Early Season Grape Clusters are Starting to Show!

This should be a much better year at the farm than the last two seasons.

• We have had very little winter damage and spring frost in the vineyard.
• Most of the honeybees came through the winter ok and we added some more package bees.

 It is looking towards a great crop in the fall!

Some changes planned for the Fall of 2016

• We will have a "Sale" on honey, about 5 to 7% depending on the honey market in the fall.  This special sale will be ONLY ON QUARTS, GALLONS & PAILS OF HONEY DURING THE 6-7 WEEKS WE ARE OPEN FOR RETAIL SALES ON WEEKENDS AT OUR SALES STAND.  After that prices will return to normal.  This will put our honey prices close to when we were selling out of our bulk tank many years ago.   TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO PREPARE TO MAKE YOU ANNUAL HONEY TRIP IN THE FALL!
• We also are changing our price structure on grapes.  There will be many more pricing levels to encourage larger picking.  It will be easier to get into the next level for "another 5 gallons of wine".  The crop looks very good and there will be a lot available.  If you leave your name, we will keep track of your volume and it will be cheaper on your next visit.

We will post information on the Blog on our site.

The pruning job in the vineyard was much larger than the last few years.  Most of the vines had large dead trunks that needed to be pruned out. We had a good crew of youths, click here for images...

• Note - We installed a new image program on the site and you may see images back 10 years or more. (Except 2014-2015 when there was almost no pruning because of bad winters) Your image may be here.

Fortunately, last year the vines grew many replacement shoots that are now tied up to the wires and will have a normal crop on them. The picture at the top shows Cayuga vines with nice shoots and flower cluster on them.  The image at the right shows a closer view of the un-opened flower clusters.

They are very close to bloom, some varieties are already in bloom.  Click here for more bloom images - closeups....

New Section!

(each newsletter will focus on a different variety)

Varietal Focus on "Cayuga White"

Things are going pretty good this year at the Honey Farm.  Our loss over the winter was less than the last two years and the new package bees that we installed are thriving.

May & June is the "Swarm season" for honeybees.  That means a hive can get too crowded and decide to leave.  This weakens the hive since the swarm leaves with most of the bees and the old queen.  The remaining hive will make a new queen.  It is great if you can capture the swarm.

We had two different swarms move into a stack of honey supers we had stored by the barn. A few weeks later we moved them to a permanent honeybee yard.

Here is a link to our recent swarming post....

Our main activities in June & July are visiting the bee yard and adding empty honey supers on top of them - hopefully the bees will fill them with honey.

We now have a new 1 Gallon Jug (12 lb of honey) that can be shipped USPS flat rate.

This can be shipped to your door with shipping included for $72.00

Here a a recent post about  "3 ways to purchase Bulk Honey"

We found a great bunch of honeybee you tube videos:

• Which came first - Flowers or Bees?...
• Why are the Bees Dying?..
• How Do Bees Make Honey?...
• How Bees Can See the Invisible...
• Claude Monet Was Half Honeybee
• What is Raw Honey and Why is It Better Than Pasteurized?

What's in the News from CATCH THE BUZZ 
(Catch the Buzz are articles of interest in the beekeeping community - I get them from a daily email)

• CATCH THE BUZZ – Neonics Killing Bees from Wildflowers - By: Alan Harman New British research finds that 97% of the neonicotinoids brought back to honeybee hives in pollen could come from wildflowers –...
• CATCH THE BUZZ – Chinese Honey Illegally Imported, AGAIN, Labeled As From Vietnam - By Alan Harman Federal agents in Chicago seized nearly 60 tons of illegally imported Chinese honey valued at more than $200,000. The 195 barrels......
• CATCH THE BUZZ – Nation’s Beekeepers Lost 44 Percent of Bees in 2015-16 – BIP - Summer losses rival winter losses for the second year running. Beekeepers across the United States lost 44 percent of their honey bee colonies during...
• CATCH THE BUZZ – A CASE FOR (LOCAL) HONEY - Fully 80% of the honey consumed in this country is imported. Vietnam and India make up half of what’s sent to the U.S. How...

• CATCH THE BUZZ – Pollination Research – We’ve Been Planting Flowers, are They Doing What We Want? - Check out this new video The Xerxes Society has produced about the day-to-day workings of research on the Integrated Crop Pollination project

• CATCH THE BUZZ – Fraudulent Honey – Again - Alan Harman Photo UMF Honey   About a third of honey marketed in the United Kingdom as manuka product from New Zealand does not...

Shipping is on Sale - Free on orders over $50 - For the Next 30 Days!

(Candle Products Only)
Now is the time to stock up!

History and Uses of Beeswax

Beeswax - Its History & Uses, By Roger and Mary Sutherland, South Eastern Michigan Beekeepers Association

Beeswax was used by the Egyptians in painting and to protect the surface of painting in their tombs. The Greeks used it in making dolls. The Persians embalmed the dead with wax and the Romans used beeswax to model death masks and life-sized figures.  Read the rest of the article...