It's been a steep learning curve since those first 2 packages of Georgia bees arrived in 2012. One thing I've learned for sure- I have NO aspirations for becoming a commercial beekeeper. I'd rather just try to be good at fulfilling a small local niche. It's a lot more fun that way when the goal is not necessarily to drive maximum profit from a bee hive. For all you college business majors out there, that must sound really absurd. The truth is that there's just something a lot more personally fulfilling to providing local products that you can't find on Amazon or WalMart or some other big box store. Things that require some aspects of quality and local craftsmanship. I think about the things we can find at the local farmers markets like local produce, fruits and vegetables, homemade jams and jellies, things like that come to mind.
Perhaps that same approach may also apply to beekeeping in some ways when you look at store bought vs local honey and bee products. For us, keeping bees has been a treatment-free approach since day 1 however it seems the key to making it work is persistence while continuing to find replacement colonies through splits and capturing localized swarms in traps during the late April/May season. These "rescued" bees as I call them become the foundation for the following year's splits and honey crop. This year we captured 12 new swarms to go with last years winter survivors which themselves got a big jump on the early nectar flows we had this year.
We have as close to an "all natural" approach to keeping bees as possible short of keeping them in hollow logs. It's still important that to harvest honey with minimal stress to the colony that we provide them with standard frames. The Langstroth hive still is the best design, most effective for pulling frames for inspection or harvesting honey. However, we do not use commercial foundation in the frames rather the bees draw their own comb from the natural nectar found in nature. We do not use miticides (pesticides) or use treatments of any sort in an attempt to deal with varroa. The bees will deal with varroa on their own if we let them.
The honey is truly RAW- It's unheated, untreated, unpasteurized, unfiltered and unadulterated. Honey that comes straight out of the hive and is spun out of frames, coarsely strained, and put into a container. Nothing is added, nothing is taken away. Currently there are still a few of the 12 and 24 ounce containers of Smith Homestead's All Natural Raw Honey available at Village Hardware in Bethel, Ohio. Did you know?... Village Hardware was recently named the #1 Hardware store in Ohio by Best Things Ohio https://bestthingsoh.com/hardware-stores/
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Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Trapping Swarms is like fishing for bees!
Check out this latest video on trapping spring honeybee swarms...
Trapping Updates:
2nd swarm captured on 4/16/17
3rd- 4/24
4th- 4/25
5th- 5/8
6th- 5/12
7th- 5/13
8th- 5/14
9th- 5/16
See the scout bees visit this trap a few days prior to this capture... https://youtu.be/x0T-sKITJUs
Published on Apr 17, 2017
Swarm
captured 4/14/17, a good sized swarm. Had the unique opportunity to
catch them on video as they were moving into the trap. Didn't notice
right away but watch the girls line up in a semi-circle, fanning queen
pheromone from the entrance so the rest of the colony can locate it.
Trapping Updates:
2nd swarm captured on 4/16/17
3rd- 4/24
4th- 4/25
5th- 5/8
6th- 5/12
7th- 5/13
8th- 5/14
9th- 5/16
See the scout bees visit this trap a few days prior to this capture... https://youtu.be/x0T-sKITJUs
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Spring is upon us!
Well another winter is hopefully behind us as we begin to feel the warmth and sunshine and experience longer days... we'll be planting again soon. It also causes us to look forward to harvesting some more of that delicious Raw Ohio Honey! It will be a goal to maintain 20-25 honeybee colonies going into Fall. To get there we'll need to do some splits. We'll also build some additional swarm traps and get them placed before April 1st. Last year we put out 10 traps and captured 10 swarms!
It's been a very mild winter once again as it was in 2016, except even warmer. This year we really didn't experience any extremely cold weather or substantial snowfall. This warm winter/early spring also causes some of the early sources of pollen and nectar to be available earlier to the bees. The silver maple is the earliest available source of natural food for the bees followed closely by the red maple bloom.
There is a very useful tool that I have found called the Ohio Phenology Calendar put together by The Ohio State University. Essentially, researchers have figured out that all perennials first bloom is based on accumulated growing degree days. Here is the formula.... High Temp for the day plus low temp. Divide by 2. Subtract 50. A positive number above 50 therefore is recorded as a growing degree day (GDD). Accumulate 34 GDDs and your silver maples will bloom. My personal observations are that this has been spot on for the past 2 years since I've been following this method. Today in my zipcode of 45106 we are currently at 144 GDDs which means that as of yesterday our bradford pears should have begun their first bloom.
