P.E.I. opens up to queen bees

P.E.I. has eased its restrictions on the importation of bees in order to help blueberry growers pollinate their crops.

Until now, the import of bees was tightly restricted to protect local hives from diseases such as honey bee tracheal mites. Bees could only be imported from New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and Nova Scotia.

Under the new rules, bees can be imported through a program called Capped Queen Bee Cells. The queen bees have to come from a recognized breeding program and be declared disease-free.

"Blueberry growers need bees in order to ensure maximum pollination and fruit sets, to get the best yield they possibly can from their crop," Chris Jordan, P.E.I.'s berry crop development officer, told CBC News Monday.

As the Island's blueberry acreage has grown over the last five to 10 years, beekeepers have been able to keep up for the most part, said Jordan, with only a couple of years where there weren't enough bees. The province is making the change to protect against a shortage in the future.

"On a long term basis, we see that the blueberry acreage is expanding quite rapidly still, and with the current number of bee hives we have available, we'll definitely be in a shortage position in the next few years," he said.

Allowing more diversity will help the bee population and blueberry growers, he said. The new program is effective immediately.