Apiary & Honey Experiences

Welcome to the Birds and Bees Winery and Distillery Open Farm Days page

We are very excited to be opening up the farm to have tours of the orchard and the production facility, to share is the history and tradition that has been our main value since we started. Our wines have been featured on TV and have been staple in Alberta since our first bottle was sold, while our vodkas and meads have been coming on strong, winning awards and being celebrated for their amazing taste and smoothness, as well as being one of the top selling vodkas in Alberta. At Birds and Bees, we are proud of the products we make, we enjoy drinking them and we hope everyone that comes out this weekend will enjoy them too. During the weekend, we will be having a saskatoon stomp for anyone who is interested in getting a little down and dirty and feeling just how we used to crush our saskatoons before we could use them in production. There will food available for purchase during the weekend as well as there will be sampling our wine, vodka and mead products for all those over the age of 18.

Events of the weekend – 10 am to 6 pm both Saturday and Sunday

•  Admission for tours - $15 per person over 18 years of age and FREE for anyone under the age of 18. Admission includes sampling of all Birds and Bees products currently available.
•  Saskatoon stomp – FREE for anyone wanting to get their feet dirty and have some fun
• Diane’s Country Kitchen Food Truck will be on site Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday for everyone to enjoy her amazing cooking!

All of our current products will be available for purchase and sampling, as well as a few of our new products will be available for tasting. We hope to see all our valued customers as well as make many new customers this weekend. We pride ourselves on having great tasting products at an affordable price, while still offering the organic line of Vodkas and Wine.

* Bale maze, cow patty bingo, calving simulation game, other * Trailer ride tour to see the cattle & crops while getting to know your 4th generation farmers every ½ hour * Hay rack tour of farm, Pumpkin Paradise Patch and ending at bale maze every ½ hour while getting to know your 3rd generation farmers * Beekeeper & general agricultural education booth * Goat milking demonstration at 3pm * View goats, mini goats, sheep, rabbits, horses, calves, cows * Farmer’s Market for beef, microgreens, vegetables, honey, beer, vodka, flowers, handmade towels, wood project $ * Homemade Burgers, chips, drinks, and ice cream available $ or bring your lunch and have a picnic * ATM on site * No pets and No smoking allowed We are the Bonneau family, 3rd and 4th generation farmers near Bonnyville, AB. Our family has been farming the land for 111 years this year! We raise quality angus beef to feed the local community from our farm to your table. We offer individual cuts, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 of a beef as well as delivery to your home in the Lakeland area. We like our visitors to have fun and learn about where their food comes from.

This farm requires advanced bookings for Premium Hive Tour only during Alberta Open Farm Days. Register your spot below. Christy Creek Honey is known for their wildflower honey and their signature Bee Sweet Stir Stick Lollipop. We are a small​,​ family-run business in the heart of NE Alberta summer blooms. We are situated on a second generation family farm. Rob's family had bees on the farm while he was growing up. As an adult, he enjoys it as a hobby. Rob is an elementary school administrator and Joanne is a children's library programmer. When we aren't at our other jobs, we offer personalized hive tours (June – mid - August) for small groups. We are super excited to be a part of this years 10th year Alberta Open Farm Days anniversary! We were encouraged to consider opening our apiary to visitors on Open Farm Days 4 years ago! We had so much fun that it is our now our small business! Please join in celebrating this fun day wherever you are!"

• Watch and learn about the bees - Free observation hive
• Suit up and book a premium hive tour ($15) scroll down for booking tool (please pay at the farm, no online payment)
• Enjoy the scenery and blooms. Sit and stay awhile! ​
• Play some games
• Paint a mini hive to take home, or a big one to stay for everybody to enjoy ($).
• Buy some yummy goodies made by the Mill Bakery!
• Shop for bee themed and locally made items, including our signature small-batch honey and handmade stir-stick lollipop!
• Relax and have a good time!!!

Activities During Open Farm Days

• Get Lost in 9 acre corn maze
• Lots of outdoor family games, like duck races, hockey checkers, Gem mining, soccer snooker, connect 4 and many more activities

In our store we have Saskatoon Pies for sale, ice cream, Saskatoon slushies, mini donuts, honey, freshly ground whole wheat flour, Rye flour, and waffles and pancake mix made from our home grown wheat. The Joosed Moose Winery onsite making fruit wines, Meads, and ciders. We are also hosting other local farms and food trucks this year. We are growing our cottage winery the joosed moose winery with our home grown fruit. We have the biggest corn maze in our part of the province with lots of family activities to go along with it. We are also 3rd generation grain farmers with our own ground wheat, and Rye flours and pancake and waffle mix. Our fruit orchard is growing with the addition of 12000 strawberry plants, Saskatoons, raspberries, haskaps, apples, cherries, we may eventually turn into a you pick but for now its for the winery. We have our own honey bees with our own production for our meads and some we sell at our store. We also have our own bee observation hive in our store to learn more about honey bees.

