized operations (50 to 500 colonies) averaged 54 per cent colony loss from June 2024 to February 2025. Commercial operations (over 500 colonies) reported 62 per cent loss on average.

Canada has its own woes. Every year, the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists puts out an report of winter bee colony losses. Since 2022, those averages have come in at 32.2 to 45.5 per cent. All those years were above the long-term average, recorded since 2007, the association said. The worst year, in 2022, posted losses almost twice the long-term average.

WHY IT MATTERS: Beekeepers in Canada have been struggling with bad winter loss years and challenges with varroa mites, who are not responding as well to standby control methods.

Crawford’s company, out of Port Coquitlam, B.C., says it’s got a solution to the colony collapse in Canada and elsewhere in the world.

Their product, also called ApiSave, is touted as an organic plant extract that can improve bees’ immune systems as well as acting as an organic pesticide against pests and disease. The company plans to develop two products, reflecting those two uses.

Lack of general bee health plays into why other threats have such a fatal toll, Crawford argued.

“Imagine if a cattle rancher or canola farmer lost 50 per cent-plus of their assets every year. The uproar and action would be incredible. But the greater financial loss is the impact on crop pollination provided by these bees. Those losses have been calculated to hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Their pitch earned the biotech firm an as-of-yet undefined sum during the Startup TNT 2025 Spring Agri-Food Investment Summit earlier this year in Regina. The event gives investment funding to agri-food startups and is backed by Farm Credit Canada. Most winners get around $200,000.

“Securing the top cash prize is great. We have a lot of projects on our agenda for 2025-26. Capital is always helpful,” wrote Crawford in an email to the Co-operator.

“But the exposure and networking offered by way of Startup TNT’s process is crucial to us in trying to create awareness around the plight of bees. The fact that 20-plus investors chose us above 38 other startups shows we are on the right track.”

From beer to bee health

ApiSave’s active compound comes from hops, the same crop used in beer brewing.

Originally the brainchild of ApiSave chief science officer Len Sarna, the hops extract is dried into a powder form to improve shelf life and reduce shipping costs. The powder is then placed in-hive and mixed into the bees’ food supply of powdered sugar.

The mites need to come in direct contact with the product. The idea, said Crawford, is that the bees will get the powder all over themselves, and then the mites will eat the solution off the bee, giving them a dose of ApiSave.

“Along with beer flavouring, hops has proven pesticide applications,” Crawford said. “(It has) GRAS (generally regarded as safe) status in the U.S., which opens doors for our solution a bit quicker.”

In Canada, the product still has a long regulatory and commercial road ahead of it, but it couldn’t come a better time, Crawford said.

He pointed to issues like foulbrood, a spore-producing bacterial disease. American foulbrood, in particular, can be a management nightmare for producers, although Canada greenlit a vaccine in late 2023.

The company cannot yet make any product claims without regulatory approval, but lab and field testing have found it 99.98 per cent effective against both American and European foulbrood and 84 per cent effective against varroa mites, according to Crawford.

That last bit was a surprise to developers. They didn’t create the product thinking that it would provide mite control.

“The pathology of a mite is quite different than bacteria,” Crawford noted.

The extract was tested for its effects on bee larvae infected with Melissococcus plutonius*, the bacteria that causes European foulbrood.  Untreated control groups showed four per cent survival, the company reported. The treated group saw 80 per cent of larvae survive.

ApiSave has conducted six field trials — some in Canada and some in Mexico — to establish that the product is safe for bees. The number of hives in these trials ranged from 12 to 150. Resulting honey was found to be free of chemical residue, ApiSave says.

Product watched by honey sector

Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, called ApiSave “promising” but is taking a “wait and see” approach until the commercial product hits shelves.

“I have been aware of the product for three years,” he said. “They’ve been keeping us updated on the scientific components of the product. It does sound very promising, and it appears that there seems to be science that agrees with their initial thoughts, that it can address bee health issues and pest issues.”

At this point though, any ray of hope against persistent production challenges is good news for the beekeeping sector.

“The toolkit for beekeepers is getting so precariously low, any introduction of a product that has a semblance of effectiveness is going to be welcomed by beekeepers,” Scarlett noted.

Crawford says the company has “orders for product to service 18,000 hives the moment we receive approval from Health Canada to market ApiSave as a veterinary health product.”

They expect the product to take off in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and have plans to spread into Australia and New Zealand by late 2026.

ApiSave’s road to Canadian registration

The company applied for Health Canada approval for its immune-boosting product application first. It’s simpler to get a veterinary health product registered, Crawford noted. The second product, classified as pest control, is going to be more involved.

