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St. Albert Urban Agriculture Conversation: The Buzz on Bees
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Starts: Tuesday, February 09
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Ends: Tuesday, February 09
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Have you heard the buzz about bees?
Coming February 9 (Tuesday), 7-9 pm Bert Blouin, president of the Calgary and District Beekeepers Association and owner of Buzzy Bee Honey, is coming to share his passion about bees. He will explain bee biology, how to start keeping bees, including information about the Beekeeping Cycle, major diseases and pests, how to winter bees and products of the hive. He brings with him some major show & tell!
We gratefully accept donations to pay our speaker and build our Food Forest fund. We suggest a donation of $10-$30, as you can afford.
Bert is a hobby beekeeper who has been keeping bees in Calgary for 15 years. He has been very involved with the Calgary and District Beekeepers Association, an organization with a current membership of roughly 175 active members. He is currently serving as President.
Bert has 45 producing hives: a few in his North West Calgary backyard, some in the Bearspaw area, West of Calgary, and some on the outskirts Airdrie. He sells his surplus honey at N.W. Farmer's Markets. In the Spring he sells a limited number of his surplus, locally bred, overwintered bees.
He was first introduced to beekeeping in the fifties where he helped tend the few hives on the family farm in North Eastern Alberta. Subsequent to leaving the farm and pursuing a career, bees were just a passing interest, he simply did not wish to take any more of those painful stings!
Then a beekeeper friend persuaded him to place a swarm he had harvested in a discrete site of Bert's Calgary back yard. Upon tasting the delicious honey he harvested that first year, he decided that perhaps the risk of few stings could be tolerated. In addition, it turned out that unlike the bees he was working with as a teenager, these bees were very docile, and were not a threat to any one in the back yard. He was given the hive in the Fall so he had to deal with a new issue for him, that of hive winterization. Subsequently, he needed to become informed on how to deal with bee health issues many of which were new to him.
In the fifties, beekeeping was quite simple, bees were cheap and were started from California packages in the Spring and were "Cyanided" in the Fall. Now in these modern times, bee packages are expensive so we allow the bees to hang around for the winter.
For Northern climates this has added a new aspect for beekeepers as we now have to deal with Winterization problems, plus some diseases and pests that would not occur if bees were not wintered.
It is fortunate that bee science, research, and ongoing education has made it possible for progressive beekeepers to prevail and be successful, particularly given all the challenges from the environment and those of diseases and pests, that are currently confronting us.
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Ticket Information
Event Location
The Enjoy Centre
101 Riel Drive
St. Albert, Alberta
T8N 3X4