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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Subject:
From:
Kristine Naess <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:42:03 -0500
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The area we're talking about is from Sept Iles and north to Natashquan where the road stops. And while the question should perhaps be whether or not beekeeping should be attempted there that hasn't really been the question as the producers up there are interested in beekeeping.  The closest sideliner is about 300 km south of there and theres a small commercial beekeeping operation 400 km to the south. 
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?  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. 
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. 

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. 


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