The company expects the health agency will approve Apisave as a veterinary health product by June. If that happens, they plan to publicly launch the product in the last quarter of this year.

For the pesticide application, Crawford says approval by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency will likely stretch at least a year after the application is made.

Before applying to the PMRA, ApiSave hopes to add other plant-based ingredients to the formulation to achieve a varroa mite control goal of at least 95 per cent.

“We’re pretty confident we can do that,” said Crawford.

“Given the urgency, we hope to inject some emergency status into the process to get the much-needed product out to beekeepers.”

*Correction: A previous version of this story erroneously linked this result to a test for varroa mite, not Melissococcus plutonius.

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The invasive parasite, which has plagued North American beekeepers since the late 1980s, continues to escalate its toll on honeybee colonies across the globe. They’ve become a consistent contender among the top four causes of winter bee loss in Canada, as noted by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists.

In Manitoba, varroa topped the list in 2022, when the province saw a staggering 57.2 per cent colony loss, according to the association’s annual survey.

“Varroa mite is a huge, probably our number one problem in Manitoba, right across Canada and North America,” Steppler said. “Actually, it’s a worldwide problem right now.”

Why it matters: Weakness and disease caused by varroa mite infestation can devastate honeybee hives, and as control from go-to products becomes less effective, Prairie beekeepers are searching for new solutions.

The mites weaken bees by feeding on their fat stores, and also carry viruses. Steppler says the problem seems to be worsening.

Chemical control, meanwhile, is becoming more complicated. It has been several years since beekeepers noticed that one industry standard, Apivar, did not always deliver the same control. Varroa mites had already developed resistance to other products, and worry bloomed that the same was happening with Apivar.

That concern launched resistance testing and product trials by organizations including the Manitoba Beekeepers Association.

In early 2022, then-provincial apiarist Rhéal Lafrenière warned producers to broaden their varroa control toolbox and consider multiple avenues of attack.

Enter organic acids

Some now use formic or oxalic acids or thymol-based products, but those products have a learning curve, experts note. If used improperly, the producer can cause a wreck.

“These alternative treatments … require certain conditions for them to work effectively,” Steppler said. “Formic acid, for example, is a very volatile substance. If it’s too hot, it’ll volatilize very quickly and could potentially kill your colony. But if it’s too cold, it doesn’t volatilize enough … so there’s a very small window that you can use this product.

“It’s like a double-edged sword. We have to control these mites. Otherwise, the mites will bring down the colony due to disease.”

The alternatives, however, risk running afoul of the products’ slim margin for error.

In 2022, Lafrenière pointed to other challenges with organic acids. The short window for use can result in low rates of bee contact. Some of these products are so hard on bees that honey production can be affected, depending on time of application.

Avoiding damage

Beekeepers rely on a combination of provincial guidelines, hands-on experience and educational resources to mitigate risks.

Provincial guidelines state that regular inspections are crucial in the fight against varroa mites, especially during spring and fall. Producers should monitor infestation levels and verify the effectiveness of treatments.

Colonies should ideally maintain mite levels below one per cent during the spring and between one and two per cent in late summer when brood is present, the guidelines state. As brood production extends later into the fall, which Manitoba beekeepers have noted, consistent monitoring is even more critical.

In spring 2024, provincial apiarist Derek Micholson said warm weather in the previous autumn may have reduced varroa control.

“The beekeepers are kind of relying on the colonies to shut down brood production so these treatments can work, but that’s not happening,” he said at the time.

“Then these treatments don’t work as well. These hives go into the winter with higher varroa mite loads and then, if you have these big temperature swings over the winter and brood being produced, then the varroa mites are also reproducing more.”

To reduce the risk of mites developing resistance to treatments, beekeepers are urged to rotate between different control products. Alternating between synthetic chemicals and organic options can help maintain efficacy and protect colony health, the guidelines add.

Mechanical hindrances like screened bottom boards can limit mite re-entry into the hive, according to guidelines. Those won’t be effective alone, but can complement chemical treatments or other solutions, such as mite-resistant bee genetics.

If opting for those, the province warns, beekeepers should clear debris from the bottom boards to dodge other pests like wax moths. It also notes the precise environmental requirements when using organic acid or thymol-based alternatives.

New answers needed

Environmental unpredictability further complicates the fight against varroa mites, said Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council.

“There’s so many variables. Weather is a variable, rain … there are many variables out there for treatment. You have to have a full tool kit out there.”

According to Manitoba Agriculture, combining treatments with good hive management, such as resistant bee genetics or employing screened bottom boards, can provide year-round benefits.

Steppler said more investment in safer and more effective solutions are also needed.

