The beekeeper at Vancouver’s Cottonwood Garden introduces 100 Mason bees and explores the bee species living locally, pollinating the garden area.
Transcript:
I’ve been beekeeping for about 20 years now and we started beekeeping here in 2010 because we wanted to increase the pollination to increase the food production here in the community garden. And the more pollination you have, the greater amount of food you’ll produce and the better quality.
Cottonwood Garden is kind of a unique space. It’s kind of an oasis in a concrete jungle. The conservatory aspect of it is there are many different types of garden here from the Asian to the native to the forest and the fruit beds.
We have a large number of native species bees here, but the populations are not substantial enough to maintain all of the different plots and all of the fruit trees that we have here. We are still keeping mason bees and I am releasing 100 mason bee cocoons today. But the honey bees supplement that pollination.
All native bees only pollinate and they only live for about two months a year. So the blue mason native bees are spring bees and they’re primarily fruit crops. And then you have other species. We have a number of blue bumblebee species and you’ll see them right up till October and they all pollinate in different months and different seasons.
Beekeepers are always looking for prime areas to keep their bees, away from pesticides, in large enough space that there’s enough flowers to provide them with food.
Audio recording, editing, mixing: Lorna Boschman
Audio Optimizer: John Burton
