The Rural Voice, 2000-04, Page 18A man with
a mission
Ernst Bayer wants to
teach the birds and
the bees about bees
to fill a $3.5 million
need in the Canadian
honey business
By Janice Becker
Bucking convention has worked
for Ernst Bayer as he rose
from German Czech refugee
after the Second World War to a
successful farmer in Southwestern
Ontario.
Now in his mid-70s, the Mitchell -
area man advocates a new way of
looking at the beekeeping business:
finding profits raising the insect
rather than harvesting the honey.
As a child in Eastern Europe,
Bayer learned beekeeping in school
and had his own hives by the age of
nine or 10.
Arriving in Canada in the late
1970s, Bayer brought with him
learned skills and methods of his own
development.
"Canadians are only trained for
honey making (business)," he says,
noting that each year thousands of
bees are brought in from Australia,
New Zealand and the United States
to satisfy the pollination needs of
Canadian crop growers and orchard
owners.
A strong proponent of
diversifying the industry, Bayer says
collecting honey is very labour
intensive and provides just 1/3 of his
(beekeeping) income.
"With only three packers taking
90 per cent of the honey, there is not
enough competition."
With his drive to encourage
weekend farmers, hobbyists, retired
agriculturalists and youngsters just
getting started, to consider bee
raising, Bayer hopes to create a new
facet to the bee business.
"This is something that takes very
little time and can be done by
anyone," he says.
14 THE RURAL VOICE
Ernst Bayer,
above in one of
his bee yards in
Mitchell, has
been training
beekeepers, free
of charge, in the
intricacies of
how to breed
bees. At right, he
pulls a super
from a hive.
Canada imports
bees every year
from Australia,
New Zealand
and the United
States but
there's good
money to be
made in
breeding new
colonies instead
of producing
honey, Bayer
says.
•
With his decades of experience,
Bayer does in fact make the process
sound easy. As a kick-start for
beginners, Bayer offers a free
training course for those interested.
His lesson begins with
information about the building of the
hives. Devising his own design over
the years, Bayer prefers hives built
with his own hands to any store-
bought structures.
A difference in dimensions for the
lid and an alternative division system
allows Bayer to have better control
over the bee population and avoid
excess losses.
Constructing one's own hives is
not an expensive undertaking as
Bayer uses scrap lumber and recycled
materials. It costs him approximately
$1.30 to build one section of the hive
and he sells it for $2.50.
During the training, he explains
the psychology of the bees, how the
reproduction cycle works and how to
preserve more than one queen bee to
enhance the propagation of hives.
He even provides tips on where to