In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, air quality advisories for long stretches of the last few months have been bad news for beekeepers. Simon Lalonde equates heavy smoke to a rainy day — without the benefit of rain.
Tag Archives honeybee
Wildfire smoke threatens to hinder honey flow
Honeybees hunker down when there’s too much smoke in the air
Prairies’ pollinators play a crucial role
It’s estimated pollinators, mainly bees, increase the production of numerous species of crops by as much as 75 per cent
University of Lethbridge researcher Shelley Hoover recently explained how these tiny creatures contribute billions to the Canadian economy and why their well-being is crucial for crop yields.
‘Murder hornet’ findings worry agriculture officials
Invasive pest known to decapitate honeybees, take over hives
Reuters — The Asian giant hornet — an invasive, predatory insect dubbed the “murder hornet” — has been seen in the Vancouver area and may pose a threat to the beekeeping industry and potentially to people if it establishes there, a U.S. official said Monday. The stinging Vespa mandarinia can grow as large as 2-1/2 […] Read more
Honeybees’ attraction to fungicide ‘unsettling’
London | Thomson Reuters Foundation — Honeybees are attracted to a fungicide used in agriculture with “unsettling implications” for global food production, a U.S. scientist said on Tuesday. Tests carried out by a team from the University of Illinois showed bees preferred to collect sugar syrup laced with the fungicide chlorothalonil over sugar syrup alone. […] Read more
Data mining finds no honeybee colony risk from correct neonic use
An expedition through published and unpublished studies on neonicotinoid pesticides has led a Guelph research team to find no colony-level risk to honeybees from the seed treatments — if they’re correctly used. The University of Guelph team, led by toxicologist Keith Solomon and adjunct professor Gladys Stephenson, analyzed 64 papers from “open, peer-reviewed literature” on […] Read more
Small hive beetle appears in New Brunswick
An emerging pest in honeybee colonies has made its way into New Brunswick for the first time. The province’s agriculture department last month quarantined 12 beekeepers’ colonies that were in “close proximity” to colonies imported from an Ontario beekeeper to pollinate wild blueberries in the Acadian Peninsula. However, the department said Friday, two beetles have […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
