Université Laval
LABORATOIRE D’APIDOLOGIE
Building Canada’s Honey Bee Self-Sufficiency:
The ULaval–CRSAD Research Partnership
Andrée Rousseau1 and Pierre Giovenazzo2
1Centre de recherche en sciences animales de Deschambault – CRSAD, 2Université Laval
Article Overview
This article presents the collaborative research program between Laval University (UL) and the Centre de recherche en sciences animales de Deschambault (CRSAD), highlighting how ongoing scientific projects contribute to increasing honey bee self-sufficiency in Canada. The article will describe the program’s structure, its main research themes, and the practical outcomes for beekeepers and breeders.
1. Authors and Institutional Collaboration
• Pierre Giovenazzo – Full professor, Laval University
Over the past six years, our research has advanced honey bee breeding, health, and pollination management in Canada through a coordinated program of complementary projects in collaboration with the CRSAD, Canadian beekeepers and queen breeders, Québec lowbush blueberry farmers and many Canadian and international honey bee experts. These efforts address critical challenges facing the Canadian beekeeping industry, including queen failure, colony losses, disease pressures, and environmental stressors, while providing a foundation for sustainable, locally adapted honey bee populations essential for pollination services.
We have developed a northern-adapted breeding program implementing instrumental insemination, BLUP-based breeding values, and novel phenotypic assays for varroa resistance. These efforts have improved Winter survival, disease resistance, honey production, and queen longevity. Large-scale Winter queen banking has been optimized, maintaining the fertility and fecundity queens, supporting year-round availability of high-quality of Canadian raised honey bee stock. Network analyses of environmental and biological stressors have revealed the complex determinants of colony resilience, while precision beekeeping approaches integrating audio and environmental sensors allow accurate prediction of colony survival, population dynamics, and Varroa infestation.
Research on pollination services showed that honey bees providing blueberry pollination receive a limited and less nutritious diet. We identified optimal colony densities and worker-to-brood ratios that enhance wild blueberry crop productivity. Probiotic strategies based on endogenous and commercial strains increased Winter colony survival, mitigated Nosema ssp. infection and degraded pesticide residues, highlighting new avenues for improving colony health in agricultural environments. Throughout these projects, we have actively fostered equity, diversity, and inclusion in research and training. We have supervised and co-supervised more than 25 young researchers, including women, international students, and visible minorities.
• Andrée Rousseau – Researcher
at CRSAD
The Deschambault Animal Science Research Centre (CRSAD) is a non-profit organization dedicated to research, development, and technology transfer in applied animal sciences. Through its specialized facilities, multidisciplinary team, and strong partnerships, CRSAD actively contributes to advancing innovation and sustainability in animal production systems. In close collaboration with Université Laval, CRSAD has led long-term research programs focused on honey bee genetics, queen breeding, and colony health. This partnership has generated significant advances in selective breeding and bee health management, supporting the resilience, productivity, and self-sufficiency of Québec’s beekeeping sector.
Our research team includes myself as honey bee research scientist, three project managers — Georges Martin, Marilène Paillard, and Laurence Plamondon — and three beekeeping technicians — Michael Benoit, Jose Chach, and Emma Juarez. The team brings together many years of experience in honey bee research and manages 400 to 500 research colonies across the Portneuf region. Together, we operate a queen-rearing centre and conduct applied research in genetic selection, honey bee health, colony management, nutrition, and pollination to advance sustainable beekeeping practices and strengthen Québec’s apiculture sector.
In addition, CRSAD benefits from a dedicated Tech Transfer Team composed of Martine Bernier, Sara Bouaziz, and Marilène Paillard, whose mission is to ensure that research results are effectively communicated and applied within the beekeeping industry. The team also supports beekeepers directly through start-up assistance, pathogen monitoring, and tailored technical guidance. In her role as Development Officer for Québec’s Beekeeping Industry Table (Table filière apicole), Marilène Paillard acts as a liaison between sector stakeholders to identify and address emerging needs. Their work plays a vital role in connecting science and practice to foster innovation across Québec’s beekeeping community.
2. Research Activities: Focus on Increasing Honey Bee Self-Sufficiency in Canada
2.1. CRSAD/UL Breeding Program
Each year our Canadian beekeeping industry produces nearly 75 million pounds of honey worth $253 million and offers pollination services that make an annual contribution to agricultural crops, such as canola and blueberries, worth an estimated $4.5–6.1 billion. Unfortunately, since the last 15 years, beekeepers suffer an average Winter colony loss of 26%. The highest ever recorded loss occurred during Winter 2022, when beekeepers across Canada lost 46% of their 800,000 colonies and imported 360,000 queens and 60,000 packages of bees from various countries to rebuild their honey bee livestock. Supporting the Canadian honey bee queen rearing and breeding is therefore a sustainable solution to achieve Canadian honey bee stock self-sufficiency. CRSAD/Université Laval has been conducting a honey bee breeding program since 2010, achieving significant genetic progress on several traits of interest to beekeepers (Maucourt et al., 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11060535).
Our most recent project, ApiOmic (Genome Canada, 2024–2028) establishes a genomic honey bee breeding program to produce honey bee stock that is Winter hardy, productive and disease resistant. This ensures efficient pollination services, superior honey production and increased sustainability for the Canadian beekeeping industry. By combining optimized DNA sampling with cutting-edge genomic tools (the Illumina 100K SNP honey bee array, PacBio and Nanopore), we improve phenotypic evaluations, account for environmental variability, accelerate selection, and support the production of resilient, high-performing locally bred queens. This makes our team the first in North America to deploy genomics at this scale in honey bee breeding.
