Author Archives: Good to Know

We confess. Posting hasn’t been a priority. There have been a number of posts over the summer using our Facebook page, but in general we have been slacking with media. Thank you loyal followers! Yellow jackets stress hives. Please do your part to reduce their populations!! We witnessed plenty of dead yellow jackets out frontContinue reading “Been slacking on posting!”

Finally made it to the Cozy yard in Greenacres! We were thrilled to find the hives with plenty of honey stores left in them! The queens have been super busy! Definitely going to need to split some of these hives in May! Hopefully they don’t get too excited and try sooner. =) I pushed broodContinue reading “Cozy yard visit”

It’s extremely rare to make it through the winter without some losses. Hive loss is just part of beekeeping these days. The great news for us, this year, is our loss reasons appear to be mostly self-inflicted! Got busy and didn’t make some hard calls. Using OA to treat the hives for mites, worked incrediblyContinue reading “Assessing losses.”

We’ve been patiently awaiting this day! Overnight lows are above freezing and the clusters are broken. Spring inspections! Made it through a few hives, but ran out of time. Most of them look great. Combined two weaker hives. Added frames of honey to a few. Pushed brood down. Drones are already present. Swarm season isContinue reading “Spring Inspections!”

Our hyper-local RAW honey is an absolute treat. It’s the best truly natural candy we’ve ever had. Really! We watch our warming temperatures carefully to preserve the honey in it’s natural state, but in doing so, we get crystallization. There’s nothing wrong with crystalized honey, it’s completely normal. Be wary of “honey” that doesn’t crystallize.Continue reading “Handling Raw Honey”

Winter is still alive and well here in Mica! Although we have been tempted to go through the hives during these tropical spring days, we know it’s too early to do more than verify food stores. The bees have been super busy during these early spring days. They’ve been taking cleansing flights and aggressively foraging.Continue reading “Winter Clings On!”

Yeesh! The little demons are out already! It will be time to get your traps up soon to catch those queens! Vigilance in the spring impacts your summer population dramatically. We lost a few hives due to yellow jackets last year. This little terror landed on a board I was about to cut.

Spring has sprung! Whether we are ready or not! There’s activity from all the hives so far. Will do more thorough checks soon. The girls are out taking cleansing flights, gathering water, and even bringing in some pollen. We have been so busy building our bottling room, we haven’t been taking many bee pictures. StayContinue reading “Bees are buzzing!”

Thieves win. Nearly every time. Super-short version: Our crane for moving hives was stolen!!! Short Version: Loaned our bee truck to the neighbor and the crane we use to move hives was stolen out of it while parked out front of Enterprise in the Valley. Insurance won’t even begin cover it. New ones are $6200Continue reading “Why do good deeds get punished so often?”

The Harvest Moon Restaurant and Gift shop are located in Rockford, WA! Not only do they have rocking food, they now have all three sizes of honey jars!!! You can’t miss our liquid gold! And you shouldn’t miss it either. =) The owner, Amanda, has worked hard to keep her employees working during these insaneContinue reading “Vendor Spotlight: Harvest Moon”