Carniolan Queens are usually black and all of their offspring are darker making the whole colony look dark.
This should be a much better year at the farm than the last two seasons.
It is looking towards a great crop in the fall!
Some changes planned for the Fall of 2016
We will post information on the Blog on our site.
Shipping is on Sale - Free on orders over $50 - For the Next 30 Days!
(Candle Products Only)
Now is the time to stock up!
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...
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:
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 – 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...
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...
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....
(each newsletter will focus on a different variety)
The Cayuga White Grape makes a soft, light fruity, crisp semi-dry (or dry) wine that is extremely palatable to most white wine connoisseurs. Often subtle flavors of apricot, melons, or peach can embody the wine.
Reminiscent of "traditional", more well-know wines such as the Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, or a "light" White Riesling, Cayuga White makes a very nicely balanced, pleasant white table wine. It can be served with appetizers, or with any main course that you would serve a light-white wine with.
Originally developed in Geneva, New York in the late 1950's early 1960's, Cayuga White was first grown commercially in Upstate, NY in the early 1970's. An examination of the grape's heredity yields a complex ancestry; engineered to withstand the cold climates (down to -20 degrees F), yet artistically developed for its mellow, fruity taste.
The Cayuga White grape is a cross between the Seyval Grape (also known as the Seyve-Villard) and the Schuylar grape. The Schuyler grape is a cross between the Zinfandel and Ontario Grape. As we all know, the Zinfandel grape is a "popular" red wine grape from the California Region. While, the Ontario grape is a cross between the Winchell and Moore's Diamond grape.
Carniolan Queens are usually black and all of their offspring are darker making the whole colony look dark.
3 queens in small 1 inch wide wooden boxes - ready to install