Nick Melka started his company, Miel MTL, in 2015 out of a love for bees. Diagnosed with Lyme Disease at 21, Melka says raw honey seemed to be the antidote that got him out of the hospital and gave his life back to him. “I was so much better that I got back into school, was exercising,” Melka says, “I came up with ideas to help the bees that helped me so much.”
Melka is one of the many who’ve taken up urban honey beekeeping in Montreal in recent years. Though with a sharp rise in the number of urban beehives in and around Montreal, entomologists are stressing that having your own beehive isn’t helping to save the bees. At least not all of them.
In 2012, Montreal was home to between 100 and 200 managed honey beehives. Today, there’s something near 2,000. And while the beehive boom may have brought more bees to the city, it’s only one out of 177 of species that are being supported.