The National Bee Diagnostic Centre opened this week in Beaverlodge, Alta. to help honey producers cut down on the number of bees that die off each winter

Medhat Nasr, the province's top beekeeper, says the number of lost hives has increased to as much as 55 per cent over the past four to five years.

Parasites and mites are mostly to blame. Nasr says the new lab will give beekeepers the information they need to deal with the problem.

"The beekeepers themselves, they don't have facilities to diagnose the bees," he said. "So they can collect the samples, send to this lab, and the lab will send them reports about what kind of level of diseases they have."

Nasr hopes giving beekeepers this information will help restore the health of bees. The lab is the first of its kind in Canada.

Alberta produces more than thirty million pounds of honey each year, more than any other province in Canada.