PROTECTING THE POLLINATORS: WHAT THE BEES TAUGHT ME ABOUT COMMUNITY

Of all the things I've become involved in over the years, beekeeping has probably taught me some of the most profound lessons about life.

What started as an interest in protecting pollinators turned into relationships, friendships, community projects, municipal partnerships and eventually becoming a beekeeper myself.

And somewhere along the way, I began to realize that the bees were teaching me far more than I was ever going to teach them.

How Niagara became part of the Bee City movement

Years ago, I became involved in an effort to have municipalities throughout Niagara recognized as Bee Cities.

The idea was to encourage communities to take a more active role in protecting pollinators by improving habitat, supporting education and bringing greater awareness to the importance of bees and other beneficial insects.

I worked toward helping Niagara Falls, St. Catharines and Welland become Bee Cities.

It was exciting to see municipalities recognize that protecting pollinators wasn't just an environmental issue. It was something communities could participate in together.

But trust me, there was a lot to learn. And not every municipality was interested.

Niagara-on-the-Lake chose not to pursue becoming a Bee City, which I found particularly disappointing given the importance of agriculture in that community.

But that experience taught me something too.

Not everyone is going to see the value in something simply because you do. In fact, maybe they will have interests in the exact opposite direction...

In those cases, I learned that sometimes you just have to keep moving forward with the people who are willing to participate.

And fortunately, there were plenty of those people.

The people who made the journey worthwhile

One of the greatest gifts of becoming involved in beekeeping has been the people I've met.

Years ago now I met 3rd generation beekeeper Tibor Szabo, who became not just someone I could learn from, but a wonderful lifelong friend.

His friendship and presence in my life is something I will always treasure.

I've had the opportunity to meet and work alongside other beekeepers as well, including the crew at Niagara Beeway and BY's in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

These are people who understand that keeping bees involves a tremendous amount of knowledge, patience and responsibility.

And like most things in agriculture, there's always something more to learn.

I've been fortunate to be surrounded by people willing to share their experience, answer questions and help others develop an appreciation for these remarkable creatures.

That's something I love about farming and beekeeping.

The relationships often become just as valuable as the knowledge.

Bringing bees into our communities

Through this work, I have also had the opportunity to develop working relationships with the cities of Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.

Two places that have been especially meaningful to me are Fairview Cemetery in Niagara Falls and Happy Rolph's in St. Catharines.

Both have been home to my bees for years now.

And I think there's something beautiful about that.

These are public spaces that people already visit and enjoy, but they're also places where we can demonstrate how nature and our communities can coexist.

A cemetery, a park, a garden or an open green space can become part of a much larger network of habitat supporting pollinators.

It doesn't always require enormous investments or complicated projects.

Sometimes it begins with recognizing the opportunities already around us.

I've also had the pleasure of participating in and hosting many workshops over the years.

And through those workshops, I've met so many wonderful people.

People who wanted to learn about honeybees.

People interested in planting pollinator gardens.

People who were curious about keeping their own bees.

And people who simply wanted to understand what they could do to help.

Those conversations are what taught me that education doesn't always have to happen in a classroom.

Sometimes the most meaningful learning happens when people gather around something they're genuinely interested in.

Becoming a beekeeper myself.

There's a difference between appreciating bees and actually being responsible for a colony.

Once you become a beekeeper, you begin to see just how extraordinary these little creatures are.

A honeybee colony isn't simply a collection of individual insects living together.

It's what's called a superorganism.

Thousands of individual bees function together as one highly organized living system.

Each bee has a role.

Some care for the developing young.

Some maintain the hive.

Some collect nectar, pollen and water.

Others help regulate temperature, defend the colony or communicate where resources can be found.

And their survival depends on all of those activities working together.

An individual honeybee cannot sustain a colony on her own.

The strength of the colony comes from the coordination of thousands of individuals contributing to something much bigger than themselves.

Think about that for a moment.

