Beekeeping in Alberta

Times Reporter   

  

Beekeeping has been around for years, with some taking it up as a hobby, and others doing it to make a living. Debbie Wakelam has been keeping bees for a couple of years now as a hobby. She is not a commercial beekeeper, and said the way she does some things is different than what others may do. 

“My philosophy is nature takes care of itself, like nature should and I’m really a keeper of bees because they can keep themselves and they know exactly what they’re doing, I just look in the box and say woohoo this is fascinating or whatever,” said Wakelam. 

“I am a keeper of bees not a beekeeper. So true, as there is no way we can contain or make the bees do anything differently from what they are programmed to do.”

She doesn’t use any chemicals with her bees, choosing to raise them as organically as possible. 

Her bees are Saskatraz Queens, a new line out of Saskatoon. 

“I love them. The bees are fuzzy and yellow and maybe don’t produce as much honey, but they’re very calm, so they’re Canadian and they’re calm, they’re good for me,” said Wakelam. 

She wrapped 10 hives last fall, and only two survived, partly due to the winter and partly due to mites killing the bees. Of the two that survived she was able to make four splits or new hives, divvying up the queens for new hives for this year.

Wakelam uses a plastic foundation for her frame. As the wax gets used it gets darker and darker, something the queen likes. The bees build all of the combs and make them darker as they keep being used, which is called a brood. That’s where the queen lays eggs, there is some honey but it’s not for consumption.  

On other frames, “The wax will stay white because it’s just the honey and not the eggs being laid in them, so these are the ones we pull that will have nectar in them,” said Wakelam. 

She and her husband had bought the land where the bees are located; her husband decided he wanted a horse to go with the land. While at Aggie Days a couple years ago the Calgary Bee Club was there Wakelam’s intertest was piqued, and she decided I’m going to get bees. She went up to Edmonton to take the beekeeping course, and so her hobby was born. 

The Greidanus Honey Mill, based in High River, has 6,000 hives with some in Strathmore and Wheatland County. Grace Strom’s father started beekeeping in 1973, and now she and her brother are taking over the farm. Being a commercial beekeeper, Strom spoke about some differences between a hobbyist and commercial beekeeper. 

There are two major differences, one being the scale of the number of hives that are operated. A hobbyist will normally have 50 hives or less. A commercial beekeeper keeps more than 2,000 hives. The other major difference is the relationship created between the beekeeper and his/her hives is different depending on if there are many or few.  

“A hobby beekeeper will spend a significantly larger amount of time evaluating the bees and assessing the needs of each hive. Because only a few hives need to be assessed, a hobby beekeeper can monitor his/her hives much more carefully and closely,” said Strom. 

“In order to check each hive in a commercial operation, workers must be hired. We train these workers to monitor the hives to determine whether or not they are healthy and prescribe treatment for hives that are not thriving. We also need the workers to collect the honey in the summer and prepare the hives for winter.” 

Each spring Honey Mill gets their bees from New Zealand, and the queens come from Hawaii to replace the winter loses. 

Preparing for the winter is something each beekeeper also does a little differently. 

“Getting our bees to survive the winter is very important to us. We make sure that the bees are fed very well in October and are healthy. This means that we provide sugar water to the bees (as there are very few flowers around, relative to the summer) and we provide soy flour as a source of protein,” said Strom. 

Wakelam leaves her bees with honey over the winter, opting not to pull all the honey she can from the hives. She said a lot of beekeepers will feed the bees sugar water for the winter, and she does too, a bit, but wants to go away from it in the future when she has more frames drawn with honey.  

“This year as I move toward doing things more organically, I have been giving the bees frames with old honey for them to eat now. Most operations do things much, much differently as you will learn from speaking to other hobbyists and commercial bee keepers,” said Wakelam.

Fears over Colony Collapse disorder have arisen over the past couple of years. It has been a bad couple of years for bees – freezing temperatures, chemicals and parasites are some of the causes, and in some cases pesticides are being called out as the problem. 

“There is a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. These are typically used for seed coatings. We know that this class of pesticide is extremely toxic to the bees,” said Strom.

“This pesticide has not caused the same problems for us as it has for other beekeepers (e.g. beekeepers in Ontario) as the major crop in our area that uses these seed coatings is canola. (Canola seeds are much smaller than corn seeds and the amount of seed coating is much less.) That said, we have seen hives in decline, and we have suspected that pesticides might be responsible.”

The loss of bees can affect the world food supply as farmers rely on them to pollinate their crops.  

“Bees are important directly and indirectly. The pollination of crops is incredibly important to agriculture in Alberta. If bee populations were to be wiped out, it would be devastating to all aspects of agriculture in the province,” said Strom.  

“Bees also directly produce wonderful products for humans. They produce a wonderful, more healthful sweetener than sugar and they also produce beeswax which humans have found hundreds of uses for.” 

There are multiple articles and resources online outlining Colony Collapse Disorder and how it is affecting bees and crops.