“We just need more attention towards helping us use these products … so they maybe don’t hurt our colonies as much.”

One promising development is an RNA-based treatment now undergoing trials in Manitoba.

“We’re testing a new RNA product for mite control, and it seems to be … almost benign,” Steppler said. “It leaves no residue in the wax, which is one of the problems with chemical treatments.”

While the trials show potential, the product is not yet approved, though the need is urgent.

“We need new chemicals, new ways to address the varroa problem, whether it be organics or hard chemicals,” said Scarlett.

Matthew Polinsky is program lead for the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association’s Knowledge and Research Transfer Program (KRTP), designed to help the industry manage varroa mite issues and other challenges.

Polinsky has worked on the RNA product trial, a collaboration with the product’s manufacturer, U.S.-based GreenLight Biosciences Inc., for the last two years.

GreenLight has applied for product registration in the U.S. Approval in Canada will require testing with programs like the KRTP, Polinsky said.

“(We’re) seeing how well it works and if there’s efficacy there, and from there, the company can either decide they want to go ahead and apply to register with the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency.”

Keeping an eye on varroa

The research program is also helping producers keep tabs on the issue. Its bee health monitoring program takes samples of bees, tests for pathogens and helps with grower monitoring.

“We work with people to look at and to make sure that they have an adequate picture of what’s actually going on, because varroa is one of those things that can almost seem invisible until it’s such a problem that your colonies are collapsing,” he said. “It’s easy to get caught off guard.”

The KRTP’s acaricide resistance testing also continues. Varroa-infested bees are exposed to a treatment. The program then observes how many, if any, of the varroa population shows resistance to the treatment.

Samples of varroa mites are also sent to the National Bee Diagnostic Centre in Beaverlodge, Alta.

“They have the means to do genetic analysis to check for mutations associated with resistance. This is a relatively new technology, and so it’s great that the KRTP exists in Manitoba and is able to tap into those collaborations for advancing our knowledge on mite populations across our province,” Polinsky said.

The post FEATURE: Beekeepers in a corner against varroa mites appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Beekeeping groups in Canada are working on their submissions after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency examined risks posed by U.S. boxed bee trade. The CFIA has given industry 90 days to respond.

Why it matters: Boxed bee imports from the U.S. have been curbed for decades due to pest threats, but recent hard winters and difficulty sourcing bees from overseas during the pandemic created a movement pushing government to allow more imports.

Meanwhile, in the courtroom, beekeepers were not successful in a class action lawsuit they had filed against Canada’s agriculture minister and the CFIA on the issue. A federal judge dismissed the class action on Nov. 29 in Ottawa.

The lawsuit, filed by Alberta’s Paradis Honey Ltd., B.C.’s Honeybee Enterprises Ltd. and Manitoba’s Rocklake Apiaries Ltd., had argued that the government’s continued ban on U.S. packaged bees was negligent, resulting in economic harm to their businesses.

The judge in the case found that the government and CFIA had acted in accordance with their roles to protect domestic animal health and honeybee import regulation. The agency’s actions were within its authority, the judge found.

Trade rules

Honeybees are regulated under the Health of Animals Act, and Canada has restricted imports of honeybee packages from the United States since 1987 due to disease and pest risks. Producers can source queens from the U.S., since the CFIA says those bees can be individually inspected for disease or parasites, but the agency has long maintained that bulk packages, which include hive material, bring greater risk of importing an animal health problem.

The issue is contentious in Canada’s honey sector. Some beekeepers say the CFIA is right to be wary. Pests like varroa mites are already a serious issue for the honey sector, exacerbated by what beekeepers say is a decline in efficacy for previously industry-leading varroa control products.

On the other side of the issue are beekeepers who have suffered significant winter bee losses in recent years. Over the 2021-22 winter, Manitoba averaged 57.2 per cent colony losses, the highest in the nation. Varroa infestation was cited among the significant factors. Nationally, Canadian beekeepers averaged 45.5 per cent loss, a number the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists noted was almost double that of the year before.

At the same time, beekeepers had new difficulty replacing stock. Pandemic travel restrictions grounded many flights from CFIA-approved boxed bee sources like Australia starting in 2020, creating new pressure for the CFIA to reassess the risks of U.S. bees. The last assessment in 2013 didn’t necessarily reflect the knowledge and tools available to manage risks, some argued.

In early November, the CFIA launched a consultation on possible mitigation strategies for the identified risks, which include American foulbrood, varroa mites, Africanized genetics and small hive beetle.

Industry has until Jan. 9 to submit risk management proposals.

Polarized issue

The issue is complex, said Albert Devries, first vice-chair of the Canadian Honey Council and a representative of the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association.