Thousands of individual lives, each contributing to the survival of the whole.

The colony succeeds because its members work together, not because every bee is trying to survive independently.

I've often wondered how different our own communities might look if we understood that lesson a little better.

Bees are telling us something about our environment.

One of the most important things I've learned is that bees can act as biological indicators of environmental conditions.

They're constantly interacting with the landscape around them.

They visit flowers, collect pollen and nectar, gather water and bring materials back to their colonies.

As a result, studying bees and the substances they collect can help researchers understand environmental conditions, including exposure to certain contaminants.

Their health is influenced by many factors, including habitat availability, nutrition, parasites, disease, pesticides and weather.

That means changes in bee health can sometimes provide important clues about pressures affecting the wider environment.

And personally? I think there is a much bigger lesson here.

When the living systems around us begin showing signs of stress, shouldn't we be paying attention?

We depend on healthy ecosystems too.

We depend on clean water.

Healthy soil.

Plant diversity.

And the countless relationships between organisms that make food production possible.

Bees are part of that system.

And when we start disrupting those relationships, the consequences can extend far beyond the insects themselves.

Honeybees aren't the only pollinators that matter.

Something else I've learned is that protecting pollinators means thinking beyond the honeybee hive.

We have native bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles and other insects contributing to pollination.

And many of them need different habitats and resources.

Some nest in the ground.

Some use hollow stems or cavities.

Some depend on particular plants.

And many need flowering resources throughout the growing season, not just when our gardens look their prettiest.

So protecting pollinators isn't simply about installing more honeybee hives.

It's about creating healthy environments where a diversity of species can survive.

Planting appropriate flowering plants.

Reducing unnecessary pesticide exposure.

Protecting nesting habitat.

Allowing some natural areas to remain natural.

And understanding that even the smallest spaces can contribute to a larger network of habitat.

That's something municipalities, businesses, schools, farmers and individual households can all participate in.

What the bees taught me about building communities

I think this is where my experience with bees has influenced the work I'm doing today more than I initially realized.

When I look at a colony, I see thousands of individuals performing different tasks, all contributing to the survival of the whole.

Not every bee does the same job. Not every bee has the same abilities. But the colony depends on those differences. And isn't that exactly how a healthy community should function?

We need farmers. We need people who understand transportation and distribution. We need educators. We need people who can build and repair things. We need business owners, organizers, growers and people willing to share what they know.

No single person has to do everything.

But when we begin connecting those abilities, something much more powerful becomes possible, and exactly what I'm trying to accomplish through Small Scale Farms, Friendly Neighbours, Red Maple Farm School and the Resilience Network.

Different people contributing different resources, skills and opportunities to strengthen the larger community.

And just like a honeybee colony, those connections matter.

Because a community becomes much more resilient when its members recognize that their individual contributions support something bigger than themselves.

Protecting the pollinators is really about protecting ourselves.

When I think back on the Bee City work, the workshops, the municipal partnerships and the incredible people I've met, I realize how much that experience shaped my understanding of community.

It taught me the importance of education.

The value of relationships.

The need to work with municipalities and organizations willing to participate.

And the extraordinary things that can happen when people come together around a shared purpose.

But perhaps the most important lesson came from the bees themselves.

We are not separate from the natural systems that sustain us.

We are part of them.

And just because we've become very good at building technology, infrastructure and complicated ways of doing things doesn't mean we've become any less dependent on nature.

If anything, I think we've become less aware of that dependence.

The bees remind me that survival isn't simply about the strength of an individual.

It's about the health of the entire system.

And if we want to build healthier, more resilient communities, perhaps we should spend a little more time learning from the creatures that have been demonstrating the power of cooperation all along.

Protecting pollinators isn't just about saving bees.

It's about recognizing the relationships that sustain life, and accepting our responsibility to protect them.

Because when the environment that sustains the bees is struggling, we would be wise to ask what that means for the environment sustaining us.