In this issue of Seaside Magazine we are talking about keeping our community and environment as green as possible. Our honeybees are perhaps the most important pollinator operating in the Canadian agricultural industry. With over 7,000 beekeepers in Canada, operating a total of 600,000 colonies of honeybees, the value of honey bees to pollination of crops is estimated at over $2 billion annually. What got you started in Bee Keeping?
I have always been fascinated with bees. As a child I remember signing out bee books from the library and telling my parents that one day I was going to be a bee farmer. Every year at the Saanichton Fair I would go straight to the bee exhibit and try to spot the queen from the frames on display. The more I learned about bees, the more I realized how much more there was to learn. To keep bees you need to be a critical thinker and a constant problem solver. Initially this intellectually challenging aspect of bee keeping captured my imagination; however, as my bee keeping progressed, I was unprepared for how emotionally rewarding it would become. Every time I enter my apiary, I feel a sense of calm. To me, my bees are my connectors to nature.
Pollination is, quite simply, transferring grains of pollen from one plant to another to fertilize the ovaries of flowers; well-pollinated crops produce more fruit and honey bees increase production by two to eight times. At any given point, how many bees do you have? How far do they travel to pollinate?
The number of bees in a hive depends mostly on the time of year and the strength of the hive. Typically during the winter a hive becomes dormant and the number of bees decreases significantly. The queen stops laying eggs and the bees form a cluster around the queen in order to keep the hive warm. Now that spring is here and the maple trees are blooming, my queens are busy laying thousands of eggs a day in order to build up the number of worker bees in the hive. In the summer, during the peak nectar flow, a single hive can expand to upwards of 60,000 bees. The bees can fly up to 12km to gather nectar and pollen; however, most foraging bees prefer to seek out sources within a three-kilometre radius. On Mount Newton, my bees are fortunate to be close to many wild, flowering plants and trees in addition to residing not far from a number of small organic farms.
We don’t think about the tiny honeybee very often, but it’s making big headlines around the world. The honeybee is the cornerstone of the environment and is critical to our food supply worldwide. Scientists are trying to solve the mystery of what’s causing their disappearance. What have you learned to be some of the key issues?
I saw a great “save the bees” poster recently. It pictured a bee saying: “If we die, we are taking you with us.” The concern is a global phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Entire colonies of bees are disappearing within days or weeks. Scientists believe it is not a single factor that is responsible for CCD but instead a perfect storm of precursors. A major contributor to CCD is the prolific use of pesticides associated with mass-agriculture, in particular neonicotinoids. Unlike most pesticides which are applied to the surface of crops, neonicotinoids are a systemic pesticide that are absorbed by the plant and transported to all their tissues including the pollen and nectar. The bees accumulate these chemical pesticides while gathering nectar and pollen and transport them back to weaken the health of the hive. Another unfortunate consequence of mass agriculture has been the shift towards monoculture. This has reduced the abundance and diversity of nectar- and pollen-producing plants that healthy beehives require. Additionally, the global exchange of disease in bee keeping, such as mites, bacteria, viruses and fungi, is a key factor linked to the mystery of the bee’s disappearance.
Honey is one of the safest foods: most harmful bacteria cannot live in it for any length of time.What are the benefits of maintaining a high degree of food safety and bee biosecurity within every bee keeping operation, no matter its size?
Many beekeepers call honey liquid gold. It takes a worker bee a lifetime of foraging to produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey. This fact is always on my mind when managing the biosecurity of my apiary. I do not wish to lose any of the bees’ hard-earned production of liquid gold. I strive to keep my hives clean so as to mitigate their exposure to harmful diseases. I complete regular hive inspections and treat mites and disease to ensure the colonies are healthy. My hives are registered through the Ministry of Agriculture. I follow best practise guidelines; when I harvest my honey, I feel confident that it can be bottled raw and is safe and healthy.
Bob Liptrot, a Beekeeper for 46 years in the Fraser Valley and in Sooke for the past 13 years, teaches a class at Royal Roads titled “Bee Keeping: An Introductory Course.” Would this be a good start for someone interested in understanding the art of Bee Keeping?
Bob has a wealth of bee keeping experience to share. I’ve taken his class and I would highly recommend anyone interested in bee keeping to enroll in his course. There is also a Capital Region Beekeepers Association (CRBA) that meets every month. They provide opportunities for mentorships as well as field days where you can get hands-on experience with bee hives. The CRBA is an excellent place to connect with other beekeepers. It was here I came into contact with Grant from “Van Isle Apiaries and Bee Products.” Grant supplied my apiary with bees and queens to start my bee keeping journey.
Bees need our help. If Bee Keeping it not possible, in what other ways can we help protect our pollinators?
Everyone can help protect pollinators in their community. You can start by planting your garden with native plant species that will attract pollinators. Support local and organic farms in your community as they provide a diversity of nectar and pollen-producing plants. Promote local beekeepers by seeking out their honey rather than buying supermarket honey. Advocate for the elimination of pollinator harmful pesticides such as neonicotinoids. Most importantly, continue the conversation to raise awareness about the importance of protecting our pollinators. Remember: bees are intrinsically linked to human survival. It is time we started listening to to their “buzz!”
Photo by www.nuttycake.com.
