Jars and lids have been purchased and sanitized; digital scales cleaned and calibrated and our dedicated volunteers readied. Now it is time to bottle! As we did last year, we are going to bottle most of our honey in 3/4-pound glass jars. This size is good for gift giving and for personal use and allows us to distribute our honey to more people. God willing, next year we will have more hives contributing honey and we will be able to sell larger “Family Size” jars. With more Grace, we might even be able to wholesale honey to some of the restaurants in our community that have inquired after it.
Last week we found several colonies were at or above the threshold for treatment, so we ordered an Amitraz based pesticide. To further help with pest management, we traveled on Wednesday to Sourwood Farm in Earlysville Virginia to purchase special mite and pest resistant queens. Our overall management goal is to maintain very low mite and pest levels through a program of integrated pest management (IPM) that relies on multiple methods. Our IPM program emphasizes manipulation (selective breeding, brood breaks, and drone removal), natural substances, (such as thymol) mild, naturally derived pesticides (Formic and Oxalic Acid) and when appropriate, food safe pesticides (such as Amitraz).
Next week, we hope to get our solar wax melter working and to process this year’s wax cappings into clean beeswax for sale as beeswax, and lip balm.