WHAT’S THE BUZZ, WAYNE, TELL US WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH POLLINATORS?

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — Pollinators is the new buzz word for the environment, your gardens, your backyards — and even for front lawns that are now passé.

So when Wayne McGill says “mind your own bees” he really means it.

The avid gardener practises what he preaches.

And while he has several queen bees — he’s the “king bee.”

Beekeeper Wayne McGill is the “king bee” to his queens, drones and worker bees in his backyard.

The retired teacher has more than a hundred thousand honey bees, drones and worker bees — buzzing about his backyard and working the neighbouring gardens and natural habitats in downtown Gravenhurst to spread their love.

They’re the bee-utiful insects spreading pollen plant to plant and enabling the local flora and fauna to be bee healthy.

An amateur beekeeper the past decade he has four hives — each with anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 bees.

He’s doubled his hives the past couple of years.

It’s a serious hobby he happily engages in and from which he reaps maybe 40 or 50 pounds of honey per year — which he mostly gives away to friends and neighbours who he says approve and love what he does for the neighbourhood.

With their permission they just “let him bee.”

He’s says it’s “interesting each week to look at them and tend them.”

Most years he harvests a single large crop of honey in August, but this summer may see him start scraping his frames of beeswax and spinning the next month to hopefully yield two crops in 2022.

A honey of a job, for sure.

Suited up for safety, Wayne McGill says he’s been stung only a few times over his 10 years keeping bees, but “nothing serious.” And the serious amateur beekeeper says it’s still a “honey of a job.”
McGill harvests about 30-50 pounds of honey a year, which he mostly gives away to neighbours who approve of his hives hobby.
Front yard gardens like Lois Cooper’s poppy plants on Muskoka Road south in Gravenhurst are perfect for pollinator bees to save the planet.
Work with me. Native plants and gardens, like those at the home of Bob Weekes and Janice Wright, not only attract bees, but also other insects that create a more sustainable biodiversity.
An active environmentalist, Wayne McGill makes sure neighbouring Davey tree removers know where to dump wood chips he uses as ground cover in his garden and around trees.

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