A northern Ontario beekeeper is urging Canadians to avoid spraying their properties with insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides at times when pollinators are active and during windy conditions.
Dawn Lalonde experienced devastating losses at her apiary this summer, and initial testing of bee and pollen samples found the presence of fungicides and pesticides.
Lalonde built her operation in Lively, Ont., near woodlots and a residential area, far from the chemical dangers bees may encounter near agricultural land. It was a place the owner of Mikkola Family Farm & Apiary said she felt was relatively safe.
‘Recurring Nightmare’
Lalonde said the “recurring nightmare” started when she arrived at her bee yard on June 14 to find more than one million bees dead—representing about half her operation. In mid-July, she found bees from other hives barely able to walk.“Instead of watching my bees rush off for the day and come back with bright yellow and orange pollen sacks filled, they were struggling to walk amongst blades of grass and clover,” she said.
“Barely able to climb up on my hand, shaking, shivering, trying to clean their tongues and antennas. Well, that was the ones that were not already dead with their tongues sticking out. There were so many, and every day there were more.”
Looking for the Source
Lalonde told The Epoch Times that the lab found pesticides and fungicides that fall under the pyrethrin classification. She said she will not yet release more specific information from the lab report, since Ontario’s environment ministry has opened an investigation and she does not want to impede it.Lalonde spoke in her recent press release about the use of these products for cosmetic purposes and to kill mosquitos.
“Everyone talks about Big Agriculture, monoculture, large fields of single crops and the chemicals potentially applied to them as the risk to pollinators,” she said. “In the Rural-Urban Interface the risk to pollinators is potentially worse. We are surrounded by a non-essential monoculture of cosmetically obtained green lawns and the new trend of mosquito free backyards.”
Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks began an investigation at the end of August. Ministry staff visited Lalonde’s apiary on Aug. 29 and received her samples as well as the University of Guelph lab report, said ministry spokesperson Gary Wheeler in an email to The Epoch Times.
Broad Challenges for Beekeepers
Ian Grant, president of the Ontario Beekeepers Association, told The Epoch Times that he hears of beekeepers losing large numbers of bees occasionally, but the only data being collected systematically is regarding over-winter losses.On average, 50 percent of honeybee colonies did not survive the winter of 2022 in Canada, he said. The suspected cause is the varroa mite, he said. The mite is parasitic and one of the most damaging honey bee pests in the world.
The varroa mite thrives in healthy hives. The devastation of hives in the winter of 2021–2022 subsequently led to a low mite-kill last winter. Grant said the cycle could repeat itself, with additional healthy hives perhaps likely to experience another outbreak this year.
Grant said he sees beekeepers as partners with the agricultural industry. Often beekeepers will lend their bees to help pollinate crops, and many farmers do what they can to protect the pollinators.
He echoed Lalonde’s warning that products should be used with caution on golf courses or residential properties, and people should avoid spraying at times the bees are out foraging and during windy conditions.
“We work with the Ontario public to try to educate them on the discretionary use of cosmetic chemicals,” he said.
One of the big challenges of a beekeeper is to find a location the bees will thrive. They have a several-kilometre flying radius, making it difficult to find the perfect conditions within that range, Grant said.
“In our day and age, the chemicals that we as humans are putting in the environment are very widespread,” he said. “Chemicals have been found in the Arctic.”
