A free tour is being offered in Calgary this summer with the purpose of educating people on the important role bees play in the ecosystem.
MOB Honey has five urban hives built in the East Village with each containing thousands of honey bees.
“They’ve created all this fresh wax,” said owner Amber Yano as she pulled out a shelf from the hive, with thousands of friendly bees climbing all over bits of honeycomb, peeks of fresh raw honey oozing from holes.
Most of the bees are female workers. The rest are male ‘drones’ who leave the hives to mate and, of course, a single queen. She is the only one who lays eggs.
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Yano says the current population of 20,000 will multiply up to 70,000 as the summer continues. “But you won’t see them out because only 10 per cent of the hive goes out to forage.”
Those that do will travel up to 10 kilometres, enriched by the vast array of pollinators — including mustard, wild rose and sweet clover — along the nearby riverbank.
The tour aims to help inspire people to create bee-friendly spaces. In a time where bees around the world are threatened, Yano says every little bloom helps.
“Just encouraging more spaces for pollinators, creating habitat in your front yard or backyard,” said Yano. “Climate change, over pesticide usage in the landscape and loss of habitat. These are things everything has to contend with.”
The honey produced at the five urban hives are sold as MOB Honey’s East Village label.
To find out more information on dates and times of the free summer tours, visit Eventbrite.
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