• Menu
  • Skip to right header navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Country Life In BC Logo

The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915

  • Headlines
  • Calendar
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Headlines
  • Calendar
  • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • Search

Primary Sidebar

Originally published:

May 2018
Vol. 104 Issue 5

Subscribe Now!

Sign up for free weekly FARM NEWS UPDATES

Select list(s) to subscribe to


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Country Life in BC, 36 Dale Road, Enderby, BC, V0E1V4. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact
Your information will not be
shared or sold ever

Stories In This Edition

Fraser Valley bee shortage overstated

Still waiting: ag waste regs

Cannabis shift delivers hit to vegetable sector

Peter’s legacy

Editorial: The straight dope

Back Forty: Our best friend deserves greater recognitiontory

Overheard: Farmers should embrace First Nations model

Change is coming, fast and furious

Foundation effective in fueling ag projects

New meat producer association launched

Sidebar: On board

Traceability regs to include animal movement

Report recommends FN approval on tenures

Province urged to regulate farmhouse size

Dairy group highlights industry needs on tour

Ottawa plays hardball with Agassiz leases

IAF showcases innovative ag projects

Neonics in water not from farm operations

Potato growers need to exploit opportunities

Spuds in tubs

Vegetable commission optimistic

Sidebar: Variety update

MacAulay grilled over farm labour issues

Apiarists want pollination income to count

Sidebar: BCHPA launches pollinator health study

Raspberry growers increase board size

Popham meets with berry growers

Hazelnut growers flush with optimism

Ranchers schooled in disaster preparation

Westgen eyes beef semen sales for growth

Big prize money draws big entries

Holstein auction sets new sale benchmark

North 40 bull tops Vanderhoof sale

Reclaiming market share in a global economy

Day-neutrals show promise for strawberry fields

Weather skews results in Peace variety trials

Salal berries have market potential

Vole control in blueberries

Wannabe: When tragedy brings us together

Watchful eye

Woodshed Chronicles: Henderson masterminds an apology

Jude’s Kitchen: Celebrate May with beef on the ‘barbie’

More Headlines

Follow us on Facebook

Comments Box SVG iconsUsed for the like, share, comment, and reaction icons

7 days ago

Farmland Advantage is receiving a $445,000 grant from the federal government. The program, the “brainchild” of Invermere cattle rancher Dave Zehnder, provides compensation to farmers for their conservation efforts to protect BC’s grasslands, riparian areas and wildlife habitat. The funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada under the Species at Risk Partnerships on Agricultural Lands (SARPAL) and Priority Places programs, will be administered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC. Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas appeared in our March 2022 edition and you can view it at ... See MoreSee Less

Link thumbnail

Rewarding farmers for enhancing riparian areas

buff.ly

INVERMERE – Farmers and ranchers in the Columbia Valley will continue to see rewards for taking action to conserve and enhance important riparian areas on their farms. The Windermere District Farmer...
View Comments
  • Likes: 1
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

2 weeks ago

A standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people attended a public hearing the Agricultural Land Commission hosted in Langley Monday night regarding a proposal to include 305 acres controlled by the federal government in the Agricultural Land Reserve. More than 76,000 people have signed an online petition asking municipal and provincial governments to protect the land from development, and for the federal government to grant a long-term lease to the Heppells. Read more in this morning's Farm News Update from Country Life in BC. conta.cc/3XYXw6k ... See MoreSee Less

Link thumbnail

Your weekly farm news update

web-extract.constantcontact.com

The agricultural news source in British Columbia since 1915 January 25 2023 Surrey ALR inclusion cheered A standing-room only crowd of more than 250 people attended a public hearing the Agricultural L
View Comments
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 1

Comment on Facebook

Mike Manion Pitt Meadows City Councillor

2 months ago

Christmas tree growers in BC are seeing strong demand this season and prices remain comparable to last year. But the number of tree farms has decreased dramatically over the past five years and the province will increasingly need to look elsewhere if it wants to meet local demand. More in this week's Farm News Update from Country Life in BC. ... See MoreSee Less

