Canada's Centre For Biological Control Studies Was Once In The Neighbourhood

Canada's only centre for biological studies, an entomology lab where they studied bugs, was located at 228 Dundas Street in Belleville. Once known as the Dominion Parasite Laboratory – what residents dubbed “the bug house” – its names have included Lakeview Manor and Water's Edge Retirement Living. Today, it is known as Bel Marine Retirement Home, which has recently closed its doors.

Countless in variety and miniscule in appearance, they crawled about in cages covered with fine mesh wire, unmindful of the probing human eyes that gazed at them, studying them for hours on end. The eyes belonged to the men and women, dressed in white clinical uniform, staff of the world's largest entomological research centre that used to be located on Dundas Street in Belleville.

The laboratory in Belleville was as an importing centre to handle beneficial insects brought from foreign countries as an important part of a study for pest and disease control. The institute was a branch of the Canadian Department of Agriculture.

The government's entomological laboratory moved into what was a residential building, once home to a Belleville businessman named Thomas S. Carman, in 1929. It was located at 228 Dundas St. and was then known as the Dominion Parasite Laboratory.

The Victorian-style house with its high ceilings, large bay windows and spacious rooms were, at first, ideal for the new occupants. A staircase made of black walnut, embellished with a foot-wide banister and three-inches wide spindles decorated the central hall. An ornate fountain once stood in front of the Carman House. While the main house was used for administration purposes, the research laboratories where the bugs were housed, were located at the back of the building.

The Carman House was demolished in 1955. It was replaced with a new 75-room, two-storeyed building that housed the expanded research facility. It came with the most modern laboratory units on both the floors.

Aside from the administrative offices, the main floor consisted of five units and a wing designed for insect disease research in four air-conditioned laboratory zones with special incubators and other equipment to prevent cross-contamination. The second floor contained seven laboratory units, a library, a seminar room and a conference hall big enough to seat 150 people.

In the basement were five more laboratories, six low temperature rooms, a photographic section and several utility rooms. In addition, the basement wing included refrigeration, laboratory service, control equipment, temperature recording instruments and the heating plant.

Among more than 70 people employed at the facility were about 35 scientists, some of them top experts in North America in the field of ecological control. In the Belleville facility, their research work was primarily focussed on the study to control destructive insect pests and noxious weeds through the use of predatory insects and insect disease organisms.

The scientists at the Belleville lab developed an insect fighting method by which they would set a particular insect on its favourite food -- another insect destroying a farmer's crop in some corners of the world. For example, some beetles that have been noted to eat only certain type of fly would be bred in millions, shipped to areas experiencing problems with that specific fly and then released in large numbers. The argument was that since these beetles would eat only a certain type of fly, they would starve to death once the flies disappear. This methodology was found to be highly beneficial as it meant absence of chemical use on crops to get rid of pests.

The entomological research institute, which served as the centre for biological control studies for the whole of Canada and also used to be the largest lab of its kind in its day, was closed down on July 1, 1972 when it became a property of the Crown Assets.