Honeybees create buzz in Yk
Beekeeper holds Ecology North talk on how the insects contribute to eco system
Robin Grant
Northern News Services
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A Yellowknife resident is trying to save honeybees one hive at a time.
Matt Vincent displays a honeycomb his bees have been building since he got a hive in May. He uses a "smoker" to signal to the
honeybees he is coming into the hive. - Robin Grant/NNSL photo |
"If you see me running, keep up," joked Matt Vincent to a small crowd at an Ecology North beekeeping talk at his home in Yellowknife's Range Lake area on Saturday. "Things are not going as they should be if I start running."
One of Yellowknife's only beekeepers was only half joking. He said his 50,000 honeybees aren't the aggressive insects often portrayed in the movies. Although they could be. He hosted the talk, entitled Tales of a Northern Beekeeper, in order to demonstrate what goes into keeping bees and how they contribute to the eco system.
"Don't swat them. They're not going to sting you. If anyone gets stung, it's going to be me - and I haven't been stung yet," he said, explaining that wasps or yellow jackets, honeybees die once they sting, so stinging is their last resort, Vincent explained.
"In the event that I actually squish a bee - and her last dying wish is to sting me - when they do that, they send off warning pheromones. And then other bees pick up on that and that tells the hive that it was worth one of the girls dying. So you're going to have a lot of them starting to sting you."
But most of the time, honeybees are only interested in making honey, beeswax, pollinating wild, agricultural and garden plants and laying eggs. Vincent said he spends about two hours a day getting the bees acclimatized to him, and they never get aggressive.
"They are in my hair, on my back and they hit me in the ears - they're quite good girls," he said.
A paramedic by trade, Vincent's beekeeping venture began in May.
"I am a nerd, and I like bees," he said. "I've always been fascinated with bees, the science behind them."
Today, it is becoming more important to protect the insects as scientists say honeybees are disappearing from hives at an alarming rate because of a "colony collapse disorder."
And it remains uncertain what is causing the disorder. Human intervention in the environment, such as the use of pesticides, is said to play a key role, as well as climate change.
"The reason I got bees is because bees are in trouble. Essentially, they are dying off," Vincent explained.
"One-third of our food source is pollinated by bees. Without them, we are down about one-third of our food source, our plants, our vegetables. The food chain just blows up."
Vincent also talked about how to buy honeybees (the bees and hive are delivered to Yellowknife), daily maintenance, the ingenuity of honeybees, such as how they use propolus, a sticky sap from trees, to construct intricate beehives.
He said he's a bit concerned about the long Northern winter because bees can't live in the cold. His solution is to keep the bees in a six-by-eight insulated shed with a light and heat source.
Although as far as he knows, he may be the only resident beekeeper in Yellowknife, Arctic Farmer nursery also keeps honeybees, he said.
Brittany Elise Dionne, who attended the talk, said she was interested in beekeeping because she plans to one have her own honeybees one day.
"It was super fascinating, especially because we usually see, on TV, beekeepers in big suits. It looks absolutely terrifying and everyone is so scared of bees that they're going to get stung and die," she said.
"To be able to walk right up to a hive with 50,000 bees and see that they are calm and they are not going to harm anyone was a really cool experience."
To those interested in starting a honeybee hive of their own in Yellowknife, Vincent says:
"It's quite rewarding to know that you are helping the declining bee population and your fellow Northerners. I encourage more people to get involved whether it's actually keeping bees or just planting 'bee-friendly flowers,'" he said. "If people do decide to try keeping bees, do your research, read books, talk to other beekeepers, learn what could go wrong - and do everything possible to avoid that happening."
