Spring is well underway, and for the beekeeping community of Revelstoke, this means the start of a very busy bee season.
Amid this seasonal changeover, Ron Glave, owner and beekeeper at BeeKind Honey Bees, says he’s generating excitement around beekeeping in the community. BeeKind Honey Bees has donated pine beehive boxes and enlisted five of Revelstoke’s local artists to design the exteriors of each creatively. The creatives had the month of April to document and bring their artistic journeys to life on the hives.
Delree Dumont’s style is called pointillism and she paints using acrylics. Photo: BeeKind Honey Bees.
The Revelstoke Visual Art Centre will have the finished hives on display for the next two weeks. BeeKind Honey Bees invites the public to view and vote for their favourite bee box design on their Facebook page. The host also invites people to bid on the hive boxes through a silent auction fundraiser.
Kristen Meilicke’s Bee box design incorporates her love of the outdoors Photo: BeeKind Honey Bees.Proceeds from the events silent auction fundraiser will go to the Revelstoke Food Bank, Bee City Revelstoke, and the new B.C. Bee Tech Transfer Program, a program which Glave says allows beekeepers across the province to collaborate at a standard level and transfer knowledge of their bees for generations to come.
Revelstoke: a bee city
In addition to getting the community excited about bees and springtime, Glave says his focus for the event is about supporting artists and organizations in Revelstoke like Bee City Revelstoke.
In 2020, Revelstoke city council signed on to the Bee City Canada movement, a national effort to support pollinator protection in Canada. In signing onto this initiative, Revelstoke takes on the responsibilities of a Bee City. Bee City Revelstoke agrees to maintain healthy pollinator habitat and reduce harmful chemicals to pollinators within the Revelstoke community, among many other efforts to support pollinators.
Glave is a Team Member at Bee City Revelstoke and says that the COVID- 19 pandemic has stalled their traction as an organization.
“It’s really still quite young, very infantile, and just trying to get the brand out and the initiatives out and just promoting pollinators and pollinator initiatives within our community, which I think is obviously super worthy,” Glave said in an interview with Mountaineer staff.
Glave says they have initiatives planned, such as getting funding to encourage residents to create pollinator-friendly lawns.
To learn more about the Bee Box Design Challenge, silent auction fundraiser and to vote for your favourite design, visit BeeKind Honey Bee’s Facebook Page.