Link thumbnail

Christmas trees in demand

buff.ly

Christmas tree growers in BC are seeing strong demand, with high quality trees making it to market. “The market is good. We’ll probably outdo last year and last year was one of our best years…
View Comments
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 0
  • Comments: 0

Comment on Facebook

2 months ago

Another four poultry flocks in the Fraser Valley have tested positive for avian influenza over the weekend -- 15 in the last week alone. There are 60 farms currently under quarantine in BC, more than any other province in Canada and three times that of Alberta, which ranks second. Officials maintain the virus is being spread by dust and groundwater and not farm-to-farm transmission. No farms in the Interior have tested positive this fall. ... See MoreSee Less

Another four poultry flocks in the Fraser Valley have tested positive for avian influenza over the weekend -- 15 in the last week alone. There are 60 farms currently under quarantine in BC, more than any other province in Canada and three times that of Alberta, which ranks second. Officials maintain the virus is being spread by dust and groundwater and not farm-to-farm transmission. No farms in the Interior have tested positive this fall.
View Comments
  • Likes: 2
  • Shares: 3
  • Comments: 1

Comment on Facebook

Avian influenza virus can be killed by chlorine at no higher a concentration than is present in drinking water, so unless farms are using untreated groundwater in their barns I don't see how it could be a source of transmission. www.researchgate.net/publication/5594208_Chlorine_Inactivation_of_Highly_Pathogenic_Avian_Influen...

2 months ago

In a surprise move, Lana Popham -- hailed at the recent BC Dairy Industry Conference as a key ally of the agriculture sector -- has been replaced by Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis as part of a cabinet overhaul today by new BC premier David Eby. Popham will now oversee Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. The two ministers worked closely together following the atmospheric river events last fall. ... See MoreSee Less

In a surprise move, Lana Popham -- hailed at the recent BC Dairy Industry Conference as a key ally of the agriculture sector -- has been replaced by Abbotsford-Mission MLA Pam Alexis as part of a cabinet overhaul today by new BC premier David Eby. Popham will now oversee Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport. The two ministers worked closely together following the atmospheric river events last fall.Image attachment
View Comments
  • Likes: 10
  • Shares: 8
  • Comments: 8

Comment on Facebook

Goes to show how far-removed our current government is from the agricultural sector. To put someone in this position who has no farming background is a slap in the face to all of our hard-working producers.

Going to be a heck of a learning curve. Helping the agricultural community recover from the biggest natural disasters in history, handling the avian influenza outbreak that is threatening our poultry industry, dealing with a crisis in meat processing, managing ongoing threats from climate change, supporting producers who are facing unprecedented inflation in an industry with very slim margins to begin with..... to name a few of the challenges our new Minister will have to face all with one of the lowest budgets of any ministry. I wish her the best of luck but I hope she's got a lot of support around her.

Best of wishes in your new position

Congrats to Pam, cool to see a Fraser Valley based ag minister but also so sad to see Lana reassigned . I have no doubt she will do an amazing job in her new role.

Will be missed by #meiernation

Bryce Rashleigh

Nooooooo!

Lana did a shit job and now we have a minister with no farming background at all. Aren’t we lucky..

View more comments

Subscribe | Advertise

Fraser Valley bee shortage overstated

Farmers, apiarists respond to claim of hive shortage and poor health

April 30, 2018 bySean Hitrec

DELTA – BC blueberry farmers and some apiarists were left scratching their heads after it was reported that there would be a sizable bee shortage in the Fraser Valley this spring.

In April, the Vancouver Sun reported that beekeepers, including “major operators from Alberta,” were refusing to send their colonies to the Fraser Valley this year due to health and honey yield concerns. The article said the high-alkaline levels of blueberry pollen, a lack of variety in forage to make a balanced diet and possible contamination from fungicides used in blueberry fields were to blame. When the bees returned to Alberta, they underperformed.

While the concerns may have some validity, blueberry farmers say the correlation between healthy bees and healthy crop yields is what makes their operations work.

“Bee health is important to every [blueberry] grower that I’ve talked to because they’re spending a lot of money on it and you want the best bang for your buck, so you want good, strong, healthy, happy bees,” says Jason Smith, fourth-generation blueberry farmer and berry consultant in the Fraser Valley.

