Meet Bert & Carole of Buzzy Bee!
Bees are important critters. They are responsible for the pollination of many of the flowers that give birth to our staple fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and seeds, and that which feeds the cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals that later become our food, too. You may've heard already that the bees in some parts of the world seem to be in trouble. Colony Collapse Disorder is becoming more and more common, meaning the sudden, tragic disappearance of entire colonies!
It is therefore a perfect time to highlight Carole and Bert Blouin, who consider themselves stewards, ambassadors for the bees.
Bert was first exposed to beekeeping as a child on the farm he grew up on, and then, after a 40 year hiatus, got back into it with his wife, Carole, in 2001 with a single, donated hive. So pleased with the delicious results were they that they began proudly sharing the surplus with friends and neighbours. Thanks to indulgent landowners, their hobby operation soon grew to comprise hives near Bearspaw and Airdrie in addition to the hives they still maintain in their backyard. Their enterprise is still, however, very small scale, and the pleasure of it remains their bottom-line.
This urban and rural hive distribution provides a good variety of nectar sources, making for a varied product line including both creamed and liquid honey, naturally flavored honeys such as vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger, wax candles, and honey comb. They’ll be happy to give you a taste the next time you're at market.
Education is also a big part of what they do. While at market and elsewhere, they find it a privilege and a pleasure to chat about bees. In recent years, they’ve been partnering with the Calgary and District Beekeepers Association to do bee presentations at Calgary and area schools and other organizations. The Blouins can also do these presentations in French if need be.
Bert and Carole also find that, although the public seems well informed of the important role bees play as pollinators, few understand the honey production process. It goes like this: The bees forage for nectar in the summer months to produce a stock of honey to feed themselves. They do not hibernate as most insects do, so this stock becomes increasingly important as the temperatures fall and flowers shrivel. To harvest this nectar, they visit hundreds of flowers and use their long tongues, called proboscises, to slurp it out from the blooms. Their mouths add digestive enzymes, then the nectar is swallowed.
As the bees visit flowers during these foraging trips, pollen is brushed from the male anther of the flower onto their hairy torsos and taken with them to be transferred to the female pistil of the next flowers in their path, fertilizing them. Only when this transfer of pollen has happened will a flower become a seed-containing fruit or nut.
Upon their return to the hive, the contents of their stomach are regurgitated and passed over to placement bees, who add yet more enzymes, then seal the mixture away in the wax comb until it is needed. Voila, honey! The enzymes that are added during this process are a big part of what makes unprocessed honey so good for us.
Another message they want to spread to the public is a reassuring one - that, although Colony Collapse Disorder is still a very real problem, the bees in Canada generally seem to be doing very well. Alberta is home to some 280,000 bee colonies and that number has seen constant annual growth thanks to small shifts in agricultural practices and a surge in urban apiaries. They encourage us to get informed and do what we can to keep this trend on its upward trajectory.
Come see them and their bees at the Farmers' Market year-round!
