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Oak Lake honey farmer preps for bee season

Earl Dueck is in the beekeeping business, harvesting honey and selling bee stock.

Earl Dueck has a honey farm in the Oak Lake, area and continues the family tradition every year with his 5,500 plus swarm of busy bees. Dueck says his dad was a beekeeper as well and Earl has been carrying on with the family custom his entire life.

“My Mom and Dad started with bees in around 1939 in Kleefeld, Man. and expanded to Oak Lake in 1949,” say Dueck. He says he took the business over from his mom and dad in 1980, but he took a brief rest from working with the apiary. “I actually quit beekeeping for about three years because I was living in Saskatoon for a while.”

Now, the Dueck’s bee farm has all the equipment necessary to process and extract the honey. Honey extraction is the central process in beekeeping. It’s where the honey is extracted from the honeycombs so that it is isolated in a pure liquid form. “We mainly process raw honey only; I don’t cream my own honey at all,” adds Dueck.

The bee season starts around the end of March so he will start feeding them soon, however he says, “It is actually a year ‘round thing because when the bees are inside, I have to make sure the heat and fans are working.” adds Dueck. He says he has done a lot of feeding this winter, inside.

The beehives are located inside the bee boxes, which are stacked two boxes high. These boxes remain inside, while the remainder of the bee boxes, which is about ten percent, are wintered outdoors.

Dueck says he sets up his bee boxes within a twelve-mile radius of Oak Lake and typically the same locations every year. Areas preferably with canola and alfalfa. This is where he says he has been stung countless times. “It all comes with the beekeeping,” replies Dueck. “I think some people just have an actual immunity; they may swell up a little bit, but some people can take it and some can’t.”

In 2020 and 2021, Dueck states he lost a lot of bees due to mites that grew their young within the bees and then spread diseases to the bees.

At one point, Dueck says he had over 500 colonies and along with his partner, Kelly they now manage approximately 230 colonies. He also said that he is getting more into selling bees every spring rather than the actual honey production.

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