'Most of the city is evacuating': Gridlock on Alberta highway after evacuation order in Fort McMurray
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
This past winter saw record losses for beekeepers, and one expert says the prospects for next year are even worse if they face another frigid winter.
Last winter, beekeepers across the country faced average losses of nearly 45 per cent, with some bee farms seeing losses as high as 90 per cent. Leonard Foster, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of British Columbia, calls these losses "shocking."
"The long term historical average was maybe around 12 to 15 per cent. Over the last probably 12 or 15 years, it actually rose up to about 27 per cent. So still very high, but 45 per cent is a record and very hard to take," he told CTV's Your Morning on Friday.
On top of an unseasonably cold winter, beekeepers have also had to deal with extreme heat waves as well as the proliferation of the varroa mite, a parasitic mite that feeds on honeybees and has existed in Canada since 1989.
"Certainly these heat waves are not great for bees. They also tend to dry out the plants and make less nectar available for bees to forage on. So, that reduced the honey crop," Foster said.
Although losses at bee farms had been on the rise, Foster says the total number of honeybee colonies have been increasing as beekeepers have been successful at replenishing and multiplying their colonies.
But after the record losses last winter, "It's not clear that they're going to be able to do that this year," Foster said.
"Forty-five per cent is a huge hit. I expect we'll probably see a gradual drop in colonies next year now," he added.
It's not just honey farms that are affected by these bee deaths. Foster notes that honeybees are important pollinators for crops like blueberries and canola.
"If we lose a lot of bees over the winter, it means there's fewer bees available to pollinate those crops early on in the spring. And this particularly affects the very early blooming crops because it means that the bees are needed before beekeepers are able to replenish the numbers that they might have lost over the winter," Foster said.
"We'll see increases in prices for those crops, as well as increases in prices for honey."
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
Saskatchewan RCMP have revealed that a historic sexual assault investigation has led to the discovery of alleged crimes against children dating back to 2005.
Less than a week after two public sculptures featuring a livestream between Dublin, Ireland, and New York City debuted, 'inappropriate behaviour' in real-time interactions between people in the two cities has prompted a temporary shutdown.
The Edmonton Oilers will start Calvin Pickard in net Tuesday for Game 4 of their playoff series with the Vancouver Canucks.
The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than US$1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, two congressional aides said Tuesday.
King Charles III has unveiled the first portrait of the monarch completed since he assumed the throne, a vivid image that depicts him in the bright red uniform of the Welsh Guards against a background of similar hues.
The annual list of Canada's top restaurants in the country was just released and here are the places that made the 2024 cut.
Canadian LifeLabs customers who filed an application for a class-action settlement began receiving their payments this week, though at a much lower amount than initially expected.
Nearly 1,000 wildfires have burned across Canada so far this year. Here's an overview of the situation in Canada.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.