Profile of a Comprehensive Beekeeping Company
Honeybee Centre, a comprehensive beekeeping business since year 2000, has 38 employees and provides honey and pollen production in two provinces, pollination services, a retail country store location, wholesale products, courses, manufacturing of specialty honey, and other bee products.
Commercial Beekeeping in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada
Honeybee Centre operates close to 3,500 colonies and is a migratory beekeeping company with base operations in the Vancouver area of British Columbia and the Peace River region of Alberta. In addition, the company brokers honeybee colonies for the blueberry pollination business. This discussion on commercial beekeeping, found of Honeybee Centre, will take you on a one-year visual tour of migratory beekeeping in Western Canada—from a densely populated urban area to a spectacular Northern community where the average honey crop can reach over 300 pounds, the largest in the world.
John Gibeau is the founder of Honeybee Centre, Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, a fully integrated beekeeping company with 38 employees in two provinces. The business provides over 5,000 beehives for blueberry pollination, operates a country store, restaurant, manufactures beekeeping products, teaches courses, provides beekeeping consulting services, and handles honey bees, bumble bees, and wasps for the film industry. Mr. Gibeau designed, developed, and taught the commercial beekeeping program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, British Columbia, and as co-founder of Bee World Project, he has designed and worked in beekeeping development projects in Ethiopia, Uganda, Dominican Republic, and Haiti.
As a son of a beekeeper, John Gibeau grew up with bees, but did not transition into a commercial beekeeper until age 43, one year after attending Apimondia in Vancouver. He began his professional career with 16 years as a police officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the New Westminster Municipal Police, starting in the Patrol Division and ending with four years as a homicide investigator. John Gibeau has a BSc degree in Biology from the University of Alberta and a master’s degree in Business from Simon Fraser University.