Today, many utility buildings, businesses, offices and schools (yes, schools!) incorporate beekeeping into their facilities. In doing so, they not only provide the bees with a safe place to work, but they normalize beekeeping as a profitable activity and, in the process, they help overcome the fear of bees.

However, not everyone is ready to roll out the red carpet. Often, rooted fear of bee stings keeps people from saying yes to an urban beekeeping project. Following a few simple guidelines can help instil a sense of security and turn a simple beekeeping experience into an incredibly inspiring adventure.

  • KNOW THE FACTS ABOUT BEES

    Let’s start by stating an important fact: honey bees are not prone to sting – not at all. Why? Because they die immediately afterwards. When they sting as a last resort to protect their colony, their stinger generally gets stuck and tears off ripping away their abdomen, which is fatal for them.

    To top it off, honey bees much prefer nectar and pollen to humans and their food. Yep – bees are vegan! Given their short life expectancy of about 30 days, the main objective of honey bees is to provide food throughout the day to their colony to ensure its development. They can fly up to five kilometres away from their hive to do so. What does that mean? Bees tend to not stick around a property when a beekeeping project is installed. (By the way: the troublemakers trying to steal your lunchtime sandwich are wasps, not bees. They’re super important to the local ecosystem, but let’s face it, they can be rather disturbing.)

    Although typically docile honey bees are not prone to sting and are not interested in human food, like any animal (including us humans!), they can become defensive when they feel threatened.

    Read: 7 surprising facts about bee stings

KNOW WHY BEES ARE ON THE DEFENSIVE NEAR A HIVE

Around the hive, three main factors can cause honey bees to become defensive:

  • Improperly located hive entrance: The location of Alvéole hives is always carefully chosen to ensure that their entrances are positioned in the ideal place for bees and humans, with each hive facing away from activity areas, to leave enough space for the bees to come and go as they please while foraging on nearby flowers. When the entrance to the hive is located away from busy areas, the bees’ defence mechanisms will not be accidentally triggered.
  • Bad weather: Bees can get used to just about any environment, from a windy rooftop to a busy patio, but if the weather suddenly changes, they might get briefly defensive if someone opens their hive. (You would probably have the same reaction if the ceiling in your house heaved when it was raining heavily!) This rarely happens, however, and as a rule people themselves stay indoors to protect themselves from the rain, so there is no real risk.
  • Poorly managed hives: Urban beekeeping is based on an approach that is more or less opposed to that of commercial beekeeping, i.e. it focuses on education rather than production. This is why it is essential to choose a qualified supplier like Alvéole. You will be able to count on an experienced partner in urban beekeeping who knows the secrets of the trade, in particular the importance of following a strict schedule for the management of the hives and of choosing the right type of honey bee (we work with an Italian variety renowned for its very mild temperament – ​​this also explains why urban beekeepers wear almost no protective equipment, if at all, in case you were wondering).

“The first time [when I approached a beehive] I stayed away, but I saw that the beekeepers weren’t scared at all and they later invited me to leave. involve more. First of all, you have to be comfortable – that helps a lot. Then other people see you and it shows them that there is nothing to worry about. »

– David Le Brasseur, Animator, Leisure and Culture, City of Dorval

Read: Myth busting: are beehives on office buildings dangerous?

  • CONSULT EXPERTS

    One of the reasons why beekeeping has seen such a surge in popularity is the availability of professional beekeeping services like Alvéole that prioritize safety, from setting up hives to extracting honey. This is why we place so much emphasis on education and the promotion of urban beekeeping as a great way to reconnect with nature in the heart of the city.

    We have found that when we communicate the right information, we eliminate fear at the source and arouse curiosity. And the latter leads to interest, which leads to love – and humans want to protect what they love. Do you see where we are coming from?

    “For the participants who were scared and reluctant, [the beekeeping workshop] helped to understand the distinction between bees and wasps: bees just don’t want to sting.”

    – Geneviève Dubé, Advisor, Environmental Systems and Services, Air Transat

  • ENGAGE WITH WORKSHOPS

    Aimed at employees, students and tenants, Alvéole’s workshops provide information and educational activities that allay the fear that many people have towards bees while highlighting the important role that bees play. these pollinators in our environment. Having delivered workshops to over 50,000 people since our founding in 2013, we have discovered that a beekeeping experience is a surprisingly powerful vehicle for reconnecting people with nature. Its effectiveness is amazing because many people are nervous the first time they hold a bee hive frame, but it is precisely this initiation that allows the powerful charisma of the honey bee to operate to its fullest. magic.

    Ready to help us overcome fear and spread the word about the importance of bees? Explore our workshops and team-building activities to find one suited for your employee, tenants or students.

    Discover our workshops