For beekeepers in Quebec # Beekeeping in Quebec Registration with MAPAQ opens on 1 April and closes on 1 June. Here is what Quebec asks of beekeepers, and why swarm calls here currently go unanswered. [Get swarm alerts in Quebec](/auth/beekeeper-signup) ## Registering as a beekeeper in Quebec Beekeeping registration in Canada is provincial, not federal, and the rules differ enough between provinces that advice written for one is usually wrong for the next. In Quebec the instrument is the Animal Health Protection Act (chapter P-42) and the Regulation respecting the registration of owners of bees (P-42, r. 5), administered by the Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ). Everyone who owns Apis mellifera in Quebec must register with MAPAQ. Registration is annual and the window is fixed: between 1 April and 1 June each year. ### What else Quebec asks of you - Owners must keep a register of bee movements and mark their hives with an identifying inscription, both separate from the registration itself. - Five conditions are notifiable: Tropilaelaps mites, American foulbrood (Paenibacillus larvae), small hive beetle (Aethina tumida), and the Africanized honey bee (Apis mellifera scutellata) and its hybrids. - Registration is what gives MAPAQ a route to reach beekeepers quickly during a health incident, and it comes with free bee disease diagnostic services. - Bringing bees into Quebec from another province runs under a separate MAPAQ introduction protocol, as does moving bees through the province in transit. Source: [quebec.ca registration of bee owners](https://www.quebec.ca/agriculture-environnement-et-ressources-naturelles/sante-animale/animaux-ferme-elevage/enregistrement-proprietaires-abeilles). Rules change, and this page is a starting point rather than legal advice. Check the source before you rely on it. ## Quebec beekeeping associations and swarm lists Swarm collection in Canada mostly runs through provincial and regional associations, the same way it does in the United States. If you want swarm calls the traditional way, these are the people who keep the lists. - Beekeepers of Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec Cross-border group covering the national capital region and the Outaouais. The only Quebec-facing group currently on Swarmed. facebook.com/groups/ncrbeekeeping/ ## When Quebec swarms Quebec swarms follow the Ontario pattern a little later: reports we hold run from late May into September and concentrate in August. The St Lawrence valley is warmer than the counts alone suggest, and the Laurentians and the Eastern Townships run behind it. The national picture is in our [swarm season report](/season), and if you are not certain what you are looking at, the [swarm identification guide](/how-to-identify-bee-swarms) covers the difference between a swarm of bees, an established nest, and wasps. ## Beekeeping in Quebec by the numbers These are Statistics Canada's figures for 2025, not ours. They cover every registered beekeeper in the province rather than the ones who happen to use Swarmed, which makes them the honest measure of how big beekeeping in Quebec actually is. 528 beekeepers in Quebec 69,917 colonies 4M lb honey produced $21M farm value, Canadian dollars That is 8.2% of Canada's colonies and 5.3% of its honey by weight, at an average of 64 lb per colony and $4.71 a pound. Set against that, 6 Quebec beekeepers are registered with us, or about 1% of the province's beekeepers. The two counts are defined differently, since Statistics Canada surveys registered operators and ours is simply whoever signed up, so read it as a rough sense of how thin our coverage is rather than a market share. Source: [Statistics Canada table 32-10-0353-01](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3210035301), production and value of honey, released 2026-04-29. Figures are in Canadian dollars. Yield and price are derived from the production, value and colony series rather than taken from StatCan's own yield column, which the agency has retired. The whole national series, back to 1924, is on our [Canadian beekeeping data page](/swarmed-data/canadian-beekeeping). ## What Quebec lost last winter Quebec beekeepers lost **23.5%** of their colonies over the 2024-25 winter, against a national long-run average of 28.4% across 19 winters. That is 4.9 points better than the long-run average. Nationally the 2024-25 winter cost 39.3%. The worst year on record is 2021-22 at 45.5% and the best is 2011-12 at 15.3%, so a single figure hides a lot: Canadian winters vary more than any other input a beekeeper here plans around. Source: [Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists (CAPA)](https://capabees.com/shared/CAPA-final-report-on-winter-losses-2025.pdf), annual statement on honey bee wintering losses in canada. The measure is winter loss including non-viable colonies, which is not the same as colonies that died, and is not directly comparable to American or European loss surveys. Digitised from CAPA's annual PDFs, which are the only form this data is published in. ## What we see in Quebec Quebec is the province where the gap is widest. Reports come in, and there are still very few beekeepers in range to hear about them. We are not going to put a statistics box here. As of 2026-08-26 we hold fewer than 15 reports for Quebec, which is not enough to average anything honestly. Canada as a whole has produced 91 reports, peaking in July. What we can say about Quebec specifically is the sentence above it. ## Getting swarm calls without a swarm list A traditional swarm list is a page of phone numbers that someone updates when they remember to. Swarmed sends every beekeeper within range the same report the moment it arrives, free, and the first to claim it gets it. There is no membership, no association to join, and no waiting for your turn on a rota. It also does not replace your association. If you are already on a club list in Quebec, being on both simply means fewer colonies get sprayed. [Get swarm alerts, free](/auth/beekeeper-signup)[See how it compares](/swarm-list)