The startling number of honeybees that died overwinter in Canada has afflicted New Brunswick the worst of any province, with nearly half the hives lost.

The Canadian Honey Council told Brunswick News that across the country, more than 36 per cent of honeybees didn't make it. In New Brunswick, it was far worse - closer to 45 per cent.

The massive die-off raises troubling questions for farmers who grow blueberries, cranberries, apples and other crops which depend completely on pollinators.

Nathan Mutch's hives in Halcomb, near Miramichi, were ground zero for the devastation.

The commercial beekeeper says of his 60 hives, only one survived the winter.

He recounted standing outside with dread on a cold day in mid-March when he realized looking at his phone app that there was probably no life inside his hives. A half dozen of the hives were equipped with sensors. If the critters were alive and huddling, the temperature inside should have been around 20 C.

Instead, it was minus 5 C. It was a shock because some of the hives had been very strong and lively going into winter.

"I was just like 'no, no, no.' I started going around and knocking on top of the hives. Usually, if you put your ear to the hole, and give it a good knock on top, you'll hear that roar, that huge buzz. And I was going down the line, knock, knock, knock, and not a sound."

After nearly a decade of beekeeping, his failure rate up until this season was low, losing perhaps a dozen hives in any given year.

"I stood for 10 minutes in complete silence. I look at them more than as just bees or livestock. They're more like pets. To have that huge a loss is just devastating."

Mutch, who runs Halcomb Honey & Hives with his wife Kristen, described last year as a perfect storm for honeybee loss.

The spring season started early, hot and dry, and the main plague that kills bees, varroa destructor, took hold early. His treatment against the mites had limited success, again because of high temperatures.

Goldenrod, the bright yellow wildflowers that bloom in New Brunswick in August and September came early but only lasted three weeks, depriving his bees of one of their favourite nectars and pollens. To deal with it, Mutch had to give his bees expensive supplemental feedings.

In the winter, a brutal cold set in.

"Normally bees are such clean freaks they won't poop in their hives. They'll hold it for two, three weeks until they get a day where it's up above zero degrees and then they all beat it out to use the bathroom. But this winter, it's the first time I've ever seen it happen, we had six-plus weeks where we didn't come up over minus five. They can't hold it that long and they end up defecating in the hive, spreading disease."

Rod Scarlett, the executive director of the Canadian Honey Council, agreed it was a devastating start to this season.

He said the losses over winter were close to double what the average was in Canada when he started in the position in 2010, when annual hive mortality was 17 to 20 per cent.

"A bug, a pest attaches itself to the honeybee and it's called varroa," he said with disgust in his voice. "There are insecticides that have been used to kill the varroa but keep the honeybee safe. But the effectiveness of many of those products have dropped dramatically because the mites have built up resistance to them."

Varroa destructor has devastated honeybee colonies the world over. The mites attach themselves and feed on both adult bees and bee larvae, sucking the life out of them.

Beekeepers use natural acids or chemical treatments to keep them at bay. Scarlett said overuse of hard chemical treatment had likely built-up resistance. The latest advice is to use several methods, in an integrated pest management system, which can be labour intensive.

Scarlett said Canadians should be alarmed, not only for the sake of beekeepers, but the greater good. Although it's a small industry, honeybee production contributes up to $7 billion to the country's economy.

"It's estimated that about two-thirds of the food on your plate relies on pollinators," he said. "In New Brunswick, apples, blueberries and cranberries rely on pollination. In the west, which has two-thirds of Canadian honey production, the seed production for canola is dependent on it. None of this would be on our plates if it weren't for bees."

Blueberry farmers were scrambling earlier this season to find enough bees to pollinate their crops, confirms Donald Arseneault, executive director of the Bleuets NB Blueberries.

"I was driving through Northern Ontario this morning and listening to the radio, and that was one of the top stories," he said in an interview last week. "It's a problem everywhere."

The wild blueberry industry in New Brunswick is worth more than $36 million a year and employs close to 2,700 seasonal workers, according to the latest statistics.

With production steadily increasing - the province is second only to Quebec in blueberry yields, producing about one-fifth of Canada's total - Arseneault said the industry wants more help from local beekeepers.

As it stands, they need to hire about half of their apiarists from outside the province, some coming as far as Alberta.

New Brunswick has about 500 beekeepers, but most of them are hobbyists. Only about 50 are commercial beekeepers.

"We want to see more beekeepers up and running and offering more pollination services to the wild blueberry industry here in New Brunswick," said Arseneault, a former Liberal provincial cabinet minister. "Importation creates a whole whack of issues. Obviously, for disease management, you don't want to import anything bad into our province."

With this in mind, his industry teamed with the New Brunswick Beekeepers Association a few years ago to convince the provincial government to come up with a pollination strategy.

The goal was to hit 18,000 hives by 2024, a mark that's much higher than the 15,000 in operation this year, according to Mutch, who used to be the association's president.

The latest version of the strategy, from 2024 to 2029, envisions increasing hives by 60 per cent.

Brunswick News asked for an interview with Pat Finnigan, the province's agriculture minister, but a spokesperson said he was away from his office all week and unavailable.

Heather Pert said the Honey Bee Industry Development Program, a partnership between the province and Ottawa, allows beekeepers to tap into funds to expand their colonies. A beekeeper can access up to $20,000 to buy more bees and beekeeping equipment or make their farms more efficient.

"However, this particular program does not cover the loss of honeybees."

She said as part of the pollination strategy, additional support options were being explored.

Mutch warned that based on the amount of money available, there was no way the province would hit the 60 per cent goal. To get himself back up and running, he had to spend $50,000 and is now operating about 40 hives.

"So far so good," he said. "This year, we've had a nice mix of sun and rain that's been good for bees and honey production. And we're seeing no varroa."