Local food championed at annual forum

Bees bred in this region are disease free because of local breeding practices, says the vice-president of the Thunder Bay Beekeepers Association.

The honeybee has struggled across the globe because of a wave of parasites and diseases, such as colony collapse disorder, that affects beehives. Marla Spivak, a honeybee researcher at the University of Minnesota, told the Star Tribune recently that bee colonies have suffered devastating losses every year for the past four years.

To avoid these problems, area beekeepers breed their own queen bees for their colonies.

Barry Tabor, vice-president of the Thunder Bay Beekeepers Association, has about 30 colonies that at its peak can house 100,000 bees per colony. Tabor, who started his bee farm in 1994, bred his queen bee to ensure his colonies would continue to produce plenty of honey.

"We don’t import bees at all, everything is local" he said. "We don’t have the diseases like the rest of the world. People are eventually going to want these healthy bees. If colony collapse disorder did anything good it brought out the importance not only of the honeybee but of the pollinators in general...we need them."

Tabor has had a fascination with bumblebees since he was a child. He wanted to start a bumblebee colony but it would have been too much work so he decided to start a farm with the European honeybee.

There’s a lot of honey being made locally, Tabor said. All of the 80 members of the beekeeper’s association make honey and they either sell it around the city or give it away.

"It depends on the season, depends on what we call your honey flow,” he said. "If it is a good year, like last year, than we get bumper crops."

Tabor joined 25 other displays at the at the fifth annual Lakehead University Food Security Research Network Food Forum on Wednesday. The food forum highlights the various food security research compiled at the university to ensure that everyone has access to sustainable foods.

Tabor is a second-year participant of the event, and said he believes it’s a good way for the community to get to know what local food is available.

"I think it is very important that people look at local food and supporting our local farmers," he said. "It’s a global economy but it’s not good to be getting stuff from China and tomatoes that are ripped with gases. It’s much better to promote the local food."

Lee-Ann Chevrette, special events co-ordinator with the Food Security Research Network, said supporting locally produced foods could help with food security by eliminating the dependence on foreign foods.

"I think there is a really strong local food movement here," Chevrette said. "A lot of people remark when they visit outside at how strong the system is. The local food moment is here. I think we’re on the right path."

Chevrette said the food forum has grown each year with more displays and more interest in the local food movement and excepted next year to be even bigger than this year.