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First, we acknowledge that we are located on the traditional territories of the Kwalikum, Snaw-naw-as and K’ómoks First Nations. We'd also like to acknowledge that Chinese workers established the roots of commercial beekeeping in BC in the 1880's.
~~~ We are a small beekeeping operation located in Errington, BC (Vancouver Island). We are dedicated to producing high quality hive products that you can feel good about consuming. In our apiaries, the long term health of our bees is the most important to us, not honey production. We believe that the future of beekeeping lies in breeding locally-adapted bees so beekeepers can rely less on chemical treatments. We employ integrated pest management practices to keep our bees healthy, relying first on non-chemical methods. We manage between 30 and 60 colonies every year. We plant pollinator friendly flowers and provide nesting opportunities to support our native bee and pollinator species, acknowledging that honey bees are not native to North America and can compete with local species for nectar and pollen forage. Pollinator education is very important to us. If people know about how to help our pollinators, we can help them survive. |
Who We AreOur History |
Darwyn and Michalina are two beekeepers who grew up on the West Coast. They both moved to Squamish for school, got their own hives in 2014, and the rest is history! We moved to Errington, Vancouver Island (near Parksville / Qualicum Beach / Coombs, just 30 mins north of Nanaimo) at the end of 2019.
Michalina fell in love with beekeeping in New Zealand helping a beekeeper lift her heavy hive boxes (how many other beekeepers get into beekeeping this way?!). She participated in a honey harvest, and even though she's allergic to both honey and bee stings, she got hooked. She founded the beekeeping club at Quest University, and worked at the Elle Pollination Ecology Lab at SFU assisting with research on wild bees and blueberry pollination. Her university thesis project restored pollinator habitat on campus, and educated the community about pollinators.
Darwyn got roped into beekeeping to help Michalina lift heavy hive boxes at Quest University (naturally). He started his own beekeeping adventures when he unexpectedly caught a swarm in a cardboard box, and quickly built a top bar hive that day to house them. He started raising queens in his first season, grafting the next, and has progressed to instrumental insemination several years later. |
Certifications & Accomplish-ments |
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