Open the Border, He Says!

General Discussion of Diary Posts and Questions on Beekeeping Matters
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Allen Dick
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Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

I made some comments about motions passed at the ABC AGM earlier and received the following comments via a web form, and commented in the diary.

I have very limited interest in this matter since I am a hobbyist at this point and opening the border actually works against my personal interests. I am just amazed at the stupidity and injustice of the embargo and feel a little duped for having supported a temporary closure in the first place.

If we knew then what we know now, we never would have acceded

Anyhow, here is the first letter for comment.
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Hi Allen,

...I read your post from a few days ago regarding the resolutions brought forward at the recent Alberta beekeepers AGM. I was hesitant voting against them, but learned others were also thinking an open border to US package bees might not be the best option.

I never ran bees pre 1987, and admit I am envious of a time when one could dump a package, install a queen and wait for a honey crop. But I don't believe those days would return even with access to US packages. Varroa, tracheal, SHB have changed the landscape of be health across the continent.

CFIA has done the risk assessment (more than once I believe) and the major concerns are SHB, Africanized bees, resistant AFB and Apivar resistant varroa.

One could argue SHB already exists in Canada and that it is of little consequence to hives in a northern dry climate. I fear that bringing in thousands of packages will allow it to go from being in a few pockets to widespread in a matter of months. And although it doesn't seem to be a problem in the colder northern US, we all know these things constantly evolve. I know SHB thrives in colonies with weaker populations. Just like a lot of what comes through winter in Alberta.

I don't believe Africanized bees are suited to survive in cold climates, and I think those genes would have been passed on through California raised queens by now anyways so it's a non issue.

Resistant AFB is present in Canada, another non issue.

Apivar resistant varroa, like resistance to Apistan will probably come to Canada shortly after the us, although a closed border might buy us a little time.

My biggest concerns are none of the 4 above.

With a greater demand for packages in the US, the price will not be what is currently being offered in the us. It will be higher. And a $65US package, converted to Canadian dollars, shipped to Canada is going to cost a lot more than $65.

Would greater demand create a shortage, allowing only some beekeepers( probably those with contacts to the US producers) access to packages.

It would be pretty tempting for US beekeepers to produce a crop in Canada themselves. For an American beekeeper coming from almonds in March and apples in may(?), shaking packages to ship North and make a large crop of good white honey would be pretty profitable. Probably more than selling a $65 package. I don't want any more neighbours.

If we do actually get access to these cheap packages, hive numbers will surge in Canada. Value of hives will drop. Looking to sell and retire?

Hive numbers have only dropped twice, once immediately after the border closure, and after Apistan resistance. Otherwise they have steadily risen.

Just a few thoughts that came to mind, can't support an open border right now.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
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Allen Dick
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Re: Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

After my comments, based on extensive experience and observation, here is the reply. I suspect I detect some of the sarcasm that clouds honest discussion and, of course, the fear that someone else might benefit. I'll comment subsequently and let this go for now. As I say, I have no dog in this fight and am just an unbiased observer.
---

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond to my email.

On second thought, I change my mind. Let's open the border.

I guess I am just afraid of the dark. If US beekeepers say they can provide the packages, we should put total faith in them. We should assume they won't come to Canada armed with packages, seeking a honey crop that is double what they could get in the US. Prices surely won't go up, even though Koehnen apiaries already warns to "book early, supplies are limited".

That's assuming a lot.

I do try and do my own research. Fact is, there isn't a lot of facts to check. Quoting package prices is great, but that's the only solid evidence you provided, and it's subject to change. The rest is predictions. Just like oil prices, nobody can predict.

As much as "bullshit baffles brains", so does pining for the good old days. The industry has evolved. It may have been built on cheap US packages, but it continues to exist on good beekeepers taking priority on bee health. If we are going to compare 1987 to 2014, let's start with honey prices.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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Re: Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

As much as "bullshit baffles brains", so does pining for the good old days. The industry has evolved. It may have been built on cheap US packages, but it continues to exist on good beekeepers taking priority on bee health. If we are going to compare 1987 to 2014, let's start with honey prices.
The industry has evolved? Of course. In spite of vastly improved roads, equipment, communication, financing and education, it has managed to get back to where we were three decades ago, and beekeeping is much more risky and difficult due to a shortage of affordable replacement bees.

"It continues to exist on good beekeepers taking priority on bee health"? True, but that is made necessary by the inability to get reliable and inexpensive replacement packages. Should bee health take priority over beekeeper health? I think not. Bee health has become a giant obstacle to beekeepers because in the north, recovery form losses is far, far, more difficult than in the south. Bees were not in their natural range here and had to be imported, then re-imported and re-imported, right to present day. Wintering is marginal in many parts of the Canadian West and many of the most successful northern beekeepers truck their bees south to B.C.

