2024 UTM Honey: SOLD OUT!
You will be able to purchase from our office (DV3127) between 10:30am – 4pm (closed 1-2pm & weekends). We accept debit & credit!
Please Note
*UTM honey is available on a first come, first served basis*
> 100% raw > 100% local
> 100% natural > 100% pure
> 100% unpasteurized > 100% UTM
2024 pricing
250g - $10
500g - $16
1kg - $28
What’s the buzz?
On June 2, 2017, UTM welcomed our first three hives and 15,000 honeybees to campus.
Fast forward to 2024 and we now have more than ten hives, varying in size!
Learn more about our UTM Bees
Make sure you Meet the #UTMBeeCrew
Where are the bee-autiful bees?
Our UTM Bee friends may be found on the green roof of the Instructional Centre (IB building) on the third floor looking out to the back of the building (on the opposite side of the computer lab from the main stairs). While access to the roof is restricted to the #UTMBeeCrew and facilities staff, we have made sure to position the hives such that students, staff, and faculty may watch them hard at work through the large windows on the third floor.
Meet our UTM Bee Campus Crew
DAMIAN MADDALENA
UTM Beekeeper Extraordinaire
Why did you get involved with the UTM Bees?
It is a great way to connect with the larger UTM and Mississauga communities.
What got you in to beekeeping?
Gardening, keeping chickens, and general curiosity. I have always grown vegetables at home and while in graduate school began keeping chickens for eggs and meat, bees seemed like a fun project in the same vein. One passion led to the next.
What do you enjoy most about working with UTM Bees?
It's somewhat meditative. I am constantly on the go and beekeeping forces me to slow down and smell the… goldenrod? I also enjoy the connections and community around the bees at UTM. We have students, faculty, staff, and even the parent of a UTM student involved. Bees bring people together!
What is your role at UTM, outside of the UTM Bees?
Assistant professor in GGE. I teach courses in GIS, environmental science, ecosystem science, and related.
Fun Fact
Did you know that honeybees are not native to North America? They were imported here by settlers, and function now as an agricultural technology for pollination on intensive agricultural operations. The discourse on the ecological implications versus agricultural need of/for honeybees is growing. This is an important conversation, and one we welcome here on campus.
Follow Damian at @MeanderingBeeNC!
MOHAMAD ALANI
Beekeeper Extraordinaire
Coming soon!
SARAH WHITLOCK
Wannabee Beekeeper
What is your role with the UTM Bees?
I manage the comms & label design, oversee elements of the program, and most excitingly – aspire to build my own Bee crew, the Whitbees, one day!
How did you get involved with the UTM Bees?
Animals, outdoors, learning… need I say more? When the opportunity presented itself – I jumped.
What do you enjoy most about working with UTM Bees?
They’re FASCINATING! Bees are truly brilliant little flying animals. They’re efficient, loyal, hard-working, and adorable. The more I learn the more I fall in love. It’s a bit of a secret little society too – I had no idea so many people love bees.
And honestly that hum of their buzzing when you’re up there is so calming. A perfect antidote to an otherwise busy & adventurous life!
Fun fact
Not to jinx it or anything… but I’ve never been stung by a bee! See? They truly are sweet… as honey!
SABA ALSAADY
Lifelong Keeper of the Bees
What is your role with the UTM Bees?
I support Damian with keeping the bees and assist with hive checks. I also just love continuing to learn about them.
Why did you get involved with the UTM Bees?
It reminds me of my childhood, and is a wonderful connection to my past. It also allows me to connect to the UTM community in a new way and meet new interesting people like Sarah and Damian.
What do you enjoy most about working with UTM Bees?
Learning, being involved, and meeting new people. I also hope to grow, and become more of a pivotal role in the UTM Bee program!
What is your role at UTM, outside of the UTM Bees?
I work with Facilities Management & Planning as a Planning Specialist-Project Manager.
A fun fact
Adopting a pet changed my whole life and attitude! It has taught me patience, expanded my knowledge, and it puts a smile on my face. Meet BeeBee :).
ZAFIRAH
Content Support
How did you get involved with the UTM Bees?
I was first introduced to the UTM honeybees through an ROP with Professor Maddalena. The ROP looked at the ecological realities and impacts of the domestication and proliferation of the European Honeybee in North America with a focus on honeybees on the UTM campus. I spent my summer researching the honeybees, creating informational displays and contributing to the website content for the UTM Bees.
What do you enjoy most about working with UTM Bees?