ApiOmic is structured around three related activities. Activity 1 is the main honey bee breeding activity that will drive activities 2 and 3. The goal of Activity 1 (post doc fellow, Dr. Ségolène Maucourt) is to implement genomic selection in our honey bee breeding program. Each year we will select breeder colonies using genomic breeding values calculated with the genotyping results of the Illumina honey bee array and follow the genetic progress. Activity 2 will contribute knowledge that will optimize honey bee colony DNA sampling (Master student Émilie Dallaire and doctoral student Laurence Plamondon). Activity 3 will focus on the impact of male genetic diversity and the study of paternal control efficiency within the breeding program (doctoral student Andrée Rousseau).
2.2 Queen Production and Quality
At CRSAD, queen production is conducted in a dedicated queen-rearing centre that supports both research and applied development. Each year, between 600 and 800 queens are produced, the majority of which are used within the selection breeding program. As part of this program, 180 queens are evaluated annually at CRSAD and another 180 queens are assessed by six collaborating queen breeders across Québec. These evaluations contribute to the improvement of locally adapted genetic lines, focusing on productivity, gentleness, overwintering success, and disease resistance.
Since 2018, the team has been developing an innovative indoor queen-banking overwintering technique that maintains 70–85% queen survival from October to April, providing a large supply of locally produced queens in early spring when demand is high. The development of this method has allowed CRSAD to identify the key factors required for successful overwintering, including optimal temperature control, queen density per bank, bank size, feeding strategies, varroa mite treatments, and the precautions to be taken when using queens in Spring (Rousseau and Giovenazzo, 2021, https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture11050402; Levesque et al., 2022, https://doi.org/10.1080/00218839.2022.2126613). This technique represents a major step forward in improving early-season queen availability in Canada, reducing dependence on imports, and strengthening the autonomy and resilience of the Canadian beekeeping sector.
As part of this research, Camila Perera Perez is studying the impact of nutritional supplementation on worker immunity and physiology during overwintering in honey bee queen banks, helping to better understand the physiological mechanisms that influence queen survival under controlled Winter conditions. In parallel, Marie-Lou Morin’s Ph.D. project examines the influence of nutrition and genetics on honey bee queen production and quality, with the goal of improving queen rearing outcomes.
Together, these research efforts contribute to advancing scientific knowledge on honey bee nutrition, queen physiology, and colony management, while supporting the long-term goal of producing high-quality, locally adapted queens suited to Canadian beekeeping conditions.
2.3 Pollination Research
Our most recent project, ApiBleuMax (2022-2025), used an integrated scientific approach to evaluate the contribution of commercial pollinators bees (Apis mellifera), bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) and leaf cutter bees (Megachile rotundata) to lowbush blueberry production in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. A historical analysis (2015–2021) confirmed that blueberry yield increases with both pollinator density and diversity, suggesting current pollination recommendations should be revised upward (Levesque et al., 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toaf242). Field studies on Bombus impatiens and honey bees revealed that early colony deployment, sunlight protection, and optimal brood–worker ratios significantly enhance foraging efficiency and fruit yield (Robert MSc thesis, 2025; Ménard MSc thesis, 2024; Ménard et al., submitted ECONENT-2025-0372). However, high colony densities can negatively affect honey bee health by increasing Varroa infestations and DWV-B virus prevalence, though no pesticide-related effects were detected (Quiroga-Arcila PhD thesis, 2025; Quiroga-Arcila et al., 2025, https://doi.org/10.1080/15538362.2025.2534352); Quiroga-Arcila et al., 2025, accepted TCE-2025-0048)
2.4 Varroa research
The “Brood Break and Organic Acid Application” project is part of a broader research effort aimed at developing strategies to control Varroa destructor earlier in the season in order to minimize its negative impacts on colony health (Laurence et al., 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/jisesa/ieae042). This specific project focuses on developing an effective Summer control strategy by studying the combined effects of brood breaks and organic acid treatments. During the Summer months, controlling Varroa populations is particularly challenging because the mites reproduce inside capped brood cells, where they are protected from most treatments.
This study explores two complementary brood break methods: queen caging and the use of a queen ring that temporarily prevents the queen from laying eggs in brood cells. By inducing a brood break for a defined period, the reproductive cycle of the Varroa mite can be disrupted, thereby increasing the efficacy of organic acid treatments such as formic or oxalic acid. Conducted as part of the MSc project of Victoria Ferland, this research seeks to identify the optimal combination of brood break duration and treatment protocol that maximizes mite reduction while maintaining colony health and productivity. Results from this study will provide beekeepers with a sustainable alternative for managing varroa populations during the Summer, reducing dependence on synthetic miticides and promoting healthier, more resilient colonies as part of an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy.
3. Conclusion
Our research activities strengthen collaboration between Laval University, the Centre de recherche en sciences animales de Deschambault (CRSAD) and the Canadian beekeeping industry. Importantly, they provide young researchers exceptional training opportunities in cutting-edge research, genomics, and applied apiculture, equipping a diverse and inclusive next generation of scientists to support the long-term sustainability of the Canadian beekeeping industry.
Don’t miss our next article of The U-Laval / CRSAD Series that will outline the workings of our Extension program.
Andrée Rousseau is a honey bee research scientist at CRSAD since 2019 and a member of the apiculture research team since 2013. Her research focuses on factors affecting the production and quality of honey bee queens, and her Ph.D. project investigates the genetic diversity of drones under Professor Pierre Giovenazzo at Université Laval (Credit Photo: Marie-Lou Morin)
Pierre Giovenazzo received his Ph.D. in Veterinary Sciences from the University of Montréal, where he specialized in integrated pest management (IPM) strategies for Varroa mites. He is a Full Professor in the Department of Biology at Université Laval and held the Chair in Educational Leadership in Apicultural Science from 2016 to 2021. His research focuses on honey bee breeding, queen reproduction, pollination services, honey bee nutrition, and Varroa IPM strategies.
