Today's Article

It's an especially dangerous time for bees, with only half of the country's 2hives surviving the 3harsh season.

And that has a local company working on a homegrown solution.

Meet the "Bee Cube," a revolutionary indoor 4apiary with a fully controlled environment, designed just outside of Calgary in Okotoks.

It's a technology the company says is 5shaking up 150 years of traditional beekeeping.

"So it's been a great learning experience. So now, the goal is to 6replicate this and do this in more, more hives."

Out of about 800,000 hives in Canada, only 50% survive our winters, forcing Canadian beekeepers to import replacements from places like Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and California.

The Bee Cube's goal is to 7breed 8robust queens that are better adapted to the cold and local 9microbiome.

Inside the cube, a team is 10carrying out a delicate scientific mission, selecting 11larvae from Alberta hives that have successfully survived a brutal winter.

"The queen is laying 2,000 eggs a day."

To produce these queens, the beekeepers use a technique called 12grafting, taking larvae out of a cell and putting them in a special cup with royal jelly.

"We put, for example, in queenless 13colonies. The next day we come in here, check how many queen cells is ready."

14A far cry from traditional farming, Herman Van Reekum and his team rely on the advanced engineering of the Bee Cube to breed the Alberta Super Bee.

Using smart sensors, they monitor the temperature and humidity at the heart of the 15brood nest in real time to ensure 16optimal development.

"We produced about almost 800 last year. This year we'd like to make 5,000. That's kind of our goal for this year."

About one-third of the human diet relies on bee 17pollination.

By successfully winning the wintering gamble, the team is helping secure the food supply one queen at a time.