By Emily Senger
Just before she was about to move off the family farm north of Calgary, near Crossroads, Alta., a retiring neighbour offered Eliese Watson his bees.
She had to refuse. The bees wouldn’t fit very well into the small Calgary apartment where Watson, a second-year history student at Mount Royal University, currently resides. But Watson couldn’t stop the bees from buzzing through her mind.
“I’ve regretted it ever since,” says Watson.
So, last year, when Watson decided to get involved with a community garden, she started researching the prospect of urban beekeeping. She quickly realized there wasn’t a lot of information out there, especially not in Calgary.
“There was educational programming, but none of it was urban,” Watson recalls. “It was all rural-based. But, there was a lot of interest. People were calling me, wanting to know about urban beekeeping and how to do it.”
Watson’s business idea was born. In February 2010, Watson launched A.B.C., Apiaries and Bees for Communities, a business dedicated to educating Calgarians about urban beekeeping in an effort to increase biodiversity and create a more sustainable city.
Watson got a little help along the way, in the form of a $5,000 grant from the Co-operators that gives funds to young people who are starting businesses with a focus on sustainability. The cash helped her build a website at www.backyardbees.ca, gave her the funds to arrange a free public lecture at the Calgary Zoo and helped her host her first introduction to beekeeping workshop in March.
“I realized that there was demand, so I’ve connected the people who know how to beekeep with the people who don’t know how to beekeep,” Watson says.
This spring, Watson also set up seven of her own hives, which she keeps in other people’s gardens. The idea for Watson’s hives, and others, is that she supplies the bees and the beehive and she tends the hive. She writes a contract with the landowner and, in the end, the property owner gets a pretty sweet deal: they are paid in a portion of the honey. When each hive produces an estimated 150 pounds a year, that’s a fair bit of honey, even when it’s split two ways.
Since the official A.B.C. launch this spring, business hasn’t slowed down. Watson is going to hold her third introduction to beekeeping course near the end of May. That course sold out in days and there’s a waiting list, too.
Watson sees herself as both a business owner and as an advocate. Income from her courses, textbooks, and special beehives suited to the urban environment (she’s hired a carpenter to build these specialty hives) goes to fund advocacy and speaker events, which are either for free, or very cheap.
This summer, she’s working on a mentorship program to connect knowledgeable rural beekeepers to novice keepers in the city and she’s planning a more workshops and courses, too, including one that she hopes to host in Edmonton.
Hosting workshops, not to mention tending to her seven hives, is a full-time job for a second-year university student. Watson admits that her grades have slipped a bit since she started up the bee business, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s been crazy, but it’s been wonderful,” she says.
This is Watson’s chosen career path. She plans to follow up her history degree with one in education, to better spread the urban beekeeping message.
“I look at it as a huge educational opportunity,” Watson says. “Currently, there isn’t a federally recognized curriculum for urban beekeeping. My eventual goal is to write a streamlined curriculum that can be applied to cities across the continent.”
Category: Work
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“She quickly realized there wasn’t a lot of information out there, especially not in Calgary.”
Really? Why didn’t she contact the Calgary and District Beekeeper’s Association?
We’ve been keeping bees in the city for years.
[...] it’s not only about vegetables. Calgary resident Eliese Watson runs Apiaries and Bees for Communities, a business through which she tends to bee hives located in several gardens. In exchange, garden [...]