Beekeeping keeps Devin Litt connected to family roots

A suited-up Devin Litt shows how nectar is turned into honey on the Litt family farm near Shakespeare. The four boxes, one on top of the other, only have bees making honey in the top two boxes. The caretaking family says bees don’t poop where they live; they go outside the hive for that. Gary West photo

By Gary West

There are days this time of year, on a farm near Shakespeare when the sound of bees buzzing is a regular occurrence every morning.

Devin Litt is a progressive beekeeper who manages his colonies the same way a dairy farmer manages his herd of milk-producing cows.

Taking over the bee farm from his father and mother, Wayne and Jean Litt, made it that much easier to get started. His Dad and Mom are now in their 40th year on their farm and sharecrop their land with local dairy farmer Gary Pletsch.

Beekeepers also produce a very healthy product, and the sweet, natural taste of honey is something Devin and his family remain most proud of.

A story can usually start with a call from a neighbour, who feels a 40-acre field blanketed with white-flowering buckwheat, where bees are abuzz this time of year, deserves recognition, and this writer surely did agree.

This beekeeping story has a history that we’re sure most will find intriguing.

Devon says his Opa, Everet, and his Oma, Alderdina, on his mom’s side, came from Holland to the Finch area of Eastern Ontario after the Second World War.

They initially did dairy farming, but his Opa kept a hive or two of bees back in Holland and eventually turned the farm into an apiary in Canada.

At its peak, they had around 1,000 hives, raised seven children, three of whom eventually became commercial beekeepers.

Shortly after his mom and dad (Wayne and Jean) married, his dad started keeping bees as a hobby, and for years he worked with his brother.

They kept 30 to 40 hives, so Devin says, “he has always been around beekeeping in some way, whether working with his dad and uncle or visiting his grandparents as a kid.”

The idea of beekeeping had always been somewhere in the back of Devin Litt’s mind, and like many agricultural businesses, it is fairly capital-intensive to get to any meaningful scale.

He says, “There is also a lot of risk involved with livestock, and colony losses can vary significantly from one year to the next, too.”

Because of that, he never really considered it seriously until about seven years ago when he was transitioning between jobs.

What did appeal to him was the lifestyle. Like any form of agriculture, there are plenty of things outside of your control, but there is also a pretty direct connection between the work you put in and the results you get out.

A lot of consumers appreciate the connection of “Farm to Table” when it comes to their food, and he thinks agriculture and “apiculture,” in his case, offer a similar connection from a labour perspective.

The 43-year-old says he loves being outdoors, and he liked the idea of eventually having the freedom to be his own boss.

When he started, he hoped to follow in the footsteps of his family members and eventually make beekeeping a full-time business.

As it turns out, he really enjoyed the career and company he had worked for and transitioned to (John Moses of Mitchell), and beekeeping has become more of a very busy hobby.

This year, he is operating around 70 colonies, although he generally likes to be closer to 100.

On average, his bees produce between 3,000 and 4,500 pounds of honey per year, although that can vary from year to year, depending on environmental conditions, availability of nearby crops and colony survival from one year to the next.

The provincial average for colony losses is around 25 per cent per year (depending on mite problems), and personally, he has had years with losses as high as 80 per cent, as well as years with 100 per cent survival, which can be very rewarding.

In the future, his ambitions to scale much larger may not be what he is aiming for now, with his full-time job, but he does really enjoy his summers in his bee yards.

He says it can make for a busy time when combined with his day job, but as most farmers know, there’s nothing quite like being outside, and he says bees really are impressive creatures after a study of them.

He says, “he knows it’s a small thing, but he really does enjoy the simplicity of it all. Try to give the bees what they need, and in return, you get to produce something special that local honey lovers can enjoy and trust, and at the same time help in the pollination of local plants and flowers in the area.”