The Edmonton Urban Farm is an oasis in the heart of the city. Visitors will meet gardeners from all corners of the globe and witness the vast variety of foods grown on this 2-acre plot. Take a guided tour with an expert gardener or just wander our beautiful gardens which feature a heritage fruit tree orchard, a labyrinth, a flower farm pilot, diverse growing methods, and unique vegetables. See a fantastic farm, and meet the amazing community that makes it happen. Open Farm Day at Edmonton Urban Farm, August 13, 2022, 10am-4pm

• 10:00 am Smudge with Elder Sharon Pasula
• 10:20 am The unloading of goats! Brought to us by Penner Goats from Mallaig.
• 10:30 am: Ongoing tours of the amazing farm plots will begin and continue throughout the day. Our amazing farmers will share their knowledge and passion for growing food. See some amazing and unusual plants.
• 11:00 am: Dustin Bajer Talks Trees—everything you wanted to know about growing trees.
• 12:00 pm: French language tour with one of our farmers Chantal Koko.
• 1:00 pm: Hungry Worms by Roberto—everything you wanted to know about worm composting! Beginner Red Wriggler kits will be available for purchase.
• 2:00 pm: Enjoy the lovely sounds of a string quartet!

Activities throughout the day include hanging out with goats and sheep, checking out the beehive, watching baby chicks hatch, self-guided audio tours, cuddling bunnies, smelling herbs, tasting edible flowers, and painting rocks. Flower arrangements available for purchase from local micro-entrepreneur, Them Flowers (cash and e-transfer only). Edmonton Urban Farm is managed by Explore Edmonton in partnership with over twenty community groups. There are over 120 varieties of vegetables grown at the Edmonton Urban Farm and 25 languages spoken! In addition to vegetable beds, you can check out our pollinator patch, solitary bee hotels, and honeybee hive.

Fallentimber Meadery is well known for our sociable session style meads like Meadjito. Made with the highest quality of honey and ingredients, all of our beverages are held to the highest standards. Joining us for a tasting will give you a great perspective on mead in general, and the diversity that it holds. Couple that with a tour and you will leave with lots of knowledge around bees, honey production, and fermentation.

• Meadery and apiary tours starting every hour from 11am-4pm
• Tasting of the Fallentimber lineup of meads ($10, branded glass included)
• Storefront for retail sales
• Outdoor space to relax and enjoy a cold beverage and your picnic lunch
• Lawn games

• Two farm permaculture tours per day 10:00 and 2:00
• Coffee and a muffin offered for sale in morning (9:00 am - until sold out) / Chili and a bun offered for sale in the afternoon (11:30 am until sold out)
• Farm ferments, simple syrups, produce, honey, tea, beef, pork, eggs and turkeys for sale
• Kaching coin rings (@kachingcoinrings) set up selling Artisan coin rings and collectables.
• Farm Two53 is a well known Foothills-area permaculture farm. We are excited to offer short term rentals at the farm starting this summer.
• Unique mid century modern mansion undergoing major renovation.
• Geothermal greenhouse. (under construction)
• Solar PV array
• Food forest
• Cover crops
• Rainwater harvesting
• Composting
• Compost tea making
• Red wiggler worm cast production
• Holistic animal husbandry techniques
• Intensive grazed cattle
• Free range laying hens
• Free range turkeys
• Kune kune X pigs

  We are extremely excited to announce that Black Diamond's Hard Knox Brewery (@hardknoxbrew) will be slinging ice cold beers at FarmTwo53 for the weekend

Alberta Open Farm Days at Granary Road Granary Road provides our customers with the freshest produce possible! Arguably the single most important draw for a market is a great produce supplier. Granary Road grows produce on-site, providing customers to our market the freshest produce in Calgary, produce that was harvested only metres away and minutes ago will be available only at the Fresh Farmer cart in the farmer’s market. Take a tour of our Aquaponics growing center to see how Granary Road produce is grown; book your tour time now at https://www.granaryroad.com/openfarmdays Every wonder how flour is made? Take part in this rare opportunity to see how the experts at the Scottish Mill grind ancient grains to make some of the finest flour produced in the province and it is all done here at Granary Road. Scottish Mill is welcoming visitors for a tour of their mill and participants will also go home with a small sample of their product, registration is free and spots are limited. Find out more at https://www.granaryroad.com/openfarmdays With paid park admission free tractor rover ride will be provided this weekend only, buy your park passes here https://www.granaryroad.com/openfarmdays Check out our many local market producer & vendors for Alberta Open Farm Day features. See you at the market.

