By Greg Higgins

Beekeeper creating a buzz about a booming hobby

Feb 21, 2017 | 2:34 PM

Since reports have surfaced about the decline in bee populations, beekeeping is becoming a growing hobby. And one professional beekeeper is looking to connect and educate anyone interested in the learning the hobby in the Battlefords.

Professional honey beekeeper Karen Pedersen is holding a Beekeeper Social at the Notre Dame Church tonight Feb. 21 from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The social is open to any commercial, hobbyist, retired or potential future beekeepers.

Pedersen said the main focus of the social is to converse and educate.

“Hobby beekeeping has exploded in the last few years,” Pedersen said. “Beekeeping in the Prairies is significantly different than anywhere else in the world though. The same way you wouldn’t bring an orange tree to Saskatchewan to try and grow it; getting beekeeping information off of Google doesn’t necessarily apply.”

According to Pedersen, with the growing interest in beekeeping it seemed like a good idea to get everyone into the same room. The professional beekeeper decided North Battleford was the best place for the area because Regina and Saskatoon have official beekeeping groups and those involved in the Northwest don’t have anywhere to congregate.

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Pedersen said North Battleford used to have a club for beekeeping and hopes this social could be the spark to start it up again. At the very least she would like the event to promote mentorship and provide a venue for people with a similar interest to converse and be aware of each other.

Pedersen believes the “explosion” in popularity of beekeeping has a lot to do with the news talking about bees becoming endangered. She said that isn’t the case with honey bees.

“I am an expert on honey bees but, if we want to go with bees in general, I am not [and expert].” Pedersen said. “Honey bees are not on the endangered list. They are kept like cows; they are not going to end up on the endangered list either. It is certainly more challenging to be a honey bee keeper now than it used to be.” 

According to Pedersen, the wild bees are the ones on the endangered list because no one is looking after them, but diseases are causing difficulties in keeping honey bees. She said it is tough enough keeping the bees from known diseases they haven’t built immunities for but, now there are diseases killing larvae and no one can seem to figure out the cause.

Another difficulty Pedersen is running into is climate change.

“Just like how the trees and some of the animals are having trouble adapting to the way the weather is changing, the bees are as well,” Pedersen said. “In the last few years people will say to me ‘snow came or cold weather came during the bloom so I didn’t get any apples on my apple tree because clearly the blooms must have froze,’ and it’s not that the blooms froze, it’s that the bees weren’t flying, so they didn’t get pollinated.” 

Pedersen listed those as some of the difficulties her as a professional keeper run into, let alone someone taking it up as a hobby.  Pedersen said it takes a lot more work than people think.

 “It is kind of funny because people think they can just get a hive and it will be easy because they just stick it outside and almost without fail you will hear ‘it’s a lot more work than I thought it was.’ It’s not something where you can just stick it out there and let them be. There is a lot of work to it but, it is fun work.

“My brother, for example, lives in Regina and built himself a miniature hive about the size of a birdhouse,” Pedersen said. “Off of that little hive alone he gets 60 pounds of honey a year that he needs to figure out what to do with. That is someone coming from a beekeeping background.”

Before anyone in North Battleford reads this article and decides to start up their own hive, city administration wants the public to be aware of a couple of things regarding beekeeping.

According to the city, there is no specific bylaw which bans beekeeping, but neighbours have the right to enjoy their own property as well. Administration encourages anyone interested in taking up the hobby to consult neighbors first and makes sure they are ok with it and have no allergies. The city can shut down a hive if neighbors complain it is impeding their right to enjoy their own property.

Pedersen encourages anyone in the area interested to show up at Notre Dame Church between 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. tonight. She also said anyone interested shouldn’t be afraid of getting stung.

“I had a young women come work for me and she started at the end of July and worked until the end of the season,” Pedersen said. “She made a point of counting each sting and by the end of the season she had 115. I don’t count because I can be stung up to 10 times on one shot.”

Pedersen added she no longer wears proactive gloves and seldom uses a vale. She said stings always still hurt but, she doesn’t swell up or get itchy which is what bothers most people.

Greg.higgins@jpbg.ca

On Twitter @realgreghiggins.