The Senate standing committee on agriculture and forestry is studying the importance of bees and bee health across the country with the hope of completing its report by the end of June.

“The whole bee health area is the reason we’re doing the study because there have been concerns expressed,” said Senator JoAnne Buth. “The last thing we want to do is lose bees for honey production and also because of pollination. It’s going to take more work and research in determining what are the factors in it.”

A colony collapse disorder about 25 years ago began raising concerns across the country about the state of bees in Canada. Buth said the committee began hearing from stakeholders, such as farmers, apiarists, and chemical companies, in January.

One of the groups that spoke to the committee was the National Farmers Union, which recommended a five-year moratorium on neonicotinoid seed treatments on field crops in Canada.

“The pest management regulatory agency (PMRA) had been looking at those bee mortalities in 2012 and 2013 and in September 2013 the PMRA came to the conclusion that the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments in corn and soy beans, particularly in Ontario and Quebec, is not sustainable,” said NFU vice-president Ann Slater.

Neonicotinoid seed treatments are used to kill corn rootworm, bean leaf beetle, black cutworm, and wire worm that attack the seeds during planting. The use of neonicotinoids started about 15 years ago to replace the chemical Lindane because of concerns about persistence and trade. The neonicotinoids were also seen as less toxic. The dust coming off the seeds is what the NFU thinks is effecting the bees.

The union’s stance is that these pesticides are only warranted in 10 to 30 per cent of soy and corn acreages. The NFU does recognize that some farmers might need the pesticide, so they have added a one-time use recommendation with their submission.

“If it’s only needed for 10 to 30 per cent then why is the use so widespread? So, we’re calling for a moratorium for five years so you can pull it out of the environment and see what happens to the bees and pollinators,” said Slater.

For MacGregor grain farmer Curtis Sims, the concerns of the NFU are unwarranted as he claims it’s not standard practice for farmers to continuously spray insecticides.

“You don’t spray unless you really need to. There is a cost involved, but at the same time if you let the natural predator take care of the situation, and if you only have modest losses, then you try to let it go. If it starts to explode on you and you’re going to lose some serious crop then you have to do something,” he said.

Sims claims he only sprays once every two to three years.

Provincial apiarist Rheal Lafreniere said pesticides are one of the components affecting bee health, but so far beekeepers in Manitoba have not made any claims this year regarding losses due to neonicotinoids. He said the province’s lower than average bee numbers for the past couple of years had more to do with weather and drought.

“Some of it relates back to the (fall 2011/spring 2012) season, which was a very mild and a short winter and winter survival was really high. That year everything started off early. All the planting got done really early and we also had a really dry summer season, so by September all the crops were finished.

“All the wild plants, because of the drought conditions, were shutting down, so the bees didn’t have a lot of food going into winter in terms of pollen and stuff like that so they stopped rearing brood (replacement bees) at the rate they normally would have produced them because they were shutting down. Unfortunately, we had a very long winter the following year so that contributed a lot,” he said, noting the life span of the bees was stretched to the limit last winter.

Lafreniere said he won’t have a completed report on the status of Manitoba’s 73,000 colonies until the end of June, but overall he thinks the bee population will hit a mid-point.

“If I had to shoot from the hip, what we’re seeing in terms of bee populations … we’re somewhere between two to three weeks behind, but if we get nice weather bees have the ability to catch up very fast,” he said.

Back in Ottawa, Buth said she can’t predict what the recommendations the committee will give to the House regarding bee health and sustainability, but she personally feels the NFU’s moratorium recommendation is unnecessary.

“Most of the concerns (regarding neonicotinoids) are coming out of Ontario and Quebec. We haven’t seen the same issue on seed treatments used in Western Canada. When the NFU appeared, I think they had some good points in terms of the types of things that need to be looked at, but based on all the evidence that I’ve heard, I don’t think a moratorium is needed at this point,” she said.

“One of the things we’ve learned at the committee is that the whole colony health and bee health is really complex.”

The agriculture and forestry committee is scheduled to make its recommendations to the House in the fall.

Source - http://www.portagedailygraphic.com/