New program has college buzzing
Niagara College is abuzz about the start of its newest program.
The commercial beekeeping graduate certificate course will fill the demand for trained beekeepers with a one-year, hands-on program, said Al Unwin, the college’s associate dean for the school of environmental and horticultural studies.
“This program is critically important for agriculture and society in general,” Unwin said. “The course will provide bees and bee hives to agriculture for pollination, and farmers require pollination services like never before.”
Unwin said there are about 2,300 commercial beekeepers in Canada, with demand expected to grow to 3,600 in the coming decade.
The three-semester course introduced Tuesday will feature an oncampus apiary with 30 managed hives that will be home for about 50,000 bees. It will begin with 30 students in January.
It is the first program of its kind in Eastern Canada and is open to postgraduate students who want to learn the ins and outs of the sweet science of beekeeping.
There was no word whether a perfect report card would have all Bs.
Bad puns aside, bees play an essential role in the food chain. Most crops grown for fruits, nuts, seeds, fibre and hay require pollination by insects.
And what has happened to bees in the past decade is no laughing matter.
“Bees are continuing to die off,” said Tibor Szabo of the Ontario Beekeepers Association. “It is happening all around us. The demand has never been higher for beekeepers, and I couldn’t dream of a better environment than you have here in Niagara. It is a bee paradise here.”
After examining Niagara College’s healthy hives, Szabo pointed to some bees on the ground.
“Bees aren’t supposed be running around, are they?” he said. “They have wings. They are supposed to fly. Some of these bees are messed up from neurotoxins.”
Neonicotinoids, which are used as an insecticide, are likely the culprits, he said.
Szabo said insecticides poison these bees at a “sub-lethal” level. They aren’t dying, but they are flightless and useless to the ecosystem.
He gently picked up one small bee and tried to release it, only to watch it fall to the ground and stumble around aimlessly.
“The course will certainly help, but what we need is better national regulations,” Szabo said. “It’s not climate change. Bees are highly adaptable. They survive in desert and northern conditions, but when there is poison in your food or your resources, it doesn’t matter where you are.
“The healthy bees are trying hard to compensate for the losses, but it taxes the hive, and it doesn’t grow and thrive.”
Susan McConnell, a media relations adviser at the college, checked with Niagara’s supervisor of greenhouse operations and he confirmed the college does not use products containing “nics” (neonicotinoids) on the grounds at the campus, which is situated on rich agricultural land below the Niagara Escarpment.
The Niagara-on-the-Lake location is home to the college’s greenhouses, teaching winery and teaching brewery. The winery has its own vineyard. The brewery grows some of its own hops.