4 days ago
Buzz around Waterloo region to visit local apiarists and bee enthusiasts: Jasmine Mangalaseril
Waterloo-Wellington has been home to beekeepers and bee research since the 19th century.
Over the past 25 years, a combination of the growth of the local food movement, news of honeybee deaths and reports of adulterated honey may have led to a resurgence in beekeeping.
Eric Dowling, owner of Kitchener's Nectar Reserve, was introduced to beekeeping as a boy scout, but his interest took hold when visiting a botanical garden in Vancouver in 2023.
"There was a beekeeper who had an observational hive. I got chatting with him for maybe about 30 minutes," said Dowling. "I said to my husband Tyler, 'Hey, I think this is something I really maybe want to do when we get back.'"
Within a year, he launched Nectar Reserve with two hives on 64 hectares of forested land outside of Kitchener. He has since expanded to 25 hives.
"What we do here is the old fashioned way of making honey," explained Dowling. "The frames that we use are all wood or wax. We use organic treatments for our pest management practices. We look at the cues of their biology and make our decisions that way."
He uses modular Langstroth hives, which look like bankers' boxes. Each has 10 vertical frames on which colonies build honeycombs.
When full, each hive box can hold 45 kilograms of honey. Dowling leaves half for the bees and the remainder is extracted with a centrifuge and sold as unpasteurized wildflower honey, creamed honey and honeycomb.
A hyper-local food
Honey is a hyper-local food which, like wine or maple syrup, owes its flavour to a specific place at a specific time.
While blossom varietals shape flavour, spring harvests are often lighter than in autumn. Nectar drawn in rainy weather can taste milder than in drier weather.
The forest's multitude of flowering plants lets Dowling's bees produce poly floral honeys.
"The honey can taste totally different, even box-to-box, or frame-to-frame. It depends on where they have found nectar," he said.
Honeybees forage within five kilometres of their hive. In her lifetime, a honeybee produces 0.8 grams of honey; three to four million blossoms are tapped to produce a single kilogram of honey.
Building and rebuilding a colony
Last year in Ontario, half of the province's bee colonies didn't survive the winter. To start, maintain, expand or rebuild colonies beekeepers need bees.
While some collect swarms, others buy nucleus colonies or starter hives, queen bees or queen bee cells from breeders.
"Honeybees are livestock, just like cattle," said Alison Van Alten, bee breeder and owner of Tuckamore Bee Company in Puslinch.
Her father, Wally Skinner, was inducted into the Atlantic Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2022. At the time, Newfoundland and Labrador's entire honeybee lineage could be traced to his efforts.
Tuckamore's bees are known for calmness and staff breeds for traits like efficiency and disease resistance.
"The Ontario Beekeepers Association technology transfer program visit our farm and help us select bees that are showing resistance to the local pests and diseases that we have in Canada," said Van Alten.
It takes about 28 days from the beginning of the process to having a queen bee mated and ready to ship.
Sweet success in the kitchen
Honey adds different underlying flavours not found in granulated sugar.
Sara Snyders, manager of New Hamburg's Imperial Restaurant, said changing the type of honey can create different drink experiences. Spring wildflower honey will give the Bee's Knees cocktail a lighter taste, while buckwheat honey adds molasses notes.
"[In food] there's definitely a place for cream versus liquid," said Hilari McBride, the restaurant's head chef. "Cream would work better in butter-based things because they're virtually the same consistency when they're at room temperature."
She prefers liquid honey in heated preparations and notes heating unpasteurized honey will change its flavour.
Some chefs take advantage of its preserving powers to cure lamb or steaks.
While honey enhances the flavours of grilled fruit, like peaches or apricots, don't be afraid of using it to contrast main flavours, like yogurt's tang or fried chicken's savoury taste.
"I think people kind of sell honey short because their first thought to use it for dessert," said Snyders. "I honestly feel, if you're using it as a key ingredient, there's not very much it doesn't go with."
Chef Hilari McBride's Hot Honey Glaze
This Asian-inspired honey glaze is great on barbecued salmon, trout or chicken. If you're not using it immediately, its flavours will get stronger if left unstrained. Adding more honey after cooking (and straining) can help tone down the heat.
Ingredients:
500 ml honey.
45 ml lime juice (3 tablespoons).
45 ml dried chilli flakes (3 tablespoons).
30 ml soy sauce (2 tablespoons).
15 ml grated fresh ginger (1 tablespoon).
15 ml minced fresh garlic (1 tablespoon).
1 green onion (green and white parts, roots removed) chopped into thirds.
Method:
Add all ingredients to a pot. Over medium-low heat, while stirring, bring contents to a light simmer and reduce volume by half. Be careful — if the temperature is too high, the pot will boil over.
Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a bottle or jar.
Use immediately or store refrigerated for up to one month.
