Our Honey Do
Projects
We are all buzzing about the bees. These bees add hours of fun and friendly visits to the farm. We have big plans for growth of these projects but they have to be done on bee time so stay tuned!
Honey Products
Honey
Hive development
We started with our first hives in Spring of 2022. Myself and our oldest son are the primary keepers in the house. With much work and effort we managed to keep them going through the winter, avoid the spring swarms and complete our first splits. We plan to continue the splits until we have 8 hives. We are hopeful we will be able to offer our own Nucs in 2024.
Honey of OUr own
Our hope is to develop a large amount our own locally sourced honey in fall of 2024 for honey, honey lotions, honey soaps, and honey lip balm. We are working hard to be as natural as possible. Bees are hard work and often come with their own set of issues such as hive beetles and mites. Often to save a hive this requires some treatment with strong chemicals. While these chemicals have been found safe, even for hives producing human consumed honey, they're something we're hoping to avoid. We are starting with preventative measures by utilizing mite biter bees, natural mite/beetle deterrents on the ground around the hives, and hive entrance reducers so the bees can fight off invaders. We are also adding natural mineral and oil treatments to the entrances and screened bottoms which will help insure these pests don't stick to our bees and can be easily removed from the hive. We are hoping this brings a more natural way of life for us and the bees.
The long game
Our little bees are some rock stars! However, 80 pound boxes were a little much to manage. This year we've decided to start migrating our bees to long hives. We've worked hard to start developing these with features I have found most helpful to the survival of our hives. As we build away, we may sell some of the extras in the future.