Visit our website... http://www.all-natural-honey.com
Like us on Facebook for future updates... https://www.facebook.com/Pure.Ohio.Honey/
It's been a very mild winter once again as it was in 2016, except even warmer. This year we really didn't experience any extremely cold weather or substantial snowfall. This warm winter/early spring also causes some of the early sources of pollen and nectar to be available earlier to the bees. The silver maple is the earliest available source of natural food for the bees followed closely by the red maple bloom.
There is a very useful tool that I have found called the Ohio Phenology Calendar put together by The Ohio State University. Essentially, researchers have figured out that all perennials first bloom is based on accumulated growing degree days. Here is the formula.... High Temp for the day plus low temp. Divide by 2. Subtract 50. A positive number above 50 therefore is recorded as a growing degree day (GDD). Accumulate 34 GDDs and your silver maples will bloom. My personal observations are that this has been spot on for the past 2 years since I've been following this method. Today in my zipcode of 45106 we are currently at 144 GDDs which means that as of yesterday our bradford pears should have begun their first bloom.
Visit our website... http://www.all-natural-honey.com
Like us on Facebook for future updates... https://www.facebook.com/Pure.Ohio.Honey/
Friday, April 29, 2016
Swarm Season is back!
Catching swarms is a lot of fun and there is nothing better than free bees! Last year in 2015 we trapped 2 swarms and so far this year we have 2 more and it's still early. We placed ten traps out this year hoping to trap as many as we could.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
The Beekeeping Experience so far
It's our 3rd year in beekeeping and we've sure learned a lot about bees and beekeeping!
The first year we started with 2 packages of bees from Georgia via Spille Honey in Kentucky. That first year was a real learning experience although we lost both colonies coming out of a really bad winter of 2013.
In 2014 we started over with several more packages along with 2 nucs that we purchased from Dan Williams of Williams Honey Bees in Frankfort, Ohio. We came out of another really bad winter with one survival colony from one of the Williams nucs that we had purchased.
Not to get too frustrated we committed to keep at it and not give up in 2015. We purchased 2 more nucs from Williams and added 3 more package bees. After going through this exercise now 3 times it has become abundantly clear to me that local nucs are the way to go. They are of much better quality and the bees just seem much better acclimitized to Ohio's harsher winters. We also used the survivor colony to make a few of our own queens and we used those to make splits off our package bees. Believe it or not we also captured 2 swarms in traps which was very exciting! Add to that the purchase of 3 more queens from Williams and that brings up to 13 colonies. I think it would be a good goal for us to have 20-25 colonies heading into next winter but in order to accomplish that it will be important that this years bees survive the winter.
There is so much more to experience and learn. A few recommendations for new beekeepers or folks thinking of keeping bees in the future:
1) Attend a beekeeping school. Southwest Ohio Bee School is a great way to start.
2) Start with local nucs
3) Join a local club- Brown County Beekeepers Association or Southwest Ohio Beekeepers
4) Don't get too frustrated or give up, keep at it.
All Natural Honey
The first year we started with 2 packages of bees from Georgia via Spille Honey in Kentucky. That first year was a real learning experience although we lost both colonies coming out of a really bad winter of 2013.
In 2014 we started over with several more packages along with 2 nucs that we purchased from Dan Williams of Williams Honey Bees in Frankfort, Ohio. We came out of another really bad winter with one survival colony from one of the Williams nucs that we had purchased.
Not to get too frustrated we committed to keep at it and not give up in 2015. We purchased 2 more nucs from Williams and added 3 more package bees. After going through this exercise now 3 times it has become abundantly clear to me that local nucs are the way to go. They are of much better quality and the bees just seem much better acclimitized to Ohio's harsher winters. We also used the survivor colony to make a few of our own queens and we used those to make splits off our package bees. Believe it or not we also captured 2 swarms in traps which was very exciting! Add to that the purchase of 3 more queens from Williams and that brings up to 13 colonies. I think it would be a good goal for us to have 20-25 colonies heading into next winter but in order to accomplish that it will be important that this years bees survive the winter.
There is so much more to experience and learn. A few recommendations for new beekeepers or folks thinking of keeping bees in the future:
1) Attend a beekeeping school. Southwest Ohio Bee School is a great way to start.
2) Start with local nucs
3) Join a local club- Brown County Beekeepers Association or Southwest Ohio Beekeepers
4) Don't get too frustrated or give up, keep at it.
All Natural Honey
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