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Honey Bees
Honey Bees are a great addition to Farmstead Smith, we started our first colony in May 2018. Adrienne has been researching beekeeping off and on over the last several years. In late 2017, she was accepted into the Oregon Master Beekeeper Apprenticeship program. In November 2018, Adrienne successfully completed the apprenticeship and became a Certified Apprentice Beekeeper. She is continuing on with the next step, the Journeyman program and is on track to become a Certified Journeyman Beekeeper in 2020 - unfortunately covid has postponed this to 2021 *fingers crossed*.
Adrienne successfully overwintered her first colony, Goldenrod, into 2019, and her apiary quickly expanded to a total of 5 colonies by the end of the season! We were lucky enough that we had a booming wildflower season, and the bees produced an abundance of honey! Adrienne had her first honey harvest this year, 2019! All 5 colonies made it through the 2019/2020 winter. 2020/2021 Adrienne is going into winter with 4 colonies.
There are so many different facets one can take when it comes to keeping bees. Adrienne is still learning a lot, and will be selling honey soon, but she has interest in learning about products of the hive, and making and selling Nucleus colonies.
Adrienne successfully overwintered her first colony, Goldenrod, into 2019, and her apiary quickly expanded to a total of 5 colonies by the end of the season! We were lucky enough that we had a booming wildflower season, and the bees produced an abundance of honey! Adrienne had her first honey harvest this year, 2019! All 5 colonies made it through the 2019/2020 winter. 2020/2021 Adrienne is going into winter with 4 colonies.
There are so many different facets one can take when it comes to keeping bees. Adrienne is still learning a lot, and will be selling honey soon, but she has interest in learning about products of the hive, and making and selling Nucleus colonies.
How We Raise BeesYou may be wondering how we raise bees, we want to be transparent about our practices.
The biggest pest to Honey Bees in today’s age is the Varroa Mite. These mites are a real pain, they transfer diseases, and considerably weaken colonies. When our colonies meet or exceed the threshold of 2-3% of mite infestation per 100 bees (Honey Bee Health Coalition). We do choose to treat our colonies responsibly with available organic treatments (Apiguard, Formic Pro, Oxalic Acid, etc) in order to help our bees thrive. |
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We treat our colonies because, for us, honey bees are livestock. Honey Bees are non-native to North America, and we try to be as responsible with them as possible. If our chickens or donkeys had mites or lice, we would treat them and not allow them to suffer to the best of our ability, which for us means we should treat because we have the ability to do so.
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Harvesting HoneyOne of our goals here on Farmstead Smith is to be ethical and sustainable. That means, we have to leave enough honey for the bees to survive the winter, then, we have to save enough honey for Adrienne’s honey addiction.
Once we’re sure the bees have what they need, we will harvest honey. Then, once Adrienne has what she needs to get through the year, we share the abundance with you! |
Adrienne had her first honey harvest fall (2019). Because we choose to be *mostly* foundationless (we allow the bees to make all of their own comb), this was a little nerve wracking for Adrienne! Thankfully it all went well and Adrienne harvested over 10 gallons of excess honey from the bees in 2019.
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