Hives for Humanity by Julia Common

December 3rd

Julia Common, Master Beekeeper from the Delta area of the Frazer Valley just outside Vancouver, gave a fascinating talk.

Firstly Julia introduced Hives for Humanity, a society that she set up with her daughter, with the aim to connect people to nature, community and themselves.  It started with a single bee hive in central Vancouver and Julia freely admits she had misgivings and preconceptions of who she would be dealing with.  The project quickly expanded and involved at-risk groups of people with tasks like gardening, beekeeping and fostering connection to land and community.  You can find out more about this at the website www.hivesforhumanity.com

Julia then went on to talk about large scale pollination with her bees and especially inside 6 hectare greenhouses where the bees were tasked with pollinating strawberry plants. Her honey bees were being used where the farmer had been unable to get the usual bumble bee pollinators. Julia now has this as a regular arrangement as her honey bees worked so well.

Finally Julia talked about beekeeping using nucs only and how she was focusing on this as it involves far less heavy lifting and the bees are doing as well for her as they did using full size hives.  Hopefully this will be a topic of another talk for us in the future.
Julia’s talk was recorded and can be viewed at this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/96IKHJWf3X0Hyksedl0nmFNSTMSA3OCYesqe7uXDXSslIw2tF7jXmU6Df_RgBMg.WyX87sGCCr-d65Sf
Passcode: zr83Uyj+