I really enjoyed the sense of calm that the honeybees provide. Before stepping into an apiary for the first time I must admit I was a little scared. However, after experiencing the buzzing calm of a bee hive and tasting honey straight from the honeycomb, I realized there's not much to be scared of! The feeling of standing there while hundreds of tiny creatures surround you just going about their business was an amazing experience.
What is your role at UTM, outside of the UTM Bees?
I am currently in my third year studying Environmental Science and GIS. I love being involved around campus and unlike bees I don't sting, so feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
Fun fact
I don't actually like the taste of honey, but it is so beneficial for your health!
What bee-haviour can you expect to see?
SPRING
Spring is one of the busiest times of the year for honeybees.
Days get longer, new colonies start, and established hives come alive – exploding in population as the queen keeps laying eggs.
Worker bees increase in number, drones reappear, and hive activity starts buzzin’! You’ll see lots of activity around the hives around this time.
Nectar and pollen begins coming into the hive thick and fast, honey production begins, and life is exciting again.
SUMMER
Worker bees are busy collecting pollen, gathering nectar to convert into honey, and building the beeswax comb to store both. Ever heard of the term “busy bee”!?
The colony reaches its peak size in the summer.
Around this time, you may also see a large gathering of bees on the outside of a hive, particularly on warm or humid nights. Not to worry! They’re not running away, it’s nothing nefarious – they’re simply cooling off on the front porch. Cute eh?
Our sweet honeybees may become a little less docile this time of year. You may see our beekeepers in their gloves and veils, and using their smokers!
FALL
As the weather cools and nectar and pollen sources become scarce, activity in the hives slows down.
The queen’s egg-laying slows drastically, drones disappear, and hive population drops.
Ready for this? The bees begin bringing in propolis (a resinous substance from tree buds) to close up cracks in the hive that may leak in cold winter air. They’re prepping for a cold winter!
Smart little ladies.
WINTER
While it may not look like much on the outside, the bees are busy on the inside. The queen is surrounded by 1000’s of her workers who keep the temperature in the hive warm by clustering around her and generating heat by ‘shivering’ their wing muscles!
They’re consuming the honey they have prepared for the winter, and get this – they don’t ‘go to the bathroom’ inside their hive. They wait for a mild day and they go outside to use the facilities!
Like we said… smart little ladies!
Source: (Blackistan, 2020)
It takes a village
During the summer months hives can reach a population of about 60,000 bees!
Her Majesty, the Queen
The heart and soul of the colony. There is only one queen per colony, and without a healthy queen, the hive wouldn’t survive.
She is long in shape and larger than other bees. She is the only bee who can lay eggs. In fact – she can produce more than 1,500 eggs a day, at 30-second intervals.
She has a team of worker bees that tend to her every need. She has a stinger, but rarely do queens use them.
Her life expectancy is ~ 2 years.
The industrious little Worker Bee
Worker bees make up the majority of the colony, and they are all female. Workers are smaller than queens and drones, and have stingers. Their life expectancy is only 6 weeks during the colony’s active season, however during the less active winter months they can live 4-8 months.
Worker bees couldn’t accomplish nearly as much on their own as they do together as a team. During busy months, little worker bees literally work themselves to death.
Funny enough – worker bees jobs grow in responsibility with age. Sound familiar? She will start with little jobs inside the hive like housekeeping, tending the nursery, fanning, and protection of the home, to larger jobs like leaving the colony to collect pollen and nectar and bringing it back to the hive.
The Drone
These are the males of the hive, and there aren’t very many of them. They have large, barrel-shaped bodies with enormous eyes, and they don’t have a stinger. Their main job in life is to mate… and it’s a pretty wild experience.
Mating takes place more than a mile away from the hive, at about 200-300 feet above ground, in mid-air, mid-flight. Mating causes them fairly significant personal injury and is their ultimate cause of death. They must spot the queen while she is out on her flight.
Any drones left in the hive after mating season are literally tossed out of the hive by the worker bees as they have large appetites and no value, now that mating season is over.
DID YOU KNOW:
Guarding worker bees only allow family members to pass – they drive off strange bees, wasps, hornets and others. That said, bees from other hives are occasionally allowed in when they bribe the guards with nectar!!
DID YOU KNOW:
Foraging worker bees will visit 5 million flowers to produce a single pint of honey. They forage a 2- to 3- mile radius from the hive – that’s the equivalent of several thousand acres!
Source: (Blackistan, 2020)
Bees and other Stingers
DID YOU KNOW: many people say they’ve been stung by a bee… but the chances that it was a bee are rather slim.
Honeybee
These black and yellow sweethearts are nearly entirely covered in hair! They’ve got two large eyes and 3 smaller eyes which help them see in the darkness of the hive.
