THUNDER BAY -- A sudden loss of seven bee colonies has resulted in some concerns from a local non-profit organization.
About three years ago, the varroa mite made its way to the Thunder Bay area and started infecting bee colonies.
Roots to Harvest executive director Erin Beagle said the mites don’t kill the hives completely, but it prevents them from thriving.
“We had heavy infection this year with mites in our hives,” Beagle said.
“We monitored them really closely, did lots of different treatments and now we are taking the organic route as much as we can to treat our hives.”
Beagle added that the trouble with bee keeping in the north is there are many ways a bee colony's health can be affected in the winter.
Roots to Harvest had nine strong colonies throughout the summer months, but they ended the summer with only seven.
“Two of our hives died early on and our first winter check after that we lost two of our weaker (hives) and this past weekend we went in and it looks like we are down to two…maybe three,” Beagle said.
The organization will replace some of the hives, but replacing hives is quite costly so they won’t end up with nine again.
Beagle said bee keeper’s deal with mites all the time, but Thunder Bay “was one of the last places on the planet” that didn’t have mites, so they just need to work at readjusting to make sure they are strong enough to survive the winter.
“The world depends on bees and our economy depends on bees,” Beagle said.
“Bees are important pollinators for a lot of crops grown in Thunder Bay and losing our bee populations definitely concerns that.”
Beagle added that she doesn’t believe the city will see a decline in the pollination of gardens because it will be on a much bigger scale.
“I don’t know that we will actually see a drop in that necessarily here in Thunder Bay, but worldwide they would see an impact for sure.”
