Beekeepers around the Province have been reporting higher than normal losses this year.

Simon Lalonde is President of the Saskatchewan Beekeepers Development Commission.

Beekeepers generally expect some losses over the winter, but Lalonde notes this last winter was especially harsh.

"They are currently a lot of reports coming in across the province of beekeepers who had higher than normal losses," he said. "We do build in a margin of safety for most beekeepers it's in the 15%, or so range for normal winter loses. This year we are seeing into 35% possibly up to 40 percent possibly over the entire province as an average. So a lot of it was that very cold winter, lots of wind and the bees just didn't do that well with that much cold."

Lalonde said that despite the losses over winter things have been going well.

"Our hive numbers have actually gone up fairly steadily, so we're very happy to be one of the few places in the world seem to be doing very well. We've seen annual, slow increases, but they are increases."

Lalonde added that beekeepers are doing a good job expanding their operations.