This past weekend the Prince Edward Island Beekeeping Association held there annual general meeting in Charlottetown. The Atlantic Tech Transfer Team for Apiculture was pleased to attend and present at this year’s meeting. Read this week’s blog to learn about the highlights of the event, and to find out what is happening in the PEI beekeeping industry.
Review of PEI Beekeepers Association AGM 2024
Another
successful annual general meeting of the PEI Beekeepers Association occurred on
January 20th in Charlottetown, PEI, where approximately 40
beekeepers and/or industry representatives were in attendance. Throughout the
event there were four guest speakers, including the provincial apiarist Cameron
Menzies. Cameron provided an annual report on the PEI beekeeping industry.
As
of 2023, there are 25 commercial beekeepers in PEI, and approximately 5 500
commercial hives. Additionally, PEI had an increase in the number of hobbyist
beekeepers over the past few years. Overall, the pollination demand in PEI
continues to exceed the supply of pollination units, and this past year the
average cost per pollination unit in PEI was $225.
Last
winter, PEI had a provincial winter loss of 46.7%. Since 2007, PEI continues to
remain on par with the national winter loss, with the exception of a couple of
hard winters for beekeeping in PEI.
Just
like the rest of Atlantic Canada, the flying conditions for honey bees in PEI this
past summer were not optimal. Because of excessive rainfall, there were very
few flying days for honey bees, which impacted pollination and honey
production. In 2023, there was 19.6 million lbs. of blueberries produced on the
island, which is down from the 5-year average of 20.3 million lbs. The wet
growing season added a lot of fungal pressure to wild blueberries. As for honey
production, in 2023, there was an average of 25lbs of honey per hive, which was
down from the 10-year average of 42lbs per hive. There were a total of 3,400
honey producing colonies in PEI in 2023, and the average price of honey was
$3/lb. (bulk) or $5/lb. (retail).
PEI
continues to be vigilant with their hive inspections for importations providing
pollination services. In 2023, a total of 668 hives had a full brood
inspection, and 324 hives had a top bar inspection. One load of honey bees was
prevented from entering the province due to the presence of small hive beetle.
Within the province, there was no American foulbrood or small hive beetle
found.
Following
Cameron’s provincial report, Ian Steppler gave a presentation on transitioning
a small-scale beekeeping operation to a large-scale commercial operation. Ian
is well known for his YouTube channel “A Canadian’s Beekeeper Blog”, which has
over 80 thousand subscribers, and highlights his 20 years of beekeeping
experience. Ian runs a third-generation family farm in Miami, Manitoba, and
manages an apiary of 1 500 hives. During his presentation, Ian described how he
effectively manages people, incorporates various pieces of equipment into his
operation, and manages his time, so that his large-scale commercial beekeeping
operation runs as efficiently as possible. To learn about Ian’s success in
beekeeping check out his YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/c/aCanadianBeekeeper%E2%80%99sBlog
ATTTA
was the third guest speaker of the event. The team gave a research update on
our 2023 projects, which you can read all about in our past blog “Summary of
ATTTA 2023 Summer Projects”. The team also discussed our training and extension
work, such as our beekeeping course “The Fundamentals of Beekeeping”, and
various workshops. We also discussed our new best management guide “Protecting
pollinators from pesticides”, which can be found at https://www.perennia.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Protecting-Pollinators-from-Pesticides.pdf
The final guest speaker of the day was Fletcher Colpitts,
who has been a beekeeper for 40 years and is a past honey bee inspector for New
Brunswick and PEI. Fletcher gave an informative presentation on queen rearing
without grafting. For years now, Fletcher has been making use of how queens are
naturally reared to develop a system in his own operation to rear large numbers
of queens. Fletcher shared many helpful tips for how he’s been successful
rearing queens. One of the biggest take-aways from the presentation is that timing
is everything when rearing queens, and in order to produce good queens the
timeline must be followed precisely.
Thank you to all members of the PEI Beekeepers Association who helped organize this great event, and to those who work to support the beekeeping industry of PEI.
Connecting with ATTTA Specialists
If you’d like to connect with ATTTA specialists or learn more about our program, you can:
visit our website at https://www.perennia.ca/portfolio-items/honey-bees/
Email abyers@perennia.ca