Beekeepers call for import ban on non-North American bees as deadly mite spreads

OTTAWA – Canadian beekeepers are sounding the alarm about a pest that’s spreading in parts of Asia, and a Conservative MP is calling on the federal government to change a long-standing policy on importing bees from the U.S. in response.

Beekeepers and honey producers around the world have been keeping an eye on a parasite called the tropilaelaps mite, which feeds on young bees and can be devastating to hives.

“We’re hoping to see the government intervene and stop the imports of bees from any offshore. We feel like North America needs to become a stronghold and keep this mite out,” Chris Miedema, president of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, told a press conference on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.

The mites have been detected in multiple countries, including Georgia, Uzbekistan, China, India and Papua New Guinea.

Honeybees are not native to Canada and they struggle to survive the winter. The industry relies on bee imports from countries like Australia, New Zealand, Italy and Chile — countries which provided Canadian beekeepers with nearly 70,000 kilograms of packaged bees in 2023.

Miedema said the industry has been trying to become more self-sustaining and he thinks it’s possible to shut off imports and “replace our own stock from within.”

Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation, said he thinks it’s “really a matter of time” before the pest shows up in Australia — and then it will be very hard to keep it out of Canada.

“We take bees from more places in the world than the Americans do, and so they’re concerned about this,” he said.

Awram, along with the Canadian Honey Council, the American Honey Producers Association and the American Beekeeping Federation, has released a North American bee strategy.

It calls on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and its American counterpart, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, to develop a response plan to deal with the mites if they arrive, and to step up enforcement to keep them out.

Alberta Conservative MP Arnold Viersen also wants Canada to allow imports of honey bee packages from the United States. 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says imports of worker bees from the U.S. have been restricted since 1987 because of “unacceptable levels of risk to the health of the Canadian bee population” caused by various hazards, including other parasites and Africanized honey bees.

Only queen bees and their attendants can be imported from the U.S. 

In a House of Commons motion, Viersen called on Canada to “restore free trade for honey bee package imports from regional safe zones” in the U.S.

The CFIA launched a risk analysis for honey bee package imports from the U.S. in 2023 and concluded last August that “no feasible, scientifically supported mitigation measures are currently available to bring all identified risks within acceptable levels.”

The import ban remains in place. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 25, 2025.