Despite offering coverage for everything from bear attacks to parasitic mites, Alberta’s honey insurance programs continue to see remarkably low participation rates among the province’s beekeepers.
The closing date to apply for 2026 honey insurance from Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) recently passed on April 30. And while the 2026 uptake numbers aren’t in yet, Jesse Cole, Manager of Annual Insurance Products at AFSC, expected them to be fairly low.
It is the same pattern which has held true for several years now, said Cole.
“We have two insurance products for bees and honey,” he explained. “The first one is our bee overwintering program, which guarantees against death loss on a hive basis. And then we have a honey insurance program, like an actual honey production insurance program, that insures the honey that's coming off of the hive.”
In 2025, only 24 producers took advantage of the AFSC's overwintering program and 37 on the production side. For context, there are approximately 1,600 beekeepers in province, according to Government of Alberta statistics.
So why so low? Cole believes there are a few main reasons. The broader AgriStability program covers general honey sales and also some elements of honey production. Secondly, the small pool of beekeepers taking advantage of the AFSC programs can lead to higher premiums. And thirdly, AFSC’s insurance is geared more toward the production side of things and not so much the price side of the honey itself.
“It's not super popular,” Cole admitted, referring to the AFSC honey insurance overall. “Like I would not call these popular programs, either of them. So, and that has to do, I think, like we've been talking with the honey producers like the Alberta Beekeepers Commission and producers about that in the last few years trying to figure out how we get that participation rate higher.”
Cole said what’s great about the AFSC honey insurance options is they cover things like overwintering deaths in bee colonies, drought losses, wildfire impacts, loss of hives due to predatory animals like bears, which do like to knock over colonies for the honey, and major parasitic infections like varroa mites, which have been wreaking havoc on the honey industry in recent years.
“There's right in our manual here, it says diseases or pests that cannot be controlled by industry accepted farm management practices. So that would be, you know, standard practice on varroa, or whatever disease you have in there. If it's something that you can't control, you can't manage, or you've tried to do the best thing, best management practice, that should be covered.”
Cole said in comparison to other provinces for bee and honey coverage Alberta ranks among the best with its two programs on offer. Combined with what AgriStability offers on the honey price side, Alberta beekeepers are comprehensively covered.
However, Cole admitted, the honey industry is a complex one with many types of perils potentially impacting it. Because of drought and overwintering deaths in the past five years, ASFC has been consistently paying out more than it has been taking in with premiums.
“Our losses were $5.7 million in 2025 for honey,” he said. “In comparison, our premiums were about $4 million … We have to go back to 2018 in the honey program to see a year when we didn't pay out more than we took in.”
Cole says with uptake on honey insurance lower than AFSC would like it to be, the corporation has increasingly been looking nationally for solutions which combine efforts among the provinces.
“We're talking with a lot of other provinces on honey insurance and bee overwintering products,” Cole confirmed. “Some provinces have both, and some provinces only have honey (production) insurance. Some provinces have none of them, none of the above. Even though we have two in Alberta, the participation rates are fairly low, but across Canada, they're quite low as well.
“We might have to go in a new direction,” he admitted.
Source - https://www.stalbertgazette.com
