Winnie Czulinski –
With honey vendors driving two hours to bring their sweet stuff into Toronto farmers’ markets, you might think of beekeeping as a rural industry.
Meet dedicated beekeeper Joseph Curry, who manages 50-plus hives at about 17 locations around Toronto. His honey is uniquely flavoured by neighbourhood, from Cabbagetown to Guildwood.
Curry – Scotiabank director of physical security, and a military veteran/reservist/deputy commanding officer – is founder of Bee Local 416, headquartered on Spruce Street near Sackville Street.
As a boy, Curry was inspired by an elderly beekeeper, David Kane, in a cedar forest near Curry’s family farm north of Toronto. Kane was gentle, calm, worked the bees without a veil or gloves. He taught the boy about honeybee biology, behaviour, and care. “That bee yard was a magical place, especially when I got to peek inside the hives. I was hooked.”
At 16, Curry bought his first hives from Kane, then became an apiary technician for Chatsworth Honey, a beekeeping operation managing about 800 hives.
“I’ve always been passionate about local sustainable agriculture… It struck me that I should bring my bees into the city too.” In 2016 he started his first urban hives in Willowdale.
For Curry, a member of Ontario Beekeepers and Toronto Urban Beekeepers associations, the placement of hives depends on accessibility, adequate space for the bees, locations away from pedestrian traffic or where their flight paths could interfere with people, and proximity to green spaces and water. Honey is mostly harvested in July and August.
An important part of the operation is the “hive hosts,” including University of Toronto professor Angelica Fenner. “We have a larger lot that abuts a ravine, with flowering plants blossoming from spring into fall,” Fenner says. “It’s perfect for supporting bees, both honey and indigenous across the months of the year when they are most active.”
“It’s quite moving to watch them at work; they are remarkably industrious,” she adds. “Without the bees’ activity, the entire food chain would collapse.”
For Joseph Curry, this diverse urban world produces distinctive small-batch flavours as specialized as wine. Old Town honey, from hives on financial-centre rooftops that use parkettes, waterfront and the Toronto Islands for forage, is richly amber, big, bold, full-bodied with chewy mouth feel. It also evokes toasted nuts, cloves and nutmeg, prunes, cooked raisins, molasses and burnt sugar.
Curry’s apiaries in Riverdale, east of the Don River Valley, produce a medium-bodied honey, with notes from caramelized bananas and crème brûlée to hazelnut, cinnamon and sassafras spice.
City dwellers can develop hive-hosting partnerships with retail and manufacturing businesses, hotels, historical and tourist sites, universities and colleges, medical facilities, parks and botanical gardens, urban farms, and on lands owned by utilities.
The beekeeping industry in Ontario, though, has suffered from the Varroa destructor mite and viral infections. The compounding issue of multiple pests or diseases within a colony makes management difficult, says Curry.
“We use an integrated pest management approach and biosecurity practices,” he says. “All chemical control methods and antibiotics are registered for use in Ontario and applied in accordance with the provincial apiarist’s treatment options for honey bee pests and diseases.”
Sometimes beekeeping can mean keeping an eye on a honey bee’s work day. Angelica Fenner says her spouse once noticed a bee that seemed tired, sleeping on a flower petal. A few drops of sugar water from a dropper revived it, to fly back to the nest with its stash of pollen. “Even bees need to take a siesta and recharge sometimes!”
Occasionally there’s a major emergency – such as a frantic call from the property manager of a downtown high-rise where Curry keeps bees on the roof. The crane for a neighbouring tower under construction had collapsed onto hives. Curry grabbed his bee suit and smoker, and rushed over.
One hive had been slightly damaged, but the bees seemed unfazed, and were all okay. “The firefighters went about securing the crane, and we all chuckled about how a beekeeper was part of the emergency response team that day.”
Though Curry and husband Vinh sell many bee-related products, it is not a competitive business, as beekeepers support one another. For most, the revenue is a “fortunate by-product” of their passion project.
“I love beekeeping because it keeps me grounded and close to nature,” says Curry. “I can feel the rhythms of the seasons and sense the urgency of the changes.” And he loves the challenge of “these very complex macro-organisms. Although I have been keeping bees for over 25 years, I am still learning from them.”
