Exotic pest set to invade
Department catering to heavily subsidized blueberry industry at the expense of beekeepers
Since the P.E.I. Department of Agriculture opened the border to Ontario beehives, they have brought in one bad exotic pest that we didn’t have before, the tracheal mite.
They have tried to mitigate that introduction with a queen subsidy program supposedly to encourage tracheal mite resistant hives, but that program only covers less than half of the cost of those queens and it is now capped at a certain number of queens so in a big operation only a proportion (and maybe a small one, they do not tell us what we will be capped at) will be eligible.
The department recognizes that we now have to treat hives on P.E.I. with formic acid to keep tracheal mites under control (in fact they require that the Ontario hives entering be treated with formic so they will bring less tracheal mites in) but they do not give any money to local beekeepers to treat for a pest which they knowingly allowed in by opening the border to hives they knew would carry tracheal mites.
Basically they are catering to the blueberry industry, an industry they have heavily subsidized, at the expense of beekeepers.
Now they are set to knowingly bring in another exotic pest, the small hive beetle, and even before it has come in they have a small hive beetle mitigation program.
But this year their previous argument supporting importation of hives (a supposed lack of beehives on P.E.I. for the needs of the blueberry industry) does not hold true.
Due to the low price of blueberries, growers are cutting back on the hives they rent and it appears that here, as in Nova Scotia, not all the local beehives will be rented.
So why allow high-risk hives in?
This year’s importation protocol allows hives in from the Niagara region, which is a part of Ontario which has small hive beetle, and although the inspection requirements are a little more stringent than those for the rest of Ontario, they are not 100 per cent.
For 10 per cent, someone will pull brood frames at look at them. For 30 per cent more, they will do a “top bar inspection” (just a peek under the cover).
This is a high-risk importation (which is why they already have the mitigation program set up) and it is totally unnecessary.
They know hives from that part of Ontario are high risk and do not allow them to come in to P.E.I. on a permanent basis. They are banned from that. Yet they are allowed in to pollinate.
The department brought an expert from Ontario two years ago to “educate” us on small hive beetle and his data showed that May and June, which is when the hives come in, are the main months when the small hive beetle larvae leave the infected beehives to go and pupate in the ground. So it doesn’t matter if the infected hives leave Prince Edward Island, they will leave their deadly legacy behind.
Nova Scotia is not going to bring in any hives from Ontario this year.
Newfoundland has a very strict closed border.
Last year 675 people signed a petition asking the Minister of Agriculture to keep small hive beetle out of P.E.I.
Apparently the needs of local beekeepers and their bees are completely off his radar.