Mites, not pesticides, the major bee killer

Mites, not pesticides, including neonicitinoid seed-treatment pesticides, are the biggest killer of bee colonies, a professor from Dalhousie University told the House of Commons Agriculture Committee this week.

Habitat loss and poor beekeeping practices are other major threats, said Chris Cutler, an associate professor in the department of environmental sciences at Dalhousie and also a beekeeper.

Pesticides are, indeed, a major threat, he said, but another challenge is a lack of information on wild bees, which are vital to food production. There are about 1,000 bee species in Canada.

“In terms of their population dynamics and long-term community distributions and prevalence of different species, we know next to nothing about many of them,” Cutler said. 

“This is just another cautionary message about making blanket statements about all the bees being in decline. We actually lack a lot of data.”

He said the issue isn’t just limited to those outside the industry, but that beekeepers themselves need to better understand what’s happening.

“Education is the issue that needs to be really tackled among beekeepers,” he said. 

“You can have hives in the exact same location and half of them will live and half of them will die, and I won’t really be able to understand why.”

There’s a strong sense in the apiculture sector that “beekeeper extension work is key in terms of improving the health of honeybees across the country.”

Kevin Nixon, an Alberta beekeeper and chair of the Canadian Honey Council, said bee issues have received a lot of misleading media attention.

“Unfortunately, most of the media has not been willing to present all the factors affecting bee health, but is aimed at only a single factor, being pesticides,” Nixon said. “There are many factors affecting bee health.”