Tariff anxiety hits Canadian honey producers
Canadian honey is a more domestic business than many other Canadian agriculture sectors, but that doesn’t mean that the recent trade chaos isn’t weighing on the minds of beekeepers.
The amount of honey that Canada sends to the U.S. is not insubstantial. About 7,600 tonnes headed to our southern neighbour in 2024, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all Canadian honey exports in 2024 according to Statistics Canada data.
Even if all exports headed to the U.S. though, the volume would be dwarfed by the amount of Canadian produced honey that stayed in the country. While Canada exported just over 11,000 tonnes of the sweet stuff across all international partners in 2024, it produced about 35,470 tonnes (78.2 million pounds) the same year.
WHY IT MATTERS: The export market is a smaller slice of Canadian honey sales compared to the beef or pork industries, but Manitoba exports the most out of any province.
That apparent insulation doesn’t stop beekeepers from being worried with the rest of Canadian agriculture as the tariffs fly between the U.S., Canada, China and the rest of the world.
The bigger impact, beekeeping leaders say, could be felt in crucial supplies such as queen bees and bee feed (pollen patties and sugar for sugar syrup, for example), inputs largely imported from the U.S.
With trade ground uncertain and rapidly shifting, it’s not clear when, if or how badly some of those inputs could be dragged into the tariff-counter tariff tug of war between Canada and the U.S.
The economic consequences of dealing with tariffs on U.S.-purchased supplies would be “substantial,” said Rod Scarlett, executive director of the Canadian Honey Council.
“We only produce about eight to nine per cent of our own sugar, and beekeepers feed sugar syrup to their bees to keep them alive both in the spring and in the fall. Some beekeepers will spend over $100,000, $200,000 on feed alone to keep those bees alive.”
Unpredictable trade
As of the time of writing, Canadian products compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) were still exempted from the 25 per cent tariffs the U.S. slapped on Canadian goods in early March. That includes the exemption of queens, sugar and some beekeeping equipment.
That ground may be tentative, however, Scarlett worries, pointing to the unpredicatability of trade policy coming out of the White House and the executive orders of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Canadian industries and government got a taste of that whirlwind April 9, after messaging came out of the White House that suggested that further 10 per cent tariffs, which the U.S. had imposed as a baseline rate against most U.S. imports the week prior and of which Mexico and Canada were exempt, would suddenly apply to the U.S.’s two CUSMA partners. Hours later, further messaging came out that contradicted the news, returning things to the status quo of the previous month.
“You don’t know whether CUSMA is going to be affected or not,” said Scarlett in an April 4 interview.
“And that’s the issue (Trump) has created across all industries in all sectors, is that you just don’t know right now, and (sugar is) only recently CUSMA-protected as of the third of April. As of the 10th of April, he could change his mind.”
Bee genetics could be hit
Canadian retaliation could further complicate the scenario, although a review of the current Canadian list of counter-tariff target items yielded no results for “honey,” “queen bees,” “sugar” or “beekeeping supplies.”
The U.S. is the main international source for Canadian beekepers to import their queens from, representing 75.9 per cent of the imported queens in 2023.
“We import between 250,000 to 280,000 queens from the U.S.,” said Scarlett.
“Take a 25 per cent (retaliatory) tariff as an example. Our queens cost about $50 apiece. The increase would be (up to) $65 a queen.”
The industry is working with Alberta Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) to keep important input items off the Canadian counter-tariff list.
Although he has not yet met with Kody Blois, the newly-appointed federal minister of agriculture, Scarlett caught the ear of former ag minister Lawrence MacAulay and expressed concern over retaliatory tariffs that could hurt the honey industry.
Connie Phillips, executive director of the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, has also submitted a request to AAFC that queens and pollen patties not be placed on a retaliatory tariff list.
“The pollen patties provide essential amino acids and they all come out of the U.S. I haven’t heard from anyone yet, but we have provided that information back to Agriculture and Agri Food Canada.”
At the same time, she acknowledged, there are a lot of Canadian industries asking the government for similar counter-tariff exemptions.
“Us and the cattle industry and canola and everybody is negotiating right now with the federal government to keep their animals or crops or inputs off that list,” she said.
Beekeepers caught in canola fallout
Other indirect impacts, particularly in Western Canada, tie into how tariffs play out in canola, a crop that does have significant exposure to both the U.S. and China — which has imposed their own 100 per cent levies on Canadian canola oil and meal.
About 75 per cent of honey produced in Alberta comes from bees fed with canola, said Phillips. Beekeepers on the rest of the Prairies similarly rely on canola acres.
“If producers grow less canola and they switch to grains, that’s not a food source for bees,” warned Phillips.
“Canola is a tremendous traditional (food) source for bees … So there’s kind of direct and indirect implications and I don’t think anyone knows quite yet what that’s going to look like.”
The effects of Chinese tariffs are already reverberating through the local industry, she says.
“We have a group of about 18 beekeepers that put their bees in hybrid canola seed in southern Alberta and, with the tariffs on canola, (farmers are) rolling back numbers of acres. There’ll be less acres, less bees (and) less revenue derived from pollinating hybrid canola seed.”
Like many Canadian industries, honey producers are also taking hits from the U.S.’s 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminum (tariffs which are not muted by the CUSMA exception). That impacts honey production equipment, such as the standard 45 gallon drums for honey storage.
“You can buy the drums in Lloydminster, but the lid and the bottom come out of the United States,” said Phillips.
There’s also the danger of tariffed products stacking multiple tariffs as they make their way through the supply chain. She further pointed to agriculture’s thin profit margins, leaving little room for such disruption or incremental cost increases.
“It’s not going to be good,” she said.
Domestic opportunities
If there’s a silver lining to all this, it may be found in the domestic market, says Scarlett. With many Canadian consumers boycotting U.S. goods, this is a good time for domestic sales of Canadian honey. But no one knows how long the “Buy Canadian” zeitgeist is going to last.
“I do know the demand has gone up and right now people are willing to purchase Canadian honey over alternatives that might be out there on the shelf.”
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