eing the daughter of a hobbyist beekeeper dad, Alison Van Alten helped out with the honey harvest each fall. But it was only after she began her studies at U of G that she started keeping bees of her own. She raised colonies on a farm and extracted honey from the hives on the front porch of her rented student digs in Guelph.Today she still raises bees for honey, but her expertise is raising queen bees for other beekeepers. As the owner of Tuckamore Bee
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Company in Freelton, Ont.,Van Alten supplies queens to beekeepers across Canada. Once a full-time researcher, she still works with other beekeepers and scientists, including biologists at U of G, on solutions to a range of problems plaguing bees and other pollinators. About one in three mouthfuls of food we eat depends on pollination by bees and other insects. Pollinators also help to maintain plant Beekeeper Alison Van Alten at work collecting queen bees.
diversity — eight in 10 flower species need pollinators to set seeds and fruit. Declines in pollinator numbers in Ontario and across Canada have been blamed on various factors, including disease and parasites, pesticide exposure, shrinking habitat and apiary management practices. Those factors worry U of G researchers, including Prof. Ernesto Guzman, School of Environmental Sciences (SES), although he’s careful to distinguish between annual losses and an overall decline in bee numbers. “More than 30 per cent of bee colonies have been lost every year over the last seven years,” he says. “But we still have more hives in Canada than 10 years ago.” Beekeepers have made up those losses by splitting colonies and importing bees each year, but that’s an expensive solution. Researchers are attempting to understand what’s driving annual losses and how to help preserve our pollinators. Paradoxically, as pollinators have declined, the number of apiarists has grown, including urban beekeepers maintaining one or more hives in their backyards. Van Alten, B.Sc. ’95, M.Sc. ’00, has been raising bees full-time since 2010, producing queens as well as nucleus (or starter) colonies. Her husband, John Van Alten, has been a beekeeper for three decades and produces honey under his Dutchman’s Gold Honey label. Beekeeping runs in the family for Van Alten, who grew up in Newfoundland. Her biologist father kept backyard bee colonies, and her sister, Andrea Skinner, B.Sc. ’98, runs the Newfoundland Bee Company, the largest operation in the province. After completing her undergraduate degree in apiculture,Van Alten went on to obtain her master’s degree in environmental biology with Peter Kevan, SES professor emeritus, as her adviser. Kevan also directed the Canadian Pollination Initiative (CANPOLIN), a five-year strategic network based at Guelph that ended last year. For her graduate degree,Van Alten worked on tracheal mites, which can hinder bees’ respiration and their ability to keep the hive at the right temperature. After graduating, she continued that research with the Ontario Beekeepers’Association (OBA) technology transfer program. There she tested treatments and breeding