Bee Keeper Bert Stratford

This post is not about a building but a long time resident of Reston.  In pages of the online archived Reston Recorder, I ran across a few facts about his contributions and legacy.  If someone out there has a better picture of Bert and Minnie Stratford, I’d love to include it in this post. ssimms@escape.ca 

Robert George Stewart Kitchener Stratford, known as "Bert" was born in Surrey, England in 1900.  Bert once said his 4 given names were in honour of British Generals of the Boer War.   The family immigrated to Canada in 1908 to the Austin, MB area where his father George along with his mother Marian and 6 siblings got a new start.  George was originally a farm labourer but later worked on the coal dock in Austin.  

From the Reston Recorder November 1948

Bees aren’t so tough to handle? Not at least for Bert Stratford, who has over 100 hives of them and never thinks of wearing gloves when working with them.
Bert took the writer on a tour through his colonies and when it was all finished your reporter knew a little more about the way honey is gathered. For instance, a good swarm of bees contains from 70,000 to 90,000, and may harvest over 200 pounds of honey, provided the queen rules the roost the way she should.

It all depends on the queen, according to Bert. If she makes the workers step they gather a lot of honey, but if she is the indulgent type, well, they kind of get lazy on the job. Pointing to two hives of about the same strength, he explained that because one had a good queen they had gathered a lot more honey than the other.

Queens live from 2 to 3 years, while workers, when the queen is driving them, last only six weeks. However, In the winter the workers live a lot longer, for during that season the queen permits them to eat and they don’t have to work.

Bert had enlisted in WW1 in March of 1916 and subtracted a couple of years from his birth date to be able to do it.  His service file indicates his correct birthdate was discovered once he was overseas so he became part of the YSB (Young Soldier Battalion) who were trained for jobs like orderlies and construction but kept off the front line for the most part.  He was demobilized in 1919 and married Minnie Ball from Napinka in 1921.  The newlyweds arrived in Reston that same year1 where he worked on the coal dock for the next 27 years.  Buckets of coal needed to be winched overhead in from the dock to the train. Later, the coal was raised to the overhead bin by power but unloading to the dock was still done by hand.  Once diesel engines arrived in the 1940's, his job became obsolete.

 

The ever resourceful Bert had a Plan B so purchased a farm at SE 22-7-27 along the Pipestone Creek just east of where the Canupawakpa Walking Trail is now, farther east of  Harper's Grove as written about here. He owned the quarter from 1945 to 1965.  Bert learned the bee keeping trade and his beeswax and honey won many prizes including first at the Toronto Royal Winter Fair.  The 1948 Reston Recorder article continues below.  

One of Bert’s chief gripes in his business is people saying ‘ you must be making a lot of money’. Burt pointed out that the cost of supplies has advanced tremendously, while the price of honey has dropped. Packaged bees which must be bought in each spring to replace hives which have died over the winter, now cost over six dollars they used to be three dollars. Foundation for the combs now cost $.90 a pound, against less than half that amount a few years ago.

In addition to the cost of supplies, there is a lot of work connected with the beekeeping business. For instance, It is necessary to go through each hive every eight days during the honey season, no small chore. Other tasks involve the moving of the bees, and of course the job of extracting the honey, which is when you find whether there is to be a profit or not.

Bert and Minnie's first home was two boxcars, set about where the Elliot Brothers (former Pool) elevator stands today in Reston.  They later lived on the west side of First Street, just two houses north of the tracks. The coal docks were conveniently right out his back door.

 

Bert did carpentry as another hobby and the Reston District Museum was the beneficiary of this skill in 1970’s when he made frames for the many pictures that were in the museum.  He had collected and restored many First Nations artifacts from his farm and these can be found in the museum as well.  

Bert passed away in 1977 and Minnie in 1986. They had no children but left much of their estate to benefit the Reston community.  The Memorial Park remembers them with their names on a bronze plaque at the main west gate.  Other beneficiaries included the Hospital Aid,  the Museum, Lions Club and the two churches - United and Anglican. 

A quote attributed to the Victorian poet George Eliot seems appropriate to remember the Stratfords. 

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.