Bee shortage threatens Quebec's cranberry industry
CBC
Cranberry farmer Luc Decubber has finally found enough honey bees to pollinate his vines this year. It wasn't a simple feat, he said, and it's one he worries could become even harder to achieve in years to come.
"We're talking with the beekeepers and they say [they] have a lot of deaths during the winter, and especially this year," he said.
The beekeeper who usually rents to Decubber expects to lose about half of his hives this year.
Decubber puts it simply: without bees, his farm Canneberges Bécancour can't survive.
"If there's not an animal or someone to pollinate [the flowers], we will have no fruit," said the former banker, who now devotes all his time to his farm of about 160 hectares.
The farm, which is located in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Que., a small town about two hours northeast of Montreal, used to rely on native pollinators when it started nearly 30 years ago.
But there aren't enough native pollinators to cover the farm's expanding footprint anymore, so like many other fruit producers, Decubber has been forced to rent honey bees to pollinate the small white flowers that eventually turn into cranberries.
Every summer, he rents some 1,000 hives, which he sets up around the bogs where the cranberries grow.
The region where Decubber is located is sometimes referred to as Canada's cranberry capital, and is one of the largest producers of the fruit in the world.
The industry brings in hundreds of millions of dollars and provides hundreds of jobs. But if the bee population keeps declining, it could be in peril.
"If we have no bees, I don't think we're going to survive," said Decubber. "We absolutely need them."
Paul Kelly, manager of University of Guelph's Honey Bee Research Centre, echoes that concern.
Honey bees are crucial for agriculture in Canada, he said. "About a third of the food that we eat, and it's the most nutritious and delicious component of our diet, is pollinated by bees."
"Fruits, seeds, nuts, berries, vegetables — all those kinds of things benefit from bee pollination."