Complimentary tastings and scheduled tours of the facility Tours will be at 11:30, 1:30, 3:30 and 5 o’clock . Food and beverages are available for purchase: Charcuterie style platters, mead/honey wine, gourmet coffee/tea and assorted non-alcoholic beverages are available to be served on the patio. Family owned business with award winning meads and a friendly family atmosphere.

*Dogs are absolutely not allowed – Biosecurity measures are in place. *Children must be supervised by an adult at all times. Visitors are invited to view and hear the story of our unique Soay Sheep breeding flock (one of the world’s most primitive feral sheep), Icelandic Chickens, Rouen Ducks, Honeybees of Hamingja and the Trout Pond. Carding, spinning of self-shed Soay sheep fleece plus Soay and natural textiles will be featured.  Focussing on sustainability as well as rewilding with native plants, Hamingja – Heritage Farm & Nature Preserve also features an old pioneer log home and some antique farm implements. Visit the Stone Circle, sit by the water or wander and picnic among tipi, Viking themed buildings, Viking Tent, and Longhouse Picnic Shelter.  Live Music and artisans will be on site. Free self-guided farm tours are on all day both days as well as guided tours (for a small fee) with the owners (11 a.m., 1 p.m., & 3 p.m. Sat/Sun) featuring a tour through the hatching & recirculating aquaculture facility, feeding fish and ducks, and other activities for the whole family.

• Free farm self-guided tours are available all day both days
• Guided tours with the owners (11 a.m., 1 p.m., & 3 p.m. Sat/Sun) featuring a tour through the hatching & recirculating aquaculture facility, feeding fish and ducks, Bee Kind and other activities for the whole family are available at $5/person (under 3 free) or $15 for a family of 3 or more.
• Food will be available for sale (cash only please) while quantities last: fruit pies & ice cream; U-cook smokies/buns, popcorn; water bottles; and Nature’s Co Co cups Beverages Truck

Hosts: Janina Carlstad is a retired educator as well as musician, poet, naturalist, and photographer. John Fletcher, also a musician, is the former owner operator of Blueberry Springs Fish Hatchery, and a welder who is upgrading the recirc facility to produce trout again. Beulah Phillpot is an educator and accomplished textiles artisan with a keen interest in nature preservation.  

For Open Farm Days, the newly launched Irvine School Agriculture Discovery Centre (ADC) will be open to the public. Activities include self-guided and interpreted tours of the livestock pens, food forest, crop plots and honeybees. The ADC is a student-led micro-farm that teaches many aspects of sustainable agriculture. Activities will be appropriate for children ages 5-15, with many parts of the tour being of interest to adults as well. We specialize in agriculture education using a hands-on experiential process to develop the 4 C's in our students - Creativity, Critical thinking, Collaboration and Communication. The first of it's kind in our region the ADC cultivates agriculture connections that will better prepare future generations to develop thriving societies, flourishing economies and healthy environments. Nichole Neubauer, the ADC founder is a pioneer in agriculture education. since 2005, she has opened her farm gates to over 20,000 children from her community to help them understand more about where their food comes from and to help them gain a great appreciation of the agriculture industry.

Come for a visit and see what a small hobby farm bee hive set up looks like. We expect to have 20-25 hives this summer and the honey bees will be active and looking for food - those Queen Bee's can be quite demanding! While you're here - visit the Long Grass Studio to see how our Stoneware Mugs, Bowls and Plates are are glazed and then fired in our big kiln. You will have the opportunity to pick up some farm fresh honey and a mug or two!

We will give a tour of our production room, where we make the mead and then offer tastings of available meads. Tours will run every hour on the hour and last approximately 20 minutes followed by tastings in the tasting room We're focusing on using local honey, local berries, local herbs to make a totally local mead. Very few people know anything about mead but after our tour they will be aware of another of Alberta's potential agricultural industries. Will spent twenty years in East Asia but longed to come home to the open skies and clean air of Alberta, where he grew up.

