Festival of Bees returned for its sixth year at the Langley Demonstration Garden on Saturday, May 27.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., visitors to the garden in the 21200-block of Fraser Hwy. could explore the wild world of bees and pollination.
It’s a yearly event to kick off the season for the garden, said Nichole Marples, executive director at Langley Environmental Protection Society (LEPS).
This year the festival featured local vendors and honey farmers, the Langley Bee Club, bee experts, a barbecue, kids crafts, and a native plant sale.
“This is our fun celebration that raises some awareness about the importance of our native pollinators,” Marples said.
Every third bite of food comes from a pollinated plant and while honeybees are important, they are more of an agricultural animal, she said.
“We have a really wide variety of native pollinators —different types of bumblebees, mason bees, sweat bees, and more — that live fully in our environment and play a huge role in quality food we eat. Without bees, we would be starving.”
Not to mention, bees are adorable, Marples adds.
Planting native plants like lavender, nootka rose, or salmon berry provides native bees with the nutrients they need to get through the shoulder seasons.
“Having these native plants widely available in people’s backyards and not just in natural areas, helps disperse and provides more opportunities for these pollinators,” she said.
Shelley Armstrong operates her first-generation honeybee farm, Comb Sweet Comb, in Aldergrove and set up a booth at the festival to sell her homemade products, including honey, beeswax candles, and soap.
“We have a no spray region, so we know our honey is nice and clean, and we don’t take our bees off our property at all,” she said.
Armstrong studied bees as part of her biology degree and has been honey farming since the 90s.
“It’s not an easy thing to do sometimes, but I don’t know if I’ll every be able to not have bees in my life.”
She also sells packaged honey bees, and local and imported queen bees.
Details can be found at combsweetcomb.ca.
Courtney White, secretary at the bee club, has always been interested in bees and got her first hive when she was 14.
“Planting for pollinators is really important — even leaving your dandelions alone for the first bit of spring,” she said.
She said the club is always looking for new members, regardless of previous experience.
More information can be found at langleybeeclub.org.
Another group at the festival was Blading for Bees, a small Aldergrove-based team who aim to raise awareness about bees and a sustainable lifestyle by rollerskating through cities.
The team of skaters are hoping to break the Guinness World Record of the world’s longest journey on roller blades next year, by skating 9,000 km around the globe.
Founder and team lead, Zach Choboter, said he wanted to show people how important bees are for food and the environment.
“Everything is so balanced and we’re all so interconnected. We rely on each other, so we have to help each other out,” he said.
For more information, people can visit bladingforbees.com.
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