Beyond “saving the bees”: What beehives at UTM can teach us about our relationship with nature
From backyard gardening to UTM’s rooftop beehives, Professor Damian Maddalena discusses his journey into beekeeping, the role of honeybees in North America, and what students can learn from the campus colonies.
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Environmental scientist and landscape ecologist Professor Damian Maddalena is a sessional lecturer at UTM. He started beekeeping because of a question: what’s next?
While living in North Carolina, Maddalena had already transformed his front yard into vegetable gardens, planted fruit trees, and kept chickens in his backyard. He had also read about beekeeping for years.
He said, “I was like, all right, what next?”.
Inspiration struck around 2018 when Maddalena’s neighbour, whose father was a hobbyist beekeeper, offered to build him a beehive. Years later, Maddalena now tends to honeybee colonies on the green roof of the Instructional Centre, in the Sky Garden on U of T’s Galbraith Building downtown, and other locations.
What began as another addition to his backyard garden has become a personal interest and a way of thinking about ecology, agriculture, and the complicated relationship between humans and the species around us.
Picture provided by Prof. Damian Maddalena
Beyond the slogan, “Save the Bees”
It may seem strange for an environmental scientist to question the role of honeybees. However, Maddalena’s interest extends beyond protecting honeybees.
His background in landscape ecology has led him to consider what happens to native pollinators when honeybees are introduced into ecosystems where they did not originally evolve.
Honeybees are not native to North America, yet they have become deeply embedded in the continent’s agricultural system. Large-scale agriculture relies heavily on pollination, and honeybee colonies can be transported between agricultural regions to support crop production.
“We farm in these large, intense monocultures,” Maddalena explained. “Because of that, we have hired these little pollinators that we bring in and move around to pollinate many of the crops that we depend on.”
Maddalena said this is one of the reasons he finds beekeeping so interesting. It allows him to explore an environmental issue that does not have a simple answer.
“The reality is, honeybees do not need saving in North America,” he said, referring specifically to the popular environmental slogan “Save the Bees.” For him, protecting threatened native pollinators requires a different conversation.
The beehives at UTM therefore represent more than an effort to support pollinators. They are a starting point to discuss biodiversity, agriculture, and the way humans have reshaped natural environments.
A community built around the beehives
The ecological side of beekeeping is only part of its appeal. It is also a social activity.
Maddalena is the co-chair of the Urban Toronto Beekeepers’ Association (UTBA), where members range from their late twenties to their mid-eighties. Beekeeping gathers people who might otherwise never meet. It provides opportunities to turn conversations about bees into conversations about life.
“Learning about the lived experience of others is one thing that makes the [UTBA] community so interesting to me,” Maddalena shared.
That same sense of community extends to UTM’s beekeeping community. Maddalena works alongside fellow beekeeper Mohamad Alani, whose family has kept bees for three generations, primarily in Iraq, before continuing the practice in Canada.
The colonies also have a tangible connection to campus life. Honey produced by honeybees at UTM is sold on campus and used by food services, giving students and staff a small taste of what happens above their heads.
Photo provided by Prof. Damian Maddalena
What students can learn from bees
Beyond honey and pollination, Maddalena sees beekeeping as an opportunity to slow down. For him, working with the colonies is a meditative practice. It requires patience, attention, and an understanding that not everything happening inside a beehive can be controlled.
That patience also reflects a larger lesson about food systems. Maintaining bees means learning what it takes to care for livestock and where some of the food people consume actually comes from.
As for students who are nervous around bees, Maddalena has a simple piece of advice, “You’re not a flower.” Bees are generally interested in nectar and pollen, not people. Unless they feel threatened, they have little reason to interact with humans.
Keeping the colonies alive
Of course, maintaining a beehive is not always easy.
Last winter, UTM lost nearly all of its bee population, leaving only one surviving colony. Since then, Maddalena and the other beekeepers have worked to rebuild the colonies by splitting the surviving population.
“It’s always a numbers game,” he said.
As fall approaches, the focus shifts toward preparing the colonies for the winter. Honey is harvested, the hives are wrapped and insulated, and the beekeepers wait to see which colonies make it through the cold months.
Students interested in getting involved can reach out to Maddalena directly, although formal opportunities through his teaching are not currently available. Students can also connect with UofT BEES, a student-run club based at the St. George campus that operates its own hives downtown.
Looking beyond the beehives
The most interesting lesson from bees at UTM may be the complexity of nature it represents.
Honeybees are deeply connected to agriculture and have become an important social and cultural part of communities, but their relationship with native pollinators is more intricate than what environmental slogans represent.
For Maddalena, such complexity is exactly what makes beehives valuable.
They provide honey, bring people together and give students a chance to engage with an aspect of campus they might otherwise overlook. More importantly, they offer a way to think about the connections between biodiversity, agriculture and human communities.
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