Reminiscences of a honeyed career

CRANBROOK – Those involved in the art of keeping bees often mention a lifelong attraction to the insects. For BC provincial apiculturist Paul van Westendorp, a Grade 3 school trip sparked his interest.

“Apparently, it made such an impression on me, I couldn’t stop talking about them for weeks,” van Westendorp told the BC Honey Producers Association during its semi-annual education day in Cranbrook, March 21. “I took a course and got my first colony a couple of years later.”

Van Westendorp’s reminiscences came as he prepares to retire later this year after 35 years as the province’s bee specialist.

While some might use such an occasion to highlight their careers, van Westendorp instead chose to regale his audience with stories of the people he met and the programs he was involved with throughout the journey.

“This presentation is about nostalgia. I have a large collection of photographs,” says van Westendorp. “Much of the photographs have to do with the people who were part of my entire experience with bees and beekeeping.”

Born and raised in the Netherlands, van Westendorp’s career in the industry began almost by chance.

“I had immigrated to Canada and was attending UBC, and at a summer job fair, I was interviewed by a Ministry of Agriculture plant pathologist,” van Westendorp recalls. “He said, ‘You’re not really interested in plant pathology,’ and I said no, but I need a job and I told him about my experience with bees. He passed that information along and I got a call that led to three summers as a student working with bees for the Ministry of Agriculture.”

After graduating in the late ’70s, van Westendorp was involved in apiculture research and then spent several years working in tropical apiculture in East Africa. He was appointed provincial apiculturist for Alberta in the late 1980s before being appointed to the same role in BC in 1990.

It was in Alberta that van Westendorp first got a taste of what he refers to as “the time when beekeeping lost its innocence.”

The mite Varroa destructor was identified as the cause of devastating colony losses across Alberta through the winter and spring of 1988.

“I had to accompany the minister of agriculture to town halls across the province, and it was a real heart-wrenching experience,” he recalls. “We would be in the room with all these producers and they were telling the minister they were bankrupt.”

Within a decade, varroa was found ravaging beehives south of Abbotsford.

“Before that, beekeeping was a romantic pursuit, something on the fringes of agriculture perhaps, due to the nature of the people attracted to do this,” he says. “It was nice, peaceful, fun.”

But varroa changed that forever.

“We went from a relatively simple livestock management system to one of the most complex management systems of animal husbandry,” van Westendorp says. “Beekeeping is now extraordinarily difficult and challenging, so it’s not surprising we have annual mortality rates of up to 30%, while in the past it was less than 10.”

BCHAP past president Heather Higo has known van Westendorp since he became provincial apiculturist in 1990.

“What I admire about Paul is his ability to handle challenges,” Higo says.

“He has been able to solve issues without a big kerfuffle, and he is able to make things work for both the beekeeper and the government regulations.”

Van Westendorp’s patience also underpins his qualities as an educator.

“He has such a vast array of experience from different places that he can bring an international perspective,” Higo notes. “And he can present that very well to an audience.”

While van Westendorp spent many years leading beekeeping courses across the province, he says the constant travel complicated things.

“It was eventually substituted into a webinar course that reaches everybody with Internet access,” he notes. “And that is only partially so good, because in-person is always better.”

While Ontario has been credited with the first Technology Transfer Program in the country, van Westendorp likes to point out that BC had two full-time extension specialists serving the industry from the 1970s through to the 1990s.

“They did fantastic work in direct collaboration with the beekeeping communities in their area,” he says.

Julia Common notes that van Westendorp has always been responsive to individual beekeepers’ requests.

“He’s been incredibly supportive over the years,” says Common, co-founder of Hives for Humanity, which helps residents of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side raise bees. “He is one of those people who is able to walk into your yard and calm you down, because it’s usually a crisis when you call.”

Common mentions van Westendorp’s diplomacy as well.

“He gives advice when I ask for advice, but doesn’t do it otherwise,” she says. “He waits to be asked. He takes time to process and think, and then comes back after deliberating over it with a very analytical, sound mind. I really, really depend on him for that wonderful support.”

And his mellifluous choice of words also commands attention.

“Listening to Paul is always a pleasure because of his delivery,” notes Creston apiarist Jeff Lee, BCHPA’s representative to the Canadian Honey Council. “He always has a particular turn of phrase.”