They value hard work! They collect pollen and nectar and make lots of honey. They’re extremely effective pollinators and are a valuable agricultural tool in North America.
Honeybees are docile and gentle. They have barbed stingers which stay in a human once stung, making it very unlikely that they will sting.
Bumblebee
AKA the humble bee. They are gentle, large, plump, black and yellow and hairy. They loudly buzz from flower to flower and live in small ground nests. Bumblebees only have a few hundred bees per hive.
They do make honey, but only tiny amounts. They are extremely unlikely to sting.
Carpenter Bee
Looks like a bumble bee, but are quite different. They nest by tunneling through solid wood. They only have a few dozen offspring per season
They are gentle and unlikely to sting, but can do significant damage to your house / property.
Mason Bee
They look similar to Bumbles and Carpenters, but are very different. They don’t have a queen as all females are fertile and make their own mud-sealed nests in natural tubes like reeds or dead trees. They do not make honey.
They are very effective pollinators! They are very gentle and unlikely to sting. If they do, it is more likely to feel like a mosquito bite than a painful wasp or hornet sting.
Wasp
They have hairless, smooth and hard bodies with ultra-thin waists and are brown or black. They build paper nests in door frames or windowsills and are quick to attack by even the slightest disturbance.
They are social and are meat eaters that are attracted to sweets. They do not have barbed stingers like bees – and can therefore sting you over and over!
Yellow Jacket (a type of wasp)
Fierce and highly aggressive. ½-inch in length and are yellow and black. They’re meat-eaters and are attracted to fruits and other sweets, which is why they are such a problem in picnic areas.
More aggressive than hornets, but both are very protective of nests. Even just vibrations from people walking by can trigger them. These guys are responsible for most stings that are wrongly-attributed to bees!
Hornet (another type of wasp)
The largest of the wasp world, about ¾-inch long, and are black and white or pale yellow.
They aggressively guard their nests and their stings can be quite painful.
Source: (Blackistan, 2020) & wsu.edu/Hornets-and-Yellowjackets
Busy bees are busy making honey!
Photographer: Alison Dias
- In 2017 we harvested 103 kg of honey
- 2018 = 246 kg
- 2019 = 263 kg
- 2020 = 187 kg
- 2021 = 656 kg
- 2022 = 374 kg
- 2023 = 320 kg
Depending on how much honey is harvested, UTM will use the honey for various initiatives such as UTM kitchens, Community Kitchen workshops, for gifts as part of donation requests, fundraising initiatives, and for sale to the UTM community (where the money is directly reinvested back into the UTM Bee program).
DID YOU KNOW: Each season tastes slightly different based on which plants and flowers are in bloom, which makes the honey that much more special. It is truly a limited edition, each time we harvest.
CRYSTALS ARE A BEES BEST FRIEND
Has your UTM Honey crystallized?
Photographer: Alison Dias
Why does honey crystallize?
Honey is made of two ingredients: sugar and water. The sugar is dissolved in the water, but there's more sugar than the water can hold. Put another way, there's not enough water to keep the sugar dissolved forever. So, the two ingredients will eventually separate, forming crystals. Raw honey crystallizes faster because it contains trace amounts of pollen or beeswax which have been filtered out from processed honey.
How to stop your UTM Honey from crystallizing?
The best way to keep honey from crystallizing is to store it at room temperature, ideally in a dark cupboard away from direct sunlight. Avoid storing it in the refrigerator, as cooler temperatures will make honey crystallize faster. Finally, keep in mind that all honey will eventually crystallize, as it's a natural side effect of its chemical makeup. To avoid it altogether, enjoy the honey sooner!
How to de-crystallize your UTM Honey
Crystallized honey is safe to eat, but if you would like to de- crystallize it, simply put your jar of honey into a bowl and fill the bowl with warm tap water until about halfway up the jar. Carefully open the jar and stir the honey until it reaches your desired consistency.
Source: marthastewart.com
HONEYBEES
What’s the Scoop [on the UTM Bees]?
In 2023 we said our goodbyes to UTM beekeeper Don Forster after six years of delicious honey as he headed off to his well-earned retirement, and welcomed our new UTM beekeeper Damian Maddalena. Maddalena is an apiarist and professor at UTM. The UTM Bees have quite the care team now, and you can meet the #UTMBeeCrew here!
Honeybees offer significant benefits such as honey production, pollination of crops, and a sense of community to like-minded folks! Understanding the realities of European honeybees on a Canadian campus allows for better appreciation of their complex role in our ecosystems and societies.
