Keeping On Keeping Bees
Reading books by veteran beekeepers which tell you to start small, make sure beekeeping is for you, successfully over-winter a small number of hives and then grow organically is fabulous advice. However, we took the road less traveled you might call it? Jumping in with over 70 hives our first year was a MAJOR undertaking. Some would call it complete madness! There’s an old saying, “drinking from a fire hose”…that was me for most all of 2022; trying to balance motherhood and honeybee husbandry. There are many things we’ll do differently as we move forward and some things we’ve landed on that will stick…at least for a while. I’m thrilled to share them with you! At the end of the day, we’ve learned what it takes to keep bees; vision, focus, passion, purpose and faith to believe that it can, indeed, be done.
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Make it Happen
2023 has been a serious adventure! The mild winter allowed for a quick transition into spring and an early honey flow. In mid-March we lost TEN colonies to a cold snap. Those queens were just not convinced we were having an early spring and refused to buildout their brood nest. This behavior maintained a smaller colonies of bees which resulted in their inability to both access food and keep the brood warm. Bees will always prioritize keeping their brood warm. In this situation, they were not able to both maintain the temperature inside the hive, warming the brood and access food.
As a result of such a devastating loss, coupled with natural winter losses, we decided to boost our apiary with the introduction of Russian honeybees. While this resulted in an unexpected capital investment we believed the benefits of introducing Russian genetics would improve our upcoming winter survival rates. Russian bees are believed to better navigate fluctuating winter temperatures and have stronger resistance to varroa mites.
The nectar flow has been generous this year. We’ve completed EIGHT honey runs on our Lyson honey processing equipment and feel more knowledgeable of how to efficiently use the equipment, despite several major user errors! We continue to re-enforce the concept of resiliency each day! Thus far, it looks like we’ve processed over 1500 pounds of honey across our estate and two out-yards.
Now it’s splitting time and the bees are expanding far more than expected. We’ve completed 15 splits in each yard and still have more to complete. Of course the comedy of errors continues as we under-estimated their re-production abilities and now are busy doing work we should have completed in the winter months: building more woodenware and frames! Oh well! Thankfully we have the help of a strong Army Vet to build hives and little hands which are amazing at placing foundation inside frames, coloring with beeswax and painting.
As a result of our growth, our out-yards are expanding. We’re growing at both Powhatan locations, expanding in Fluvanna and setting up a new yard in Buckingham. We’re excited about our growth, thankful for friends and family who generously support us and grateful for a growing customer base who love our bees, products and services.
Perseverance
2024 brought a significant improvement in our overwinding numbers. While we did loose colonies, despite our best efforts, we moved from a 50% overwinter loss in 2023 to a 15% overwinter loss in 2024. Many of our losses, we contribute to poor fall build-up of resources.
We continue to LEARN and GROW in many ways. Thanks to so many of you, we have established a very loyal customer base who enjoys not just our honey but our personal care products, as well. Our business is expanding and we are thrilled to add a number of individuals to the Edgewood team. This team assists us on-site with product making, honeybee husbandry and retail market sales. We absolutely could not make this all happen without each of their contributions. They are AMAZING.
Speaking of amazing, we had an amazing 2024 spring which included a lot of rain in April and May. While this resulted in beautiful blooms, an extended black locust flow and much needed support for the water table, the tulip poplar nectar flow was significantly reduced this year in our location. And…when it rains, the bees stay inside and enjoy the bountiful nectar and benefits of their own hard work. Who can blame them, right?!?!
In other apiary news, we applied for a major USDA/VDACS grant to allow us to expand our business. We should find out before November 2024 the status of that application. In the meantime, likely because I dislike ambiguity and lack patience, we went forward with much needed improvements to the current honey house. We have now obtained a manufacturing permit from the state which allows us to grow our product lines and business overall while maintaining the same high-quality, artisan approach.
2024 is off to an amazing start.
