Moondance Honey Inc. / Facebook

By Emily Keller

delayed seasons

Beekeepers facing setbacks as travel restrictions delay temporary foreign workers

Apr 20, 2020 | 5:30 AM

Travel bans, restrictions and flight cancellations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are making it difficult for beekeepers and other agricultural operations to bring their temporary foreign workers in. Those coming into Canada from foreign countries are also required to self-isolate for 14 days when they arrive, further stalling the start of the season.

Bill Termeer, owner and director of Moondance Honey north of Sexsmith, says he does try to hire local workers when he can, but that either that a lack of skill can be an issue.

“It takes at least two seasons where a worker can really get knowledgeable and a real asset for us, so getting guys, even in this situation where they’re unemployed right now and they come and work for us for the summer, if things even open up in the middle of summer, like the oilfield sometimes it starts to bounce back in the summer, they may be gone, I can’t rely on them.”

He says often, many people do not view the work as a potential career, or that they may just not want to work around bees. Termeer says he was already expecting one worker, who has had multiple cancellations and delays coming from the Philippines, and he has a high school student interested as well, but that he will need more workers by May as the season has already started. He says he was originally planning on bringing in six foreign workers this season.

Termeer adds that while foreign workers are in the country, they spend their money on things such as vehicles, groceries, gifts, and that often the money that does go back to their native countries is used for their families education and needs.

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“This sometimes gets forgotten in this whole thing, everybody thinks ‘Oh, they’re taking away jobs’ or, ‘The money is going to leave the country’, well, not all of it does and when it does, it’s a great form of foreign aid.”

Along with the lack of skilled workers, the pandemic has impacted beekeeper’s ability to ship in more bees.

Termeer adds they are coming out of a winter with a 50 per cent loss in hives.

“That’s a huge problem, and a lot of us would like to see the U.S. border open where we’re bringing in queens from California. We’d like to see it go one step further and allow us to bring the queens in a package with two pounds of bees so we can start new hives, and actually, bringing in queens has been an issue as well, and that’s not just from California but Hawaii has been our main source of queens.”

He says they want the Alberta government to step in and do what they can to support not only the beekeepers, but other agricultural operations during the pandemic.