James Macdonald

James has been keeping bees for the past 41 years and currently operates Armstrong Apiaries Honey Company in Armstrong, BC. His early experience working on commercial honey operations taught him how not to keep bees. In Saskatchewan in the 1970s, the standard for producing honey commercially was to import packages of honeybees in April and then dispatch the full colonies with a puff of cyanide in September. Thankfully, times have changed! In the 1980s, James became part of a team that implemented the Honeybee Stock Improvement Project in Vernon, BC. Local BC Queens were a result of this landmark breeding program, and they are now raised by a number of queen producers throughout the province. Working in Africa and Asia over the past 30 years has also provided James with a wide range of beekeeping experience with a number of species of honey-producing bees. James is a passionate life-long learner, and he will share about his honey and bee-breeding operation in the Okanagan.