Beekeeping is always a roller coaster, and 2020 has been a ride like no other.
Let's recap the year.
The Calgary Beekeepers Association kicked off the year with a January potluck, during which Ron Miksha presented the preliminary findings of his study on honeybee competition with native pollinators. I'll refrain from posting spoilers here. Kudos to Ron for moving the discussion beyond ideology and speculation, to actual research.
It was a good start, but 2020 had hardly gotten started.
On March 11, the WHO declared a pandemic, and the dominoes fell quickly after that.
By March 20, New Zealand had announced a ban on outgoing flights, meaning no shipments of replacement bee packages to Canada. That's a significant blow to the both the NZ beekeeping industries, as well as Prairie beekeepers who rely on NZ shipments for loss replacement.
It also means that dozens of new beekeepers eager to get their start were unable to get bees.
Instead, sales of local Nucleus hives exploded, as many rushed to make splits to meet demand. One collective purchase imploded as their Nuc reservations were redirected to higher-paying buyers.
The Edmonton beekeepers association created a registry of Nuc sellers. A good idea in principle, but I can't imagine any available NUCs stayed on the market long enough to make it to a registry.
Speaking of Edmonton, the city announced moratorium on Urban beekeeping registrations, citing somethingsomethingsomething about beekeepers spreading Covid. Ironic, as beekeepers are Subject Matter Experts in social distancing. As always with the city of Edmonton's beekeeping pilot, their reasons are unclear, and their decisions don't make sense.
By March 24, Iotron had cancelled their hive-sterilization arrangement with Worker and Hive, needing to free up capacity for medical equipment. That means one less tool to remediate deadouts, and gives a leg-up to pathogens like Nosema Ceranae.
United Beekeepers of Alberta cancelled their March convention at the 11th hour, despite hoping to proceed.
The month of March remained cold, with almost no days warm enough for bees to fly.
April also remained cold, with spring finally arriving in the second half of the month.
Spring was slow to unfold, but when summer arrived it was everything a beekeeper could wish for. The days were sunny and clear, and the nights provided necessary rain, ensuring nectar flow the following day. It was no less than picture perfect. This is a huge contrast to last year when it rained every second day during nectar flow, cutting flight time in half.
This year, there was a bumper crop of honey. Hopefully it will allow commercial beekeepers to recover from last year, and will offset the challenges replacing winter losses.
Both Aggie days and the Calgary Stampede were cancelled due to Covid restrictions.
The Calgary and District Beekeepers Association has ceased regular meetings, without explanation. The bi-monthly social event "Bees and Beers" was not possible due to venue closures. The CADBKA organized a few Zoom workshops in this time, under the repurposed banner of "Bees and Beers".
The Covid doom and gloom was punctuated by news of the "Murder Hornet", Vespa Mandarinia. The two wasps found in the PNW translated into frenzy of online hysteria, as non-beekeepers fell over each other to share links. There's a certain addiction to doom in the air.
Dr. Medhat Nasr has been warning us for a decade of about the impending arrival of the Murder Hornet's evil cousin, Vespa Velutina. He was pretty well right, although mother nature has made a last minute substitution.
Mandarinia is certainly an emerging threat, but not one that will affect Albertans in this generation. Personally, I think a PNW wasp invasion is slow-burn certainty: Nature always finds a way. But beekeepers are clever and will always find a way around.
UPDATE(Nov): More "Murder Hornets" have been found in the Langly area. Wow, multiple sightings, that far inland. Sounds like they're established. Also, looking at their native Habitats in Asia, they are cold hardy, and have a fighting chance of surviving even an Alberta winter.
Meanwhile, I observe that beekeepers in Alberta are unknowingly losing hives to the other emerging threat, Nosema Ceranae. It's an exercise in bikeshedding: We fuss about the big scary bug, but ignore the silent microscopic killer. And let's not forget the repeated findings of Small Hive Beetle in the Fraser Valley..... It is these "smaller" threats that are the big threats.
Beekeeping vendor Worker and Hive has firmly established itself as the premier supplier for hobbyists in the Calgary region. When they came on the scene I was initially skeptical that we needed yet *another* bee supplier in our area, but they've quickly moved right to the head of the pack. They have great inventory, great service, great communications. Does Robert ever sleep?
On LinkedIn I'm seeing a lot of posts by Shevelle Stevens of Edmonton's "Revival Queens". Combined with her husband Glyn, she's a master at both beekeeping as well as online marketing. Beekeepers tend to be good at one or the other, but rarely both. Moreso, she communicates beekeeping in clear and concise terms while avoiding the beepocalypse or other environmental tropes that some leverage to capture interest.
Swarm season in Calgary was textbook, starting June 1, and ending mid-August. The CADBKA recovered about 20 errant colonies in this time. It's a surprisingly low number given the heat and the huge number of beekeepers in the city. My back-of-the-napkin estimates suggest we should have had 3 times that number of swarm calls, and I struggle to account for the discrepancy. Possibly a lot of beekeepers are being engaged to recover swarms directly, and the calls aren't making it to official channels? Weird. We saw this in 2018 as well. Yet another beekeeping puzzle!
Wasp season was off-the-charts this year. It started at the end of nectar flow and lasted right up until the late first frost. Hives were constantly under seige. Despite setting out 6 traps and giving more to my neighbors, they didn't stop coming. I must have killed over 1000 myself. It was the talk of beekeepers, and even on the news. Nonetheless, some parts of town were completely spared.
The summer was abnormally long. Usually nectar flow ends mid/late August, but I observed Melilot in bloom even in early October. Usually Melilot is done mid/late august. Also, first frost, which usually arrives early September, didn't arrive until Mid October.
This extended summer was enjoyable, but it can't mean anything good.
It was an eventful beekeeping year - But when is it not?
