The bees are mostly tucked away for winter – they will come out on sunny days in the 40s and 50s to clean up but otherwise stay in the hive and eat their stores. We have put on some insulation to help them maintain the temperatures and hope they’ve been fed and healthy enough to… Continue reading Season’s Greetings
Category: Bee Info
Charcuterie
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May Flowers
We have been busy! The end of the school year is near and with it a slew of concerts, ceremonies, potlucks and events. Saturday morning had us out at Camp Butler National Cemetery for the traditional flag posting by the Scouts (BSA). The rest of the weekend is for family and we are visiting Ainsworth… Continue reading May Flowers
It’s been a busy summer
We have had so much fun this summer and promptly forgot about updating our website… June: Bees go to school We got to attend the West Nature Grove opening ceremony. We are proud to be a partner