Grant: Alliance Grants

Honey bees are essential to the Canadian agriculture sector. In addition to honey production, bees pollinate many of the crops essential to Canada's economy and food security, and contribute to enhancing crop yields and quality, thus reducing GHG emissions by increasing the yield/energy usage ratio. However, this important piece of the sector is dependent on the annual importation of >350,000 queen bees to replace those that are lost over the long and cold Canadian winter. In addition to the direct carbon costs of importation, the indirect costs of lower quality and quantity crop yields when supplies are disrupted and food security vulnerabilities are real and significant problems that can be addressed through our proposed research. By harnessing newly developed 'omics tools and in collaboration with industry and tech-transfer teams, this project aims to address the vulnerability in domestic honey bee and queen supplies by optimizing conditions for overwintering bees to reduce losses and the dependence on imported supplies, and enabling industrial scale production and management of the supply of these pollinators for Canadian agriculture. The resulting larger, more numerous, and more robust colonies will enable increased yields of important crops, and reduce losses and the associated carbon impacts. The research will be complemented by knowledge mobilization activities on the economic and environmental aspects of domestic bee management, as well as the enhanced food security enabled by domestically-produced bees that are better able to thrive in Canada's climate.