Mystery killer strikes Ontario beehives over winter

SomeOntario beekeepers are finding their hives lifeless this spring, realizing fears raised by the mass die-off of bees across the U.S.

Ontario beekeepers arenow checking to see how their hives fared over the winter, and for many such as Brent Halsall, the news is not good.

On Thursday, Halsall opened his beehives about 15 kilometres southeast of Ottawa. He pulled outonerectangular wooden frame stackedinside to findit filled with handfuls of brittle remains.

"These bees are all dry, so that means they died early in the season," said Halsall, as he pushed the lifeless bees into a pile with his fingers.

Halsall, who is head of the Ontario Beekeepers' Association, has spoken to other beekeepers in Ontario, and he knows of similaroccurrences across the province.

"Some guys in southwestern Ontario have had very high losses," he said. "I heard of one commercial beekeeper with 90 per cent losses."

Halsall said most Canadian beekeepers have stored honey from last year, so he doubts there will be an immediateshortage.

But University of Manitoba entomology professor Rob Currie saidthe large-scale death of honeybees could hurt the production of other foods in the long run.

"Things like vegetables, a lot of the fruit that you eat, require bees to pollinate them," he said, adding that the value of bee pollination is estimated to be about 10 times the value of the honey they produce, or about $700 million to $800 million a year in Canada.

Currie said that while he hasheard of a few isolated cases in Manitoba where bee colonies have been wiped out, he thinks so far the problem is not huge in Canada comparedwith the U.S.

On Thursday, the U.S. House Agriculture Committee held hearings on the deaths of honey bee colonies across the country, which has been called "colony collapse disorder."

Witnesses admitted they did not know whether a virus, mite, insecticides, genetically modified crops or something else might be killing the bees.

New York beekeeper Jim Doan called for more research, and said Canada needed to be included in the discussion.

Beekeepers from at least 22 states have reported unusual colony deaths, andsome commercial beekeepers have reported losing more than 50 per cent of their colonies.