In the second episode of our Winter series, we chat with founder and master beekeeper of ABC Bees, Eliese Watson. Since its founding in 2010 ABC Bees has become the leading beekeeping education company in Canada. Over her career, Eliese has taught beekeeping across North America, been featured in Forbes Magazine, and has represented small scale beekeepers to the Canadian Senate. Eliese has developed strong beginner, intermediate, and advanced beekeeping programming that have been shared with thousands of students. Eliese also teaches small-scale apiary production in a 5-week course online to other farmers, hobbyists, and enthusiasts from around the world through the Level One Beekeeping Course.
Eliese is an educator at heart, but beekeeping is her passion. She maintains tight management practices with her colonies and includes diverse stocks in her apiary. This is an effort to breed quality queens for the prairie climate and resilient survival stocks for treatment-free management and her experience in ethical and caring management of queens is expansive.
Through ABC Bees, she runs conservation programming for children, community associations, and private organizations. Eliese has also published four books engaging the public about bees; the trilogy Little Bees On Bees: “Solitary Bees”, “Bumble Bees”, “Gardening for Bees”, and a book for teachers use while educating children about the importance of bees, titled “Bee Inspired: Teaching Resource.”
Website: https://abcbees.ca/
Published Books: https://abcbees.ca/our-books/
Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP): https://nrc.canada.ca/en/support-technology-innovation/about-nrc-industrial-research-assistance-program
Fun Fact:
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its large body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible.