Can you ship nematodes to Canada for the control of small hive beetles? Yes, but you should familiarize yourself with the following information before ordering.

Can you ship nematodes to Canada for the control of small hive beetles? Yes, but you should familiarize yourself with the following information before ordering.

Shipping to Canada is allowed for both the H. Indica and S. Riobrave. However H. Indica is on the list of organisms requiring a permit from all countries except the USA as the country of origin, while S. Riobrave is not on that list. This means that both H. Indica and S. Riobrave appears to be free from sanctions or permit requirements. There are a lot of nematodes on the banned list due to them being plant or animals parasites. The two for the control of small hive beetles are not.

Now, we have to ask ourselves, “Do we think that the border and customs agents are intelligent enough to know the difference, or will they just see “nematodes” and turn it around”. This is a question which you have to be comfortable with the answer to. The reason for this is that Funny Bug Bees will carry no risk for sending them, and we will not cover any import taxes or fees. This includes the loss of life of the nematodes if they are held up for too long at customs. We ship lots of products to Canada, and we have never had any products turned around. 

If a permit is required, it would be up to you to obtain is and provide us a copy. Information on H. Indica is located here on Canada’s invasive species list located here:  https://inspection.canada.ca/plant-health/invasive-species/directives/imports/d-12-02/appendix-1/eng/1433209372739/1433209373489#a14

On this page you can see that Heterorhabditis indica (H. Indica) is only permitted when coming from somewhere OTHER than the USA. When sourced from the USA they are allowed for import. S. Riobrave is not on the list of allowed or sanctioned nematodes, so it is unclear, especially from an untrained customs agent if they should be allowed or not.

My advice would be to order H. Indica specifically as you can provide proof that the species is allowed by referencing Canada’s own website I listed above.

Additional notes: Nematodes are temperature sensitive. They cannot be placed in soil until the soil itself is 70 degrees f. They also do not do well in high heat. So they should be ordered when your soil temperature reaches 70, and not placed in the soil until night time temps are above 70 as well. You can see what your average soil temperatures are at this website at the bottom of the page:  https://www.greencast.ca/weather

Hope this helps!