John Gibeau, commercial beekeeping instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and president of Honeybee Centre in Surrey, says apiarists who decided not to send their bees to BC this year may be making a mistake. He recalls when apiarists would not charge anything to place their hives with blueberry growers because the bees’ health and honey was worth it.

“The beekeepers shouldn’t have given up because there are some really good years,” he says. “[Normally] the colonies go back double the strength and … they get money for it.”

When asked why some colonies have done poorly recently, fingers pointed to the wet conditions in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley during the blueberry flowering period last year.

“The spring of 2017 was among the worst springs that we have ever encountered here on the West Coast,” notes BC provincial apiarist Paul van Westendorp. “We had incessant wet weather conditions and low temperatures for months on end. I am not surprised the bees were doing poorly.”

A high-alkaline diet combined with wet weather conditions can occasionally lead to “a very manageable disease called European foul brood,” he adds. “This disease tends to pop up in colonies that are stressed due to management or poor weather, but also because of certain nutritional deficiencies that blueberry pollen offers bees.”

The effect of fungicides, which growers spray for mummy berry, is currently unknown, van Westendorp says. Growers say the use of fungicides is often guided by Integrated Pest Management protocols, which help protect good insects such as pollinators.

“Among some beekeepers, it’s become the proverbial holy mantra; they think it’s the fungicides that have caused the damage,” he says.

To address the concerns, the BC Ministry of Agriculture and other parties have offered financial support for a multi-year study involving scientists in BC and Alberta that will conduct a proper assessment of the effect particular fungicides have on colony health.

The study will begin this year as the blueberries blossom.

Wintering bees in Southern BC has been a long-time practice of beekeepers from the Prairies. As many as 40,000 hives make their way to Southern BC from as far away as Manitoba every year to take advantage of the comparatively mild winters, says van Westendorp. Most of those colonies are not involved in blueberry pollination, he says, but the apiarists find there is less risk than when the bees spend the winter east of the Rockies. The bees also get up to an extra month of forage, meaning more honey production.

“The business of adding a pollination contract to it is a more recent phenomenon that only a few have taken up,” he says.

“I have learned that, in the meantime, because of the speculative environment, that those beekeepers who do make their colonies available have been jacking up the price enormously,” he adds.

Despite the reports, the BC Blueberry Council, with a membership of more than 600 farmers, says growers are not experiencing an abnormal colony shortage.

“To our knowledge, the majority of our growers … have not expressed concern about a lack of bees to pollinate this year’s blueberry crop,” wrote BC Blueberry Council executive director Anju Gill in an open letter to media.

To the contrary, she’s been recently contacted by beekeepers who are still looking to place their hives on farms.

“I’ve had calls since some of these stories from beekeepers saying, ‘hey, our bees are available,’” she told Country Life in BC.

Though an actual hive shortage and pricing is hard to quantify for blueberry farmers who make private deals with apiarists, Gill says she’s also heard reports the price per hive has gone up dramatically for some.

“If it was about $40 to $60 per colony [in past years], I’ve even heard as high as $150 [this year],” she says.

BC Blueberry Council chair Jack Bates farms 90 acres of blueberries in Ladner. He began securing beehives in the winter from various apiarists and has not noticed a shortage. He says he doesn’t mind paying a higher price for quality colonies as the larger crops he gets from three to four hives per acre is currently worth his investment.

“It is reality when they say you don’t get fruit without bees,” he said as a nod toward the symbiotic relationship between beekeepers and blueberry farmers. In turn, Bates takes great care to protect the animals that help his crops thrive.

“When the bees are in our field, we spray at night,” he said, adding this is common practice in blueberry farming. “You don’t want to turn them off your plants.”

Related Posts

You may be interested in these posts from the same category.

BC beekeepers go online

Bee

Agri-Innovation projects announced

Honey producers honour industry leaders

Bee initiatives in focus

Better beekeeping, verified

Asian hornet identified

Research breeds better bees for Vancouver Island

Previous Post: « Province urged to regulate farmhouse size
Next Post: Farmers’ markets focus on cultivating trust »

Copyright © 2023 Country Life in BC · All Rights Reserved