For beekeepers

# Beekeeping by province and state

 Registering a hive is compulsory in both Canada and Australia, and in neither country is it federal. Ontario issues a three-year certificate for free, Alberta runs an annual cycle that expires every 29 June, Western Australia registers you for three years and assigns a hive brand, and South Australia makes you renew every twelve months. Advice written for one jurisdiction is usually wrong for the next.

 [Get swarm alerts near you](/auth/beekeeper-signup)

## Choose your province

 Four provinces to begin with. If these earn their place we will write the rest.

- Ontario 52 beekeepers registered, 28 swarms reported
- British Columbia 31 beekeepers registered, 23 swarms reported
- Alberta 12 beekeepers registered, 10 swarms reported
- Quebec 6 beekeepers registered, 8 swarms reported

## Australia, state by state

 Australia has enough reports to put numbers on the page, so these carry live figures rather than a snapshot. Ordered by reported swarms per registered beekeeper, which measures how little competition there is rather than how many bees live there.

 State | Reports | Beekeepers | Per beekeeper | Varroa

 [South Australia](/beekeeping/south-australia) | 200 | 11 | 18.2 | Present

 [Western Australia](/beekeeping/western-australia) | 197 | 12 | 16.4 | Not detected

 [Victoria](/beekeeping/victoria) | 219 | 56 | 3.9 | Present

 [Australian Capital Territory](/beekeeping/australian-capital-territory) | 166 | 51 | 3.3 | Present

 [New South Wales](/beekeeping/new-south-wales) | 782 | 463 | 1.7 | Present

 [Queensland](/beekeeping/queensland) | 95 | 66 | 1.4 | Present

 Tasmania and the Northern Territory are not listed. Registration is compulsory there too, but we hold too few reports to describe the picture honestly, and a rate built on a handful of them moves every time one more arrives.

## The Canadian season runs later than the American one

 Canadian swarm reports peak in July, where the American season peaks between April and June. A beekeeper working from American swarm advice will put bait hives out roughly six to eight weeks early. Our [swarm season report](/season) covers the continental picture, and the [identification guide](/how-to-identify-bee-swarms) covers telling a swarm of bees from a nest or from wasps.

 As of 2026-08-26 we hold 91 Canadian swarm reports from 131 registered Canadian beekeepers. That is a thin base and we say so on each page rather than averaging it into something that looks more solid than it is.