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Volume 14 Number 29 | 50¢
July 23, 2015
downtownkamloops.com
Bruce is busy as a bee! Have you ever been stung by a bee? Probably, but there is a mis- is the bees that live in the city produce a more flavourful honey than conception about bees and the fact is most of the time people are bees that live on farms. “ It’s because of all the different varieties stung by wasps. Bees can only sting once and then they die, so it’s of flowers that are grown in the city provide the bees with an aslikely they won’t sting you unless your attacking their hive, sortment of nectar. As opposed to a farm where only certain I’ve seen it first hand as I visited Bruce Florence and his flowers bloom in the region,” explains Bruce. hives right here in downtown Kamloops. Bruce took an eight-week bee course here in KamBruce Florence will tell you, with great enthusiloops and has been busy as a bee for the past two asm, that bees are very important to humans, years - pardon my pun! His hives are reguas they pollinate up to 90 per cent of our lated and are very safe. crops and without them we would Every couple of months he meets have a hard time maintaining with other bee enthusiasts at the world’s food supply. the Bee Club where they Bruce has two hives and gather to share information a nook, which is an undeand ideas about rearing bees veloped hive, and each hive and harvesting honey. His can contain 60,000 bees! honey is not available for Standing in the back yard of sale in a general sense, as it’s Bruce’s downtown home, very popular among friends I hesitated to approach the and family, but there are lobeehives. Three green boxes cal markets where you can stood in a row against the find the raw form honey. fence and hundreds of bees Raw honey is unpasteurflew around and buzzed in ized, meaning it hasn’t been and out of the hives. Bruce heated to destroy bacteria, reassured me and said he had but bees actually heat the only been stung a few times honey with clusters of bees over the two years he had that flap their wings and The flower doesn’t dream been working with his bees. warm the honey. So there is a “Oh I’ve been stung,” says science behind shopping for of the bee. It blossoms Bruce. “But the bees are only honey. The worker bees live going to sting you if you’re about 60 days and the queen and the bee comes. going to attack their hive.” can live up to two years as the And that was enough confidence for workers serve and protect the queen – Mark Nepo me! I walked up and the bees really didn’t throughout the process of creating honey. seem to care that I was there. They flew around me If you are near a hive, leave it alone and the and a few landed on me briefly, but were so busy delivbees will likely do the same to you. They are acering nectar to the hive that I posed no threat to them at all. tually going to save your life technically speaking, so Bruce tells me that each hive can produce 60 to 100 pounds treat them with respect and have a peanut butter and honey of honey each year! And that doesn’t include the honey leftover sandwich instead. in the hive for the bees to get through winter. A really interesting fact Corey Rajala, freelance
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