Many beekeepers consider that the beekeeping year begins in the fall. I like the notion that our first chores of the new year are to take stock, organize and prepare for hard times ahead, and that the year ends with warm weather and a slower pace. As the year ends, we have much to be… Read more

We welcomed approximately 420 visitors to this year’s Honey Harvest Festival on August 30. People enjoyed live outdoor music, crafts produced by our vendors and plenty of baked goods and honey. Over the past several weeks we have inspected all of our hives. We have found a few that are lagging a bit behind and… Read more

Antonia Siebert has been working near full time on Honey Harvest Preparations for the past two weeks.  Work has included vendor coordination, advertising and outreach, coordination with the Great Falls Philharmonic and our musical guests, getting volunteers lined up for set up and day of chores, and many other things.  Her dedication to ensuring the… Read more

July has been a busy month. We have extracted and bottled over 800 pounds of honey, packaged 45 sections “Ross Round” comb honey, and processed 35 pounds of beeswax. Still on our list for the festival making some beeswax taper candles, beeswax lip balm, and producing some baked goods with our honey. We are also… Read more

Meteorological spring ended June 1st and temperatures have begun to regularly touch the 90s.  With the change in seasons comes the end of the main nectar flow in Northern Virginia.  In the apiaries, we are seeing the field bees bringing back white clover, “ditch” lily (Hemerocallis fulva) and Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) pollen in… Read more

Since posting last time, we have been busy with the bees. We have configured one of our hives to serve as an incubator for the new queens we are raising to requeen our hives; we have taken young larvae from one of our strongest hives and placed them in this incubator; and we have harvested… Read more