In a recent report by the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists, it was revealed that more than 41% of honeybee colonies in Alberta failed during the winter of 2025 due to the harsh climate conditions in Canada.
To address this challenge, Beekeeping Innovations Ltd., based in the Calgary area, has introduced an innovative solution called the Bee Cube. This unique apiary offers a fully climate-controlled environment capable of accommodating multiple honeybee colonies, with a specific focus on ensuring the bees’ comfort and survival during the winter months.
Herman Van Reekum, the founder and CEO of Beekeeping Innovations Ltd., highlighted the company’s primary objective of developing a system to efficiently produce queens in a safe and cost-effective manner. By creating a domestic source of queens, the Bee Cube aims to reduce the reliance on importing foreign queen bees, which are often brought in from warmer regions like Australia, New Zealand, California, and Hawaii.
Imported bees not only struggle to adapt to the Canadian environment but also pose a significant risk of introducing harmful pests such as varroa mites. Van Reekum emphasized the importance of safeguarding against potential threats like the Tropilaelaps mite, which, if introduced to North America, could have devastating effects on local honeybee populations.
The process of queen bee production involves carefully selecting and nurturing larvae with royal jelly to ensure their development into queens. By breeding local queens, beekeepers can mitigate mite infections and potentially cultivate bees with genetic resilience to withstand the severe cold of Canadian winters.
With a goal to significantly increase queen production, Beekeeping Innovations Ltd. aims to scale up their operations and produce around 5,000 queens this year, building on the success of generating 800 queens in the previous year.
Alberta stands out as Canada’s leading honey producer, housing nearly 40% of the country’s bee colonies. The province plays a vital role in the national honey industry, which had a total harvest value of $241 million in 2025. Beyond honey production, Canadian beekeeping contributes substantially to agricultural pollination services, supporting billions in economic impact by facilitating the pollination of various crops essential for human consumption.
Van Reekum underscored the critical role of bees in pollinating crops, highlighting that 33% of the food we consume is made possible by bees’ pollination activities across canola fields, orchards, and berry farms, emphasizing the indispensable role of bees in sustaining our food supply chain.