While you’ve been getting ready for winter weather – swapping sneakers for snow boots and t-shirts for toques – urban bees, and their beekeepers, have also been bee-zy preparing for colder temperatures.

When it was warmer, bees forged up to five kilometres from their hives to collect nectar. Once a honey frame is full of nectar, bees cap the frame with wax to store the honey. Before harvest time in the fall, hives can weigh up to 60 pounds with each frame holding about six pounds of honey! Beekeepers remove surplus honey, leaving the bees with enough to support the colony throughout the winter. The bees are also fed a sugar syrup with an additive of vitamins and minerals that will keep the colonies strong throughout the cooler weather.

The bees are moved into one box with honey-filled frames placed along the exterior of the hive, which is wrapped in insulation and covered with a foam lid, to keep the heat in. There is a small opening in the wrapping for air flow and for the bees to leave the hive when needed. While bees don’t hibernate, they do slow down their vibrations over the winter. These small movements help the bees keep the temperature inside the hive at a consistent 30 C which is important to protect the baby bee nest.

Enter the draw to win a spot in the Hive to Jar December workshop
Intrigued and want to learn more? We have an opportunity for you (and a guest)! Keep an eye on our City of Calgary Golf Facebook and Instagram pages for details about how to enter the draw to win a spot in our upcoming Hive to Jar workshop. Workshop participants will learn all there is to know about urban honeybees from a beekeeper, will get hands-on experience extracting honey from a frame and go home with their own little jar of honey. The workshop will take place December 14 from noon to 1:30 pm at Maple Ridge Golf Course.

Did you know?

-Pollinators are responsible for bringing us one out of every three bites of food.
- In 2019, Calgary was designated Canada’s 36^th Bee City. This highlights The City of Calgary’s commitment to protecting pollinators and their habitat. Planting native trees, shrubs, grasses and wildflowers in our parks and green spaces helps provide homes, food and resources for pollinators. Pollinators include a variety of species such as bees, moths, butterflies, hummingbirds, bats and even flies.
- Bees create their own air conditioning. They want to keep the hive at a consistent 30 degrees so if it gets too hot, the bees will fan hot, humid air out of the hive with their wings and others will bring in cool, fresh air to collectively cool the hive.

You can help urban bees and other pollinators in your community by adding native plant species to your yard, providing shelter and nesting sites and by leaving leaf litter and plant debris in place until the late spring. To learn more visit Calgary.ca/pollinators