Photostory #322: Western Canadian Apiculture in Clover: Prairie Honey -- Growing Beehive of Industry

Photographers
Gar Lunney
Maker
National Film Board of Canada
Release Date
October 16, 1962
Collection
CMCP fonds
Credit Line
Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives
Main Text
Canada's busiest bees are buzzing across the three Prairie Provinces. The fertile flatlands reaching from Alberta's foothills to eastern Manitoba's dense bushland have been blown for decades as a rich world granary and beef-cattle range, have more recently become equally famous for mineral-industrial wealth and other more varied types of farming. Now the prairies can lay claim to another title of plenty -- a land flowing with oil and honey. As in the black liquid gold of the oil wells, so Alberta also leads in producing the golden liquid of the bee -- last year becoming Canada's top honey-producing province. Across the prairies more than 4,000 western beekeepers have boosted their combined honey production more than 30 per cent in recent years to an annual crop of 20 million pounds -- two-thirds of the national total. Increased production is due to better management, modern processing, a growing demand for this staple food of the Druids and Ancients of pre-historic times. High quality of Canadian honey leads to its export to such countries as Britain, Poland, West Germany, Greece, the West Indies, assures rising domestic sales of mankind's oldest, most-fabled health food -- the nectar of nature in flowery full bloom.