“We’re exploring ways to see if we can mitigate the risk, because there’s diseases that are present in the United States and chemical resistance for mite treatment that’s present in the United States, and that isn’t present here in Canada yet,” he said. “In time, I’m thinking this will happen to us as well.”

Ontario beekeeper determination to keep the border closed has softened, he noted, although the official industry position is still that the U.S. trade isn’t worth it.

Devries said he isn’t opposed to exploring possibilities but doesn’t think there’s a way to mitigate risks.

“There is American foulbrood, which is a disease that really has no treatment. Once it’s present, you usually have to destroy the hive. American foulbrood in the United States … is resistant to antibiotics, and beekeepers will probably treat without the disease being present to keep it suppressed.”

He said mitigation efforts have often proven ineffective. Destroying hives, for example, was standard in Australia to keep out varroa mites but it wasn’t enough to hold the line. The parasite successfully dug a foothold, starting in 2022, and Australian beekeepers now face the same potentially devastating pest as other places in the world, Canada included.

“They’ve taken all these hives and depopulated them, (but) the mites had already gone beyond that, and it’s not proving to be effective,” Devries said.

He also pointed to challenges with international bee imports from Australia, New Zealand and Chile. Italian imports also have disease issues.

“The best way to spread a disease: put it on an airplane, send it around the world,” he said.

The CFIA emphasized that its decisions are based on the latest science and evidence, in accordance with its mandate to safeguard the health of animals for all Canadians.

Industry associations in Alberta and Manitoba want Canada to allow U.S. packaged bee imports and are using the CFIA’s 90-day comment period to talk to counterparts in the United States and discuss mitigation strategies, said Jeremy Olthof, member of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission and director with the Canadian Honey Council.

Imported bees aren’t ideal, he said, but with winterkill sometimes taking out entire colonies, beekeepers who regularly face harsh winters have no other practical options.

While there are local sources of bees, a hard winter often impacts local supply as well as producers looking to buy bees. And while producers can split hives, the result is significantly decreased honey yield as bees put energy into building brood rather than producing honey.

“I’m one of the biggest advocates for U.S. packages, and I hope I never have to use them. It’s (for) those cases where, like in spring of 2022 when half the bees died. What’s left is not very strong,” Olthof said.

Supply chain issues are another reason to do business with the U.S. as opposed to countries like Australia, he added.

“At least with the U.S., we sort of control our destiny, in some ways: be able to land transport, have a little bit more control of that, and we strongly feel that it’s just a better product available there.”

Challenges

Proponents of U.S. trade may face an uphill battle in making their case to the CFIA.

There are few U.S. research papers, Olthof said, and while some U.S. regions used to source queens to test and demonstrate how risks can be reduced to a negligible level, it takes work, and he isn’t convinced the U.S. wants to participate.

“We have to do some work on what’s economically viable. If the cost to mitigate all these risks is insane, I think most package producers can easily sell out in the U.S. So, it’s not something they desperately need.”

Should the CFIA review go their way, some in the industry suggest that U.S. boxed bee shipments could arrive as early as this spring. Olthof is more conservative.

“I think the realistic goal is to get this done right, and hopefully we can have packages the following spring.”

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Provincial apiarist Derek Micholson says mortality counts are highly variable.

“There are a few that I talked to that had total wipeouts that have been around the industry for three or four decades and lost everything this year,” he said.

Though some beekeepers had minimal losses, some larger operations had high hive mortality. Given their size, they’re likely weighing on the provincial average, Micholson said.

Responses to the provincial winter loss survey are still coming in, but initial numbers put colony loss around 40 per cent. That number may decrease as more surveys come in, Micholson said, but he expects the final percentage to land in the high ‘30s. The province has historically considered losses of 15 to 25 per cent as normal.

Why it matters: The honey sector has suffered multiple years of high bee mortality, worsened by an increasingly difficult fight against varroa mites.

Ian Steppler, chair of the Manitoba Beekeepers’ Association, said sales of replacement stock were at high volume earlier in the spring but demand slowed and prices dropped.

“That’s a good sign for winter losses, I think.”

Losses are significantly below two years ago, when Manitoba tallied a 57.2 per cent colony loss, the worst of any province, according to the Canadian Association of Professional Apiarists. Last year, 30 per cent loss was recorded.

Beware varroa

Weather and high varroa mite pressure top the list of suspects for this year’s losses, according to both Steppler and Micholson.

“I would say primarily it’s to do with the varroa mite,” Steppler said, adding that sampling on some of the worst hit farms suggests mites were a major culprit.

