Undertaking 2020: Hiveworld Inc (more information)

Some of our customers have come across Hiveworld being mentioned on the Alberta government website regarding qurantin and undertaking. We wanted to take this opportunity to provide our customers with more information and context regarding the events that transpired. As well as what measures we have taken to prevent such events from occurring again. 

Back in 2020 Hiveworld was in its fifth season delivering live bees both in Alberta and British Columbia. We took special care in our apiaries to monitor and manage our hives throughout the season. Part of our process is to make sure a selection of our colonies get inspected by the Alberta Provincial Apiculturist. In 2020, during a spring inspection in one of our 28 bee yards, we were told that our hives may have American Foulbrood . This news was both shocking and devastating.

After extensive testing over a number of weeks, the government eventually confirmed a sample of a typical European Foulbrood. This resulted in a quarantine order that meant we could not move bees. As Hiveworld has never experienced this before, we did our best to work together with the Alberta Apiculturist team and follow their direction on how to manage and treat it. 

During the quarantine period, due to human error, some nucs were delivered to three customers. We did our best to quickly amend the situation and sincerely apologized that these bees were transferred. However due to this it resulted in an Undertaking under the Consumer Protection Act (see the filing here). Hiveworld made sure to cooperate with the Alberta government and provided a list of customers who were affected and provided refunds. 

We learned a lot during this process, and have since made improvements to the internal process so that this does not happen again.  

Is the quarantine still in place? No, the quarantine has been lifted. However, government records are currently out of date. We still work together with Alberta Apiculturist office to make sure a selection of bee products gets inspected before being released for purchase. If you would like more clarity around what the quarantine entails, please contact the Office of the Alberta Apiculturist at 780-644-8746 or email: [email protected].

EFB has been on the rise in Alberta since 2015, and we know that there were many other beekeepers who had similar experiences. Learn more by viewing the Alberta government’s report Potential Economic Impact of European American Foulbrood on Alberta’s Beekeeping Industry (updated Nov. 2020). EFB is a serious problem in the bee industry (find more information here). Beekeepers need to be aware of the signs and monitor throughout the season along with Varroa mites and other serious pests. You can also watch the Alberta Apiculturist update here where they discuss share recent statistics about EFB in Alberta.

2021 and 2022 continued to be record years the number of nucs, package bees and colonies supplied and the number of customers purchasing from us. To date we have served a record 2,897 client with bees.  At the end of the 2022 season, we had supplied over 8,450 nucs, package bees and colonies in the business history.

As a company who is dedicated to honey bee husbandry, there are a number of factors that can complicate distribution of bees like weather, pests and logistics. We always do our best to plan and foresee any challenges. We follow the provincial guidelines and also have a unique policy named Live Bees Guarantee to support customers when purchasing bees from us. Our customer's experience is important to us, and feedback is always welcomed so that we can continually improve our business practices. 

For more information ont he type of Live Bee products we carry, please see our Live Bee Collection.

If you have any questions, as always, please contact us.