Honeybees in Canada
Our UTM Bees are honeybees (Apis mellifera). Honeybees were introduced to North America in the early 17th century from Europe as a non-native pollinator species (Carpenter, 2021). Honeybees play a role in pollination, agriculture (agricultural species like cows and chickens), and a vital role in the production of honey.
Supporting Both Native & Non-Native
Although research suggests that honeybees are known to compete with native bee species like bumblebees (Genus bombus) for resources such as pollen and nectar (Aizen, 1994), UTM is dedicated to supporting both native-bee species and non-native pollinators and has implemented several native pollinator gardens across campus. These pollinator gardens consist of native plants that specifically cater to native pollinator species’ preferences and requirements.
What are pollinator gardens?
Native, nectar-rich flora that bloom during different periods. Some of these nectar-rich plants include Black-eyed Susans, Eastern Coneflowers, New England Asters, and Milkweed for monarch butterflies. Many of these native plants can be spotted at UTM!
DID YOU KNOW
Pollen is one of the richest and purest of natural foods? According to Blackistan (2020), eating local honey every day can relieve the symptoms of pollen-related allergies if the honey is harvested within a 50-mile radius of where you are.
DID YOU KNOW
Beekeeping is a widely treasured cultural practice worldwide?
This heartfelt passion is one that many around the world can relate to. In a recent survey it was found that over 73% of beekeepers characterize their bee interactions as a relationship (Marx, 2017). Priding themselves in being able to feel the mood of their hives, the participants deduce that this connection is one of mutual respect.
Do we need to ‘Save the Bees’?
In the wise words of UTM beekeeper Professor Damian Maddalena, “saying ‘Save the Bees’ is like saying ‘Save the Chickens’.” Honeybees do not require intensive conservation efforts. With that said, the impact that the European honeybee has had on Canadian ecosystems is one that has certainly sparked discourse, with studies arguing both for, and against, the non-native pollinator. This discourse was first introduced in the 1970’s and at the time there was little information available on the topic.
Are honeybees endangered?
In some areas of the world, honeybees face diseases and mites and as a result some subspecies of honeybees are endangered. However, the European honeybee is not considered endangered. As a generalist species they tend to have a more general niche due to their diet and habitat, and can adapt to survive various climate conditions (Abou-Shaura, 2014).
Interested in learning more?
- UofT’s research on how honeybees identify outsiders
- More on bees
In the News
with the UTM Bees!
For any UTM Bee program inquiries please contact hospitality.utm@utoronto.ca
For any honeybee questions please contact Professor Damian Maddalena damian.maddalena@utoronto.ca
Follow for updates and honey information @UTMhospitality
Resources:
- Abou-Shaara, H. F. (2014). The foraging behaviour of honey bees, Apis mellifera: a review. Veterinarni medicina, 59(1).
- Blackistan, H. (2020). Beekeeping for Dummies (5th Edition). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Goulson, D., & Sparrow, K. R. (2009). Evidence for competition between honeybees and bumblebees; effects on bumblebee worker size. Journal of insect conservation, 13, 177-181.
- Aizen, M. A., & Feinsinger, P. (1994). Habitat fragmentation, native insect pollinators, and feral honey bees in Argentine 'Chaco Serrano'. Ecological applications, 4(2), 378-392.
- Carpenter, M.H., Harpur, B.A. Genetic past, present, and future of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) in the United States of America. Apidologie 52, 63–79 (2021). doi.org/10.1007/s13592-020-00836-4
- Cunningham, S. A., Crane, M. J., Evans, M. J., Hingee, K. L., & Lindenmayer, D. B. (2022). Density of invasive western honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies in fragmented woodlands indicates potential for large impacts on nativespecies. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 3603.
- Marx, K. (2017) “It’s not that they sting you. It’s that they don’t sting you.” Beekeepers and the narrative construction of human-honeybee relationships.
- Prendergast, Kit S., Kinglsey W. Dixon, and Philip W. Bateman. "The evidence for and against competition between the European honeybee and Australian nativebees." Pacific Conservation Biology 29.2 (2022):89-100. publish.csiro.au/pc/pc21064
- Pyke, G. (1999). The introduced Honeybee Apis mellifera and the Precautionary Principle: Reducing the conflict. Australian Zoologist, 31(1), 181-186.
- Rollin, O., & Garibaldi, L. A. (2019). Impacts of honeybee density on crop yield: A meta‐analysis. Journal of Applied Ecology, 56(5), 1152-1163.
- Thomson, D. (2004). Competitive interactions between the invasive European honeybee and native bumble bees. Ecology, 85(2), 458-470.
Questions? Contact us!
hospitality.utm@utoronto.ca
(905) 569-4795
William G. Davis building, Suite 3127
Making experiences, exceptional