The Santropol Roulant Beekeeping Collective is seeking new volunteers to build a collective that will keep our urban hives healthy and happy!
About Us
Santropol Roulant Beekeeping Collective is a group of beekeepers working to support the permanence and the sustainability of the beekeeping community in Montreal. We promote the interests of bees and beekeepers to maintain a healthy and vibrant urban beekeeping practice in Montreal. Our hives are located on the rooftop of Santropol Roulant at 111 Roy Est.
Recruitment for new members takes place annually, around February each year, and if selected, a member is asked to commit to actively participate for at least a year. Many people participate for multiple years gaining a wealth of knowledge in that time.
What is a collective?
Collectives are non-hierarchical organizations in which each member has equal power. The Santropol Roulant Beekeeping Collective encourages the expression of multiple points of view, and members respect and listen to each other. Responsibilities such as facilitation, notetaking and presentations rotate between members, ensuring that each member has a place in the collective, no matter what one’s level of experience, education, language, age, gender, ethnic origin, political opinions, or sexual orientation. Working as a collective is, above all, a way to learn from each other. The collective is defined by its members and, therefore, is always evolving.
Our objectives are to:
- Maintain the health of our beehives;
- Offer hands-on experience to help train new urban beekeepers;
- Experiment with beekeeping in an urban setting;
- Connect citizens to the source of their food;
- Highlight the importance of honey bees as pollinators;
- Dispel common misconceptions about bees;
- All while remaining financially sustainable and having fun while we work as a collective.
Being a member of the collective gives you the opportunity to:
- Gain thousands of new winged friends;
- Learn how to manage urban beehives by working in them;
- Learn alongside other (novice) urban beekeepers;
- Have your voice heard and be an equal member of the collective;
- Share your knowledge and experience.
Each member of the collective has the responsibility to:
- Contribute to maintaining the health of our hives and their surroundings;
- Take ownership of their own learning process on urban beekeeping;
- Share their knowledge with the community;
- Attend a training workshop (date to be announced in open house);
- Attend weekly meetings (2h/week) on Mondays from 6-8pm;
- Keep up with the collective’s internal communications;
- Dedicate a few hours (4h/week on average) outside of weekly meetings to ensure that our activities run smoothly (hive inspections, public requests, outreach, etc.);
- Be involved on a weekly basis from March to October (beekeeping season) and on a monthly basis from November to February (beekeeper’s vacation!);
- Stay in touch with other members through our mailing list.
How to apply
The workshops will be held online, Saturday, February 19th (11:00am-1:00pm) and Monday, February 21st (6:00pm-8:00pm).
Please note that the first meeting will be held in March.
The Santropol Roulant Beekeeping Collective is French/English in nature. This means we would like everyone to have the chance to express themselves in French or English. In order to participate, applicants should be able to understand French, as well as English.
Because of the nature of the work, we can only accept a limited number of new members every season. We will respond to all applications by mid March.
Thank you for your interest in Santropol Roulant Beekeeping Collective!
For more information, check out our website, our Facebook page, or contact us at apiculture@santropolroulant.org.