Every spring, Canadian beekeepers await the arrival of queen bees crucial to their industry. The queens that populate Canadian bee colonies through the season largely do not come from Canada at all.
Canada imports approximately 260,000 to 300,000 queen bees annually from warmer regions like Hawaii, California, Chile and New Zealand because it cannot meet domestic demand.
This system works for now, but it’s much more fragile than most Canadians might realize. Honey bees pollinate a huge share of what we eat (from blueberries and apples to canola and clover), sustaining billions of dollars in crop production in Canada each year. Yet the resilience of this system hinges on the health of a single individual, the queen.