As for "good" beekeepers, by definition, commercial beekeeping is bad beekeeping. Commercial beekeeping is about using bees to meet the needs of the beekeepers and the surrounding farms and not so much the needs of the bees beyond what is necessary to keep them producing. "Good" and "bad" are also subjective terms used to approve or disapprove of others who agree or disagree with us.

"If we are going to compare 1987 to 2014, let's start with honey prices."

I'm not sure what that means. Honey prices were 12 cents back in 1969 and went all the way up to 55 cents in a few years. Packages were $6 back in 1972. Prices dropped to 26 cents, then climbed to a dollar and then got up to $2.50 (All in CAD) around the time I sold out. They have stayed a little above $2 since, last I checked.

The only thing that saved Canadian beekeepers during the hardest decade the US beekeepers faced was our low Canadian dollar, which gave us $1.50 for every dollar the US producer got.

I've studied this in depth and written articles on the economics, showing that we were not smart, merely lucky, and that we still suffer unnecessarily under a self-imposed burden. The articles are listed under "Selected Topics" on this site and not too hard to understand. One ten-year-old article was reprinted in "Alberta Views" (unknown to me at the time) recently and is as a valid today as the day it as written.

As Jim Smith said at one contentious bee meeting many years ago after carefully explaining the relevant facts of the matter, "I can give explanations, but only God can give understanding".

But maybe it is I who do not understand. I am assuming that in public policy matters, we should act for the Greater Good and the benefit of all, not just for personal advantage or out of fear, and this is the position of most of us who get involved in serving on boards and committees. The opponents of free trade in bees, on the other hand, are not concealing their selfish motives or exaggerated fears, and maybe we have to respect them for being so openly and honestly self-serving and for being willing to force real sacrifices on themselves, fellow beekeepers, and future beekeepers to prevent hypothetical threats.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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Countryboy
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Re: Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Countryboy »

I never ran bees pre 1987, and admit I am envious of a time when one could dump a package, install a queen and wait for a honey crop. But I don't believe those days would return even with access to US packages. Varroa, tracheal, SHB have changed the landscape of be health across the continent.
In 2010 I helped a commercial beekeeper who runs single deep hives with excluders. During the winter of 2009-2010, he sprayed about 3 gallons of syrup into brood combs, and placed boxes in his beeyards when they were ready for package installation.
He purchased about 600 2 pound packages. When we installed packages, we treated all the hives with TM. 5-6 weeks later, he split the stronger hives by adding purchased queens to get a final hive total of 820 hives.

The package producer treated the bees prior to shaking packages. The ONLY treatment we gave the bees was TM.

Then we supered and waited for a honey crop.

Out of those 820 hives, we pulled 161,000 pounds of honey. This was his best year ever.
It should be noted that his family used to run 1600 double deep hives at twice as many yards. He cherry picked the best yards to keep, and he saved the very best brood combs. All of his brood combs are mature, black combs with virtually no patches of drone comb.

In previous years, he had simply pulled all the honey supers and allowed his bees to starve at the end of the season. Then during the winter, he would gather boxes, and use an air hose to blow the dead bees out of the combs so he could spray syrup into those combs again.

In 2010, he sold the bees to a commercial beekeeper who was planning on taking the bees to a warmer state, and then to California. We smoked the bees, and then shook them out of the hive into a lid, and then dumped them into the buyer's boxes.

This was in northwest Ohio, and there were more SHB than I have in central Ohio, but I never saw SHB be a problem in any hives. (Just in the honey house.)
Because the bees were only in the boxes for a few months, varroa never had a chance to become a problem.
Out of 820 hives, we only ran across one stinker (AFB) when shaking bees into the buyer's boxes, so that hive was set aside.
We saw no sign of problems due to tracheal or nosema.

I "assume" that if the borders were open, Canadian beekeepers could operate in this manner if they chose. The beekeeper I helped found that if he could get a hive to overwinter, he was lucky if they made 2 boxes of honey, but a fresh package beside it would make 5 boxes...so he stopped trying to overwinter hives, and started running new packages every year.
The beekeeper I helped personally drives to Georgia to haul his own packages. He buys all his packages and queens from Wilbanks. (He tried other package and queen suppliers before, but none were as good as Wilbanks bees...and some were extremely bad.) However, it is my understanding that Reggie Wilbanks has no plans to expand his operations. He expanded when he took on some 4000 package order for Betterbee, but he is close to retirement age and does not want the hassles of expanding. Wilbanks produces several thousand queens a week also.

His average production for the previous 5-7 years is around 125 pounds per hive. This is running single deep hives and removing ALL the honey from the hive. We are not known for being an exceptionally good honey producing area, although northwest Ohio is better than my area in central Ohio. Over about 40 years, his worst average is 57 pounds per hive, and his best was the 196 pounds in 2010.

He claims his current annual operating expenses per hive are around $110 for a 1000 hive operation...packages, queens, syrup for spraying into combs, etc.

Diseases are NOT a problem with this model of beekeeping. Package producers can treat at ANY time treatment is necessary (they aren't producing honey, so no fears of contamination) and the honey producer only has bees in the boxes for the short honey season, and diseases don't have time to grow into big problems in a short time frame.

