> The area we're talking about is from Sept Iles and north to Natashquan where the road stops.

Oh, that's not very far north at all, and is quite south of me.  It is not that far north of Mike in Vermont for that matter.

>  And while the question should perhaps be whether or not beekeeping should be attempted there

The climate should not be a limiter, but the forage, or lack of varied and ongoing forage could well be.  Until someone tries beekeeping there, it is hard to say.   Moreover, that is quite a stretch of road and each mile is probably different.

>  that hasn't really been the question as the producers up there are interested in beekeeping. 

Well, best to start with baby steps and for that matter, bring in bees from outside won't seed the area with varroa if they do not survive.

> The closest sideliner is about 300 km south of there and theres a small commercial beekeeping operation 400 km to the south.

That probably says something.  Beekeepers tend to pop up anywhere that beekeeping is possible, and places where it is a struggle to maintain.

>In a tiny pilot project we ran into pretty much all the problems Allen mentions in his post.  Nonetheless, if someone were to start beekeeping in the region, why not reduce the potential problems by starting out with varroa free bees? 

I think it depends whether the exercise is to be a money-making business proposition or an idealist survival-type project.  

We tend to debate this constantly here, with the divide being those who run large numbers for pollination and honey production for the sake of them and their family and those running bees for the bees' sake.  Of course there are some in between, but that is the difficult ground.

> Pierre Giovenazzo's feeling on this was that the bees, not having been exposed to varroa or the secondary pathogens associated with it, would be less fit once exposed to varroa.

I have a lot of respect for his opinion and would only ignore his insights at my own peril.

>The idea though would be to keep the area free from varroa- a 50 -100 km buffer zone would be relatively easy to maintain in the area.

Why not try both approaches?  The only problem is that migratory trucks tend to lose bees along the route and seed the colonies along the route with whatever they might have.  That can be avoided by specifying totally enclosed trucks or very carefully inspected screening.  (I have never seen a screen that does not leak at least a few bees or carry hitchhikers, though). 

>We have an entomologist looking into domesticating native osmia species here but this will take years.  She's done inventories of native pollinators and continues to monitor beds of various native bee pasture plants planted around the borders of blueberry fields for native pollinators.  Some producers do bring in hives of bumblebees but even though they are efficient on a per insect basis the numbers required to do the same job as a good hive of bees increases the price considerably. Some also have concerns that bringing in non-native bumblebees has negative effects on native bumble bee species.

Bringing in honey bees -- any honey bees -- may well have the same effect.

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