Why beekeepers move bees

Enjoying our Strawberry Honey on a fresh croissant.

What's new on the farm:

We're just under a month away before the bees get packed up and sent to Vancouver Island for the winter.

If you're new here, we send our bees to the West Coast every fall. It's a big job, and not many Saskatchewan beekeepers do it.

In the States, moving bees is standard practice for most large-scale commercial beekeepers. That's primarily because of one major crop: almonds.

Every year, almond growers in California need 2-3 million colonies to pollinate their orchards, and they are willing to pay a high fee for them. That's a significant amount of the total commercial hives in the country.

Beekeepers have contracts with growers to supply the hives. Every January, millions of beehives from all over the country go to California to prepare for the big pollination event that happens in mid-February.

After almonds, beekeepers move on to other crops. Cherries and apples in the Pacific Northwest, and blueberries, cucumbers, squash, etc. in other regions. For many, pollination is actually the main source of their income.

Finally, they end up in the northern states like North and South Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota for their annual honey production.

In Canada, migratory beekeeping has a different dynamic.

We don't have a major economic crop like almonds that will drive the type of migration you see in the States. In Canada, the major crops that growers will pay for honey bee pollination are canola seed production, blueberries, and tree fruit like apples and cherries.

On a smaller scale, growers also rent bees for cranberries, cucumbers, raspberries/strawberries, melons, squash, sunflowers, and other specialty crops.

Most of the time, beekeepers in the area or one province over will perform the pollination services. There are a couple of bigger operations that will make a cross-country move, but these are exceptions.

Honeybees will also help pollinate other crops like alfalfa, soybeans, mustard, and open-pollinated canola, but beekeepers don't get paid a fee to have their hives on those crops. Instead, we make our income on the honey that gets produced from those crops.

So, the main reason why migration happens in Canada is for honey production and winter survival. And that's exactly why we take our bees to Vancouver Island each year.

If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. It's very stressful to put all your hives on a semi-trailer and drive them across the country. But the benefits are ideally better winter survival and an earlier spring.

Which means that we can start growing our hive populations in April, and better yet, we get to work among newly bloomed daffodils, crocuses, and aconites while there is still snow back home!

Honey Whipped Feta with Garlic Roasted Olives

I love feta, I love garlic, I love olives. Add honey to that as well? The perfect dish. This dip is so great for dunking with warm pita, naan, or crackers.

If you're trying to come up with new appetizer dishes for the holiday season, this is an easy one that tastes like it took way more effort than it did.

Check out the recipe at Half-Baked Harvest.