The Spirit Hills winery tours and tastings are fun & educational. You will meet one of the Spirit Hills family members who will give you a tour through the winery. You will learn about: Rocky Mountain Foothills flowers, Spirit Hills bees, honey extraction, wine fermentation and bottling. After all that you will get to sample a variety of delicious flower wines and have a chance to purchase some. Additional activity are:

• Farmstead Tours Book Here: https://spirithillswinery.com/tours/

Spirit Hills crafts one of a kind award winning flower wines that share the purity of the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and give our customers exquisite culinary wine experiences, joy, romance and relaxation befit to a truly extraordinary life. We know how difficult and random it can be to find a truly memorable and exquisite wine. That is why at Spirit Hills, the Bonjean’s, who hail from generations of French winemakers, layered the flavour elements of traditional grape wine into unforgettable new wines crafted from the wildflowers of their terroir. Spirit Hills crafts a variety of seducing flower wines including red, white, rose, sangria and mulled wine. They are each praised for their body, complexity, structure and a long velvety smooth finish from Europe to Asia and North America.

Visit Two farms in one! The Gull Lake Honey Company is a family-run honey farm committed to keeping strong and healthy bee colonies. We produce a variety of honey and beeswax products, as well as provide an opportunity for agri-tourism and honey bee education. Frontier Bison Farm is multi-generational Bison ranching operation that manages 4 separate herds. One of their breeding herds is rotationally grazed on the half section that the Gull Lake Honey Company is located. During your visit to our farms you can experience/enjoy: Free Activities:

• Tour of Extraction facility (every hour on the hour)
• Small petting zoo with goats, Calf, Chickens, Ducks and horse
• Playground and Picnic areas

Activities requiring $:

• Hayride in Bison pasture (every hour on the hour, $5 per person age 5 and up
• Artisan market and gift shop with fresh honey on tap and other honey and beeswax products and Bison meat
• U-Pick/Fresh pick Vegetable Garden
• Face painting ($ by donation)
• Chesters Chips Food Truck
• West Country Kettle Corn (Saturday afternoon only)
• Dipped Candle making ($3 per candle)

When you arrive please stop at the visitor center to sign in and get directions. Rennie and I started our orchard 15 years ago and now have over 1500 fruit trees and bushes of many varieties.  It is amazing to see what we accomplished in the 15 years as farmers. We have areas setup up on our farm to display small gardens and different fruit trees that work for all size of yards.  We can offer suggestions of what fruit trees to grow and works well. We start your visit with a guided farm tour of our orchard, vegetable gardens, herbal tea patches and honey bees. During the tour you will see how all of food is grown, harvested and produced into our local products which we sell in our farm store. We will have a demo of the Freeze Drying process where you can learn all about the benefits and the process. We have a full inventory of freeze dried herbs, vegetable, fruit and candies available for purchasing. Saturday and Sunday our culinary event will be available all day and we will be offering Deep Fried Perogies, BBQ Local Beef Sausage Patties served with a side of salad topped with our fresh fruit dressing, followed with a devious fruit tart.  Enjoy a picnic style lunch or be seated in our orchard surrounded with a scenic and inviting view, of our orchard and grounds. This is a must try! Plan to take the time to visit our Wild Country Artisan Market, full of local vendors such as our local baker – Barbs Baking, Rocky Mountain Brewery, Prairie Hawk Fibres, Homemade Fudge, Holly Dukeshire Gifts and Beauty Products and much more. Shop in our Wild Country Farm Store which will be open all weekend, our girls in the store are very helpful and would love to meet you.  The store is full of the products we produce which are made from the roots up such as our Jams, Syrups, Salsas, Sauerkraut, Pickles, Fruit Ice Teas, Herbal Teas and Fresh Garlic. We also have an assortment of Homemade Soaps and Laundry Detergents and much more. Bring your cooler and stock up on our many frozen products available such as an assortment of frozen perogies and cabbage rolls in our freezer. New this year is our Freeze Dried Ice Cream Snacks, Candies and Vegetables. For all ages we will have a supervised activity center setup where you can paint a rock animal or flower which can be left in our rock garden or taken home.

Cattle Hayride Chicken Bees Brewery Equipment We will have an artisan market at the ranch which will highlight our partners, Airdrie breweries, Axe throwing and more.