The mites weaken bees directly through feeding and are a vector for disease. Their resistance to standard treatments has become a top-of-mind worry, as tools such as Apivar become less effective.

“I think beekeepers are kind of blindly applying these treatments, thinking that they’re going to work, and they’re really not working as well as they have in the past,” Micholson said.

Beekeepers who tested the efficacy of last fall’s treatments saw evidence of resistance, Steppler also said.

“I think that’s what caught a lot of producers off guard … The treatment they used didn’t work, and then they see this huge loss. It was too late. They just couldn’t do anything about it.”

Experts say scouting and monitoring are increasingly important and samples should be taken after treatment to gauge effectiveness. Producers are also advised to consider a multi-pronged approach, such as incorporating formic or oxalic acid.

According to last year’s CAPA loss report, 97 per cent of Manitoba beekeepers treated hives for varroa mites.

Weather is a factor

Manitoba had a mild winter, but that might not have been best for the bees, Steppler said. He suggested mild temperatures put hives at greater risk for starvation because bees are more active and use more resources.

The season wasn’t entirely mild. Like other Prairie provinces, Manitoba was caught in a polar vortex in January.

“These warmer winters aren’t always a good thing, especially for the beekeepers that winter outside, that are more vulnerable to these kind of big temperature swings,” Micholson said.

“Sometimes what happens when the temperatures warm up, bees kind of start to think spring is on the horizon and the queen starts laying eggs. They start rearing more brood.

“Meanwhile, it’s the middle of winter and we get these big cold snaps again and either the brood dies off or those bees have wasted a ton of resources trying to raise brood.”

The drastic weather change likely affected the bee’s natural clocks. Bee biology in a winter hive is different than in the active season, Micholson said. Production of certain hormones stalls going into winter, allowing bees to put on more fat.

“If they kind of start kicking into brood production, then those hormones start to pick back up and they kind of have a hard time going back to winter mode.”

Warm falls may also be worsening the varroa issue, he noted. Manitoba has enjoyed warmer than normal temperatures from September to November in the last few years. While that’s nice for people, bees may not get their normal signals to start shutting down brood production.

Most producers do their fall varroa treatments in September and October, Micholson noted, and many of those treatments are less effective if there is a lot of brood in the colony.

“The beekeepers are kind of relying on the colonies to shut down brood production so these treatments can work, but that’s not happening. Then these treatments don’t work as well; these hives go into the winter with higher varroa mite loads and then, if you have these big temperature swings over the winter and brood being produced, then the varroa mites are also reproducing more… There’s kind of a whole host of problems.”

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The parasites are notorious in beekeeping circles, and an established population would have significant implications for agricultural food security in Australia, as honeybees are vital for the pollination of many crops.

But while Australia is the last continent to be invaded by the mite, it has an opportunity to be the first to eradicate it.

Varroa destructor is a small mite that attaches to bees and eats their “fat body,” the insect equivalent of a liver. This weakens bees, reduces their lifespan and increases disease spread.

This might be Australia’s best chance to collect important data on how parasites evolve, why varroa mites are so damaging for honeybees, and how they impact other insects and the environment.

Australia is close to countries that have the mite, including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Indonesia.

Previous invasions have been successfully eradicated before establishing, but last year, the mite managed to spread locally in Australia’s southeast. Officials have been contact tracing and culling hives in contaminated areas, and the spread has been slow so far.

Wild honeybees, however, could act as a reservoir for the mites and are much harder to trace and control. Officials are tackling this with a wild honeybee baiting program.

Australia is different from other varroa-infected regions of the world. The incursion was smaller, it was identified early and the management zone is small enough to be feasibly eradicated.

Even if the mites spread in Australian landscapes, hopes are that the pace of the spread may be slower in Australia than it was in other regions due to the smaller incursion, the colossal eradication effort and large tracts of land that are inhospitable to honeybees.

Managed honeybee populations are concentrated around coastal regions or in major rural food-bowl regions where pollinator-dependant crops (such as almonds, blueberries and apples) are located.

This gives Australia a chance to prevent the spread of varroa mites across the inland portion of the country, where there are no honeybees.

Most of the world has already spent the last few decades trying to minimize varroa mite management costs. As a nation, Australia has the chance to initiate a fresh and co-ordinated management response. The country could organize state-wide integrated pest management approaches and treatment regimens to prevent resistance to chemical treatments from developing rapidly.

In short, there are good reasons to remain positive about the future of Australian beekeeping and horticultural industries, but there is still much work for the research community to do.

– The authors are with Monash University, Australian National University, University of Sydney. Western Sydney University and Macquarie University, respectively. This article first appeared in the Conversation, by Reuters.

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