by Cassidy Nunn –
A bee hive humming and buzzing with the activity of thousands of bees constantly zipping in and out is not the first place I’d think of as being a peaceful, relaxing getaway, but for Lindsay Dault, co-owner and bee keeper at Urban Bee on West Saanich Road, the hive is her happy place and where she goes to escape, for a bit, from the stresses of daily life.
What began as “just a hobby,” according to Lindsay, has now morphed into a more than full-time job and lifestyle for her entire family. She and her husband Jason began their venture into the world of bees by selling beekeeping supplies from their home on the mainland back in 2009. The couple had always dreamed of having a farm and in 2016 they made their dream into a reality by purchasing 11 acres on the Saanich Peninsula. They began clearing some of the land, planting the fields and applying for permits. They also planted several different crops for the bees on about three acres of their land, including wildflowers, buckwheat and phacelia (which is a deer-resistant crop the bees love). The family then collects the seeds and re-seeds the fields the following year. “We hand weed everything on this farm,” says Lindsay. It’s a lot of work but it means keeping potentially harmful sprays away from their crops and their beloved bees.
I recently visited the Urban Bee farm when a shipment of bees from New Zealand had just arrived in tubes, ready to be transferred into empty hives. I watched and photographed from a distance of a few metres as I wasn’t, as Lindsay would say, “suited up” (wearing a protective bee keeping suit) and I didn’t want to risk getting too close and disturbing the calm that Jason and the bees seemed to be in. Jason, shrouded in his white beekeeping suit with the mesh netting protecting his face, carefully took each tube, which houses around 8,000 bees and one Queen bee, and placed the tube into a colourful box that would become their new hive and colony. A colony is made up of 20,000 to 80,000 worker bees and one Queen.
It’s not abnormal to get stung when checking the hives, and Lindsay and Jason always wear at least head protection when venturing in for a visit. The hives are checked approximately every 10 days in the summer to make sure the Queen is laying, that they’re free of disease, free of mites, and that the hives are continuing to grow. Together, the Daults manage around 80 hives which are spread out all over the Saanich Peninsula. Because the bees will cover an area of approximately a five-kilometre radius from their hive, the hives need to be spaced out. Otherwise, Lindsay says: “it’s like putting 80 cows on one small chunk of land,” and there won’t necessarily be enough plants for them all to pollinate.
The bees store their honey in the top boxes of the hive, which can then be taken off so the honey can be extracted. This happens usually only twice a year, in the summer, when the weather is nice. The honey is then put through a rough filter to clear out any bees’ wax before it’s transferred into containers. The different flavour varieties in honey are attributed to the various crops that the bees are put on, such as blueberry, buckwheat, wild flowers, clover, fireweed or blackberries.
There’s a lot of, forgive the pun, buzz, around manuka honey these days and the healing properties it’s said to offer. While manuka honey can be sold here, it can’t be created by bees in Canada, even if they’ve come from New Zealand, since the manuka tree is what’s needed as the pollinator for this special honey.
The Urban Bee storefront has been open since late September 2017 and offers lip balm, bulk bees wax, several varieties of local honey as well as manuka honey, coffee and baked goods from Mosi, fresh eggs and lots of other fun gift items. The new miniature western town and “looking farm,” which will showcase goats and birds, is set to open just in time for the summer season.
Maybe next time I’ll be brave enough to “suit up” and experience the soothing nature of the hive first hand. But for anyone like me who is not quite ready for that step, a live bee hive in the store is on display and for now, I think I’ll stick to that and leave the beekeeping in Lindsay and Jason’s experienced hands.
Photos by Nunn Other Photography.