The biggest drawback to this method is reliance on the package bee supplier. The biggest worry of the commercial beekeeper I helped is what he will do if/when Reggie Wilbanks retires.
B. Farmer Honey
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Allen Dick
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Re: Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

Diseases are NOT a problem with this model of beekeeping. Package producers can treat at ANY time treatment is necessary (they aren't producing honey, so no fears of contamination) and the honey producer only has bees in the boxes for the short honey season, and diseases don't have time to grow into big problems in a short time frame.

The biggest drawback to this method is reliance on the package bee supplier. The biggest worry of the commercial beekeeper I helped is what he will do if/when Reggie Wilbanks retires.
Thanks for that. It sums things up nicely. That was the model for Alberta beekeeping before border closure. Although wintering had been promoted and subsidized before border closure, wintering had unpredictable and limited success, and was uneconomical compared to package bees, as it is to this day.

The only difference between now and when we had wintering grants is that today wintering loss is subsidized by the beekeeper in money, effort, risk, less flexibility, and worry -- and not by the government.

Any idea what the packages cost in that quantity picked up at the gate?
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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Countryboy
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Re: Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Countryboy »

There is another difference between running bees this way, and overwintering bees. People often have a negative emotional reaction to the thought of just letting bees die. "Keeping" an organism implies care and concern for their needs, and allowing things to die that are under your care is perceived as very insensitive.

From an economical point of view, this method works very well. From a moral/philosophical point of view, it's harder to swallow for many folks.

The commercial operator I helped joked that he was not a beekeeper...he was a bee box handler.

I've heard unsubstantiated rumors of package producers who gave preference (and possibly discounts) to buyers who were paying in cash. And there were also rumors of beekeepers carrying tens of thousands of dollars in cash being heavily armed also. But maybe these were just stories of the good old days of beekeeping...I'm sure nothing like that ever happens anymore.

I haven't kept in touch with the guy, so I don't know what current pricing is. Back in 2010, I think it was in the low to mid 50's for a 2 pound package...but that was for 600 packages. I "think" that retail pricing is usually about $30 over gate prices in my area.

A local bee supply guy usually sells 2,000-3,000 packages a year. Used to, almost all the packages were sourced from Georgia. Now, all his packages come from California. He won't deal with the Georgia guys anymore. Underweight packages, junk queens, etc.
His 2014 prices were: (he won't have 2015 prices until February.)
2 lb. California Italian or Carniolan Packages $85.00.
3 lb. California Italian or Carniolan Packages $105.00
4 lb. California Italian or Carniolan Packages $120.00
Best Buy 4 lb. California Italian or Carniolan Packages with 1 extra Queen $146.00
B. Farmer Honey
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Allen Dick
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Re: Open the Border, He Says!

Unread post by Allen Dick »

There is another difference between running bees this way, and overwintering bees. People often have a negative emotional reaction to the thought of just letting bees die. "Keeping" an organism implies care and concern for their needs, and allowing things to die that are under your care is perceived as very insensitive.
You are very right about that. I think most of us hate killing bees, bad queens and attacking bees being the exception.

Nonetheless, in the past, especially in the far north, package bees were installed in spring and colonies gassed with cyanide in fall. The equipment was stacked up and the process repeated in spring. That worked quite well made money and was reliable.

Some beekeepers wintered, but the effort, cost, consumption of honey and added depreciation on equipment was considered by most to be unacceptable, as was the risk of winter losses and contamination of equipment by decaying dead bees and the inevitable feces contamination.

Our government ran a wintering program and many different methods were tried, but none proved able to maintain the necessary populations and hive counts anywhere close to 100% of the time. We spent a half million dollars (a lot of money back then and chump change now, right, Dr. Evil?) in the 70s to develop an Alberta Bee to improve wintering and northern performance. That was long before border closure. "Sustainable" beekeeping, independent of imports was a dream.

The upshot, after four decades of limited success at coming up with foolproof wintering is that we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot, having closed the border, all the while patting ourselves on the back for being somehow superior for our stoicism. We have become so accustomed to failure that it looks like success to the younger beekeepers!

Anyhow, there are options besides killing of the bees. Beekeepers hate to do that although the rest of humanity thinks nothing of using every conceivable device including chemical warfare to kill insects wholesale and we are happy to use anything legal and somethings that are not to kill mites, all with considerable glee.

I have sold double hives into the southern US and also sent packages shaken form fall hives south, both with success,

Also, we know that if we simply doubled up all our fall hives to make larger colonies, we would have almost 100% wintering success, clean equipment and many splittable colonies in spring, so killing bees is not the only option.
Allen Dick, RR#1 Swalwell, Alberta, Canada T0M 1Y0
51° 33'39.64"N 113°18'52.45"W
http://www.honeybeeworld.com/Allen%27s%20Beehives.kmz
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