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Alberta leads the country in honey production. That’s impressive, but did you know that bees do a lot more than make honey?

When you see a bee on a flower, that’s good news for honey lovers. The bee takes the nectar from the flower and makes honey from it. But the same bee is also quietly doing a good turn for Alberta’s multi-million dollar crop industry, among others.

According to Roy Sterling of the Alberta Honey Producers Co-operative, the link between honey production and the rest of agriculture deserves to be better understood.

“Alberta produces 35% of Canada’s honey,” says Sterling, who’s based out of the Co-op’s business office in Spruce Grove. “The primary reason is that we have an abundance of high-quality bee food.”

Pollination

If a link between bees and beef seems a bit unlikely, don’t worry. Sterling explains it’s all a function of the relationship between bees, plants and the livestock that eat those plants.

Farmers and ranchers plant forage crops like clover and alfalfa to pasture their cattle,” he says. “So you have a lot of pasture being pollinated by a lot of bees and making a lot of honey with the nectar they gather.”

More importantly, Alberta farmers grew 3.6 million acres of canola last year, the yellow flowers of which are a particular favourite of bees. The bees aid the vitality of these plants and the plants provide the raw material for high-quality, mild white Alberta honey.

Combine this abundant food source with Alberta’s long summer days and you have a recipe for a honey powerhouse. In fact, average honey production is 141 lb. per hive in Alberta – more than twice the world average.

Honey and a lot more

You might know the Alberta Honey Producers’ Co-operative by its well-known brand name: Bee-Maid. The honey production of 180 Alberta producers is pooled and marketed under the Bee-Maid brand. Honey producers supplement their income with sales of beeswax which is processed into products such as candles.

“We estimate that for every dollar’s worth of honey production, Alberta bees create $3 worth of value in the field.”

Next time you enjoy a slice of Alberta beef, or use canola oil for cooking, or tuck into a berry pie, you’ll know who to thank.