The Canadian Beekeepers Association has launched a petition to stop the company selling Billy Bee honey as Canadian from incorporating imported honey.
Argentina and China are prominent suppliers and both countries have been fingered for fraud.
The United States claims some of the honey coming from the international market is extended with other, cheaper, sweeteners, such high-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar.
The Canadian Beekeepers Association says the 7,000 beekeepers in Canada, tending 600,000 hives, “are now in danger of losing the family farm.
“Canada's largest honey packer, Billy Bee, and their international corporate parent McCormick, have all but stopped buying Canadian honey.
“Instead they choose to import cheaper honey from countries like China and Argentina and blend them with just enough Canadian honey so that they can still say Canadian on the bottle simply to improve their bottom line,” says the association in an on-line posting asking for signatures on its petition.
Canadians produce 75 million pounds of honey annually, a third from Alberta, another third from Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the rest from all of the other provinces and territories.
“Annually we produce more than enough honey to supply our domestic demand and then some!,” says the association. The U.S. is the favourite export customer.
“Right now, there are beekeepers in Canada who are unable to sell their crops, or must do so below cost and are quickly becoming bankrupted.
“Some will be unable to provide sufficient spring feed for their bees and their bees may die before they get a chance to make this years honey crop.”
(The Ontario Beekeepers Association never talks about the starvation issue, only the neonicitinoid seed-treatment pesticides. And the Liberals, quick to jump on any bandwagon, have introduced draconian neonicitinoid restrictions.)
Some estimate that “nearly half of last years honey crop still sitting unsold in storage across the country, all the while cheap imported honey is being put on your grocery shelves first or blended to stretch out supply and cheapen the ingredients.
“Hard working beekeepers deserve to have their honey bottled and available for Canadian consumers before any other honey is imported and sold inside of our own country,”
