HONEY-BEE CHARACTERISTICS OF ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE TO ONTARIO BEEKEEPERS IN CANADA

Two surveys were conducted in Ontario. The objective of the first survey was to determine which honey bee characteristics are of economic importance to Ontario beekeepers. The second survey was to determine the impact of producing selected mite resistant bee stocks on marketing of queens. In the first survey, the respondent beekeepers had a considerable expertise and more than 70% of them practiced beekeeping for more than 10 years. These Ontario beekeepers considered the amount of produced honey to be the most important characteristic, followed by winterability. Whereas resistance to tracheal mites and varroa mites were ranked third and fourth, respectively. In the second survey queen producers reported that the production of tracheal mite resistant queens resulted in increased sales of queens by 3.5 times in comparison to queen sales in 1990. Production and sale of queen cells were increased and emerged as an inexpensive method for requeening bee colonies.