The Ukrainian dream of Île d’Orléans

It’s an unknown fact: when you bite into a fruit or vegetable produced on Île d’Orléans, there is a good chance that you will help, even a little bit, the devastated economy of Ukraine. It is the patriotic gesture of a couple of Ukrainian beekeepers who dreamed of seeing bees flying from Ukraine to the island of Félix Leclerc. And who made it.

(Saint-Jean-de-l’Île-d’Orléans) A boat passes by. A dog barks. Volodymyr and Valentyna tell.

They are seated at a wooden table just behind their house in Saint-Jean-de-l’Île-d’Orléans. The water is abnormally high. All you have to do is get up and take 10 steps to fall into the river.

We immediately understand why, in 2007, these two Ukrainian immigrants who had just arrived in Montreal with “two children and two suitcases” hastened to leave the metropolis for Île d’Orléans. They fell in love with the place.

“We planted our roots here,” says Valentyna Minenko. “When we moved to the island in December 2007, 6 m of snow fell. It was shocking for us! »

Both dreamed of becoming beekeepers, of having bees, of producing honey.

“We started by producing honey with 3 hives, then 10 hives, then 100 hives… When we reached 100 hives, we understood that it was not just honey that brought in money, it was pollination. We thought we could survive with honey, but in Quebec, it’s first with pollination,” explains Volodymyr Levchenko.

They now have 500 hives in about 30 sites on the island. The couple works with the island’s largest growers of strawberries, raspberries, cucumbers, zucchini and apples for pollination.

Their beautiful immigration story could have ended there. But the beekeepers cherished an old dream: to import the famous bees of their native country to populate the island of Orleans with them.

This dream would come up against many pitfalls. First there was the paperwork and customs, not to mention the pandemic. Then the war broke out.

But they persisted. Volodymyr apologizes for a moment, enters the house and comes out with a cardboard box stamped with words in the Cyrillic alphabet.

“We just received this box. There are about 1000 queens in it. They come from Ukraine. »

A Ukrainian tradition

The idea of ​​importing bees from their homeland has been in the minds of Volodymyr and Valentyna for years. Quebec must import queens at the beginning of the season to rebuild its hives. The climate here does not allow enough of it to be produced early in the spring.

“We worked for 10 years with bees from New Zealand, Australia, Chile, the United States, Italy… It doesn’t work. We always have a lot of losses, ”notes Volodymyr.

The honey bee is not a native species in Canada. Each year, producers import hundreds of thousands of queens. They form hives that are often rented out to fruit and vegetable growers for the vital pollination.

Volodymyr and Valentyna said to themselves: why not Ukrainian queens?

The country was before the war the fifth largest producer of honey in the world. Beekeeping is an old tradition there. “In every village, there are two or three beekeepers,” Volodymyr remarks. “The climate of Ukraine resembles the climate of Canada a little more than that of Italy. So why not raise bees from Ukraine here? »

The project got underway in 2015. By 2020, they and other importers had all the permits in hand and had found Ukrainian beekeepers willing to sell them queens. But the pandemic has put everything on hold.

The first Ukrainian bees arrived on Île d’Orléans in 2021, via Volodymyr and Valentyna. They received 1,500, resold some to other Quebec beekeepers, then kept the rest for their own hives.

They were preparing to import even more in 2022. But Russia invaded Ukraine. Volodymyr rushed to Ukraine to see the family. It was the first time he had returned home since immigrating to Canada.

“When I crossed the border from Poland to Ukraine, lots of men were returning home, leaving their jobs in Germany, Poland, Europe… Women and old people were leaving, men were returning. I will always remember this image. »

The beekeeper returned to Quebec devastated by what he had seen. The couple decided to continue importing, whatever the cost.

Cry of joy

Some of the beekeepers who supplied them with queens had gone into battle. Those left behind thought it over, then finally agreed to continue. With Ukraine’s skies closed, the bees had to be sent by train to Warsaw, Poland, then by plane to Toronto.

In 2022, by competing in ingenuity, the couple brought in 4,000 Ukrainian bees. They all found takers, remembers Valentyna.

“A lot of beekeepers bought Ukrainian queens to support Ukraine. When the war started, lots of people ordered from our website. We cried about it. »

This year, they expect to receive 5,000.

Each time, they have to drive to Pearson airport in Toronto, where they ask to be served in French at Canadian customs. “We are French-speaking, we don’t speak English”, notes Valentyna. “Now they all recognize us when we arrive and they go and look for the person who speaks French. »

Agriculture in Ukraine has been devastated by the war. Beekeeping is no exception. In 2022, the country’s honey production fell by 60%. Hives are destroyed by the thousands.

Volodymyr and Valentyna find a small comfort in the idea of ​​being able to help their country of origin. They estimate the sums they send each year to Ukrainian beekeepers exporting queen bees at more than US$50,000.

Their hives are now full of these Ukrainian bees. “If someone eats a strawberry or an apple from the island, it is our bees that have pollinated the flowers! “says the beekeeper.

The couple intends to continue this import as long as there is demand for bees from Ukraine. The project has become a patriotic gesture for them, a way of supporting a people at war and reconnecting with the country of their childhood.

“You don’t make a lot of money with that,” Volodymyr said. There are losses, transport costs, but we are happy to send money for these beekeepers and for the country. »