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By Alice McFarlane

Honey Production

Honey production lower

Nov 29, 2019 | 12:16 PM

It was a disappointing year for many honey producers on the Prairies. Production was only 80 per cent of normal.

Saskatchewan beekeepers have been attending their annual meeting yesterday and today in Saskatoon

President Simon Lalonde from Clavet said there were a number of issues that came up during the year.

“Our biggest challenges were a slower bee build up then usual in the spring. A lot of beekeepers linked that in with some of the weather issues we were having with drought and a later season,” he said. “Then getting into the summer, honey flow, especially the northern parts of the province were bees are operated had days of showers and rain or high winds. Bees then can’t fly during forage season.”

The variable canola crop staging benefited bees who had reaped the benefits of canola that was flowering into the third week of August.

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Lalonde said it’s been a long time since bee keepers have been above the cost of production. Right honey is selling in the $1.65 to $1.75 per pound range, depending on the colour and the floral source of the honey.

He said imported honey will fill in some of the gap and domestic honey prices are rising.

Alberta produces even more honey than Saskatchewan.

Connie Phillips with the Alberta Beekeepers Commission said they experienced serious problems.

“Losses range from 20 per cent all the way to 80 per cent. So the average overall of the responses that we got to our survey was just over 50 per cent loss was the average,” she said.

Saskatchewan beekeepers also talked about overwinter survival rates of honey bees, the impact of neonicotinoids on honey bees and efforts to detect lower quality honey imports coming into Canada.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@AliceMcF