Oshawa Harbour beekeeper wins pair of Royal Winter Fair blue ribbons

A local apiary with hives at the Port of Oshawa as well as Myrtle Station in north Whitby has won a pair of blue ribbons for their honey products at the 2021 Royal Winter Fair.

Aromath Apiaries won first place ribbons for both their Sweet Mead and their Raspberry Sweet Mead.

“For a family of rookies, we are speechless,” the company said on social media, adding that they were “happy, overwhelmed and grateful.”

Cosmin Bocean, a civil engineer and surveyor by trade, arrived in Canada from Romania in 2016 and got the beekeeping business going four years later. This year they branched out to set up some boxes at the Oshawa Harbour and the bees took to their new location like, well, bees to honey.

Bocean was taught the fine art of beekeeping as a child by his father and re-discovered his love of the hobby shortly after arriving in Durham Region.

The Myrtle Station hives were planed in the spring of 2020.

The family business has big plans for next year’s Royal Winter Fair – the 100^th Anniversary – and hopes to win a few ribbons for their honey next year as well as for their mead.

“Until then, let’s pop a bottle of mead and raise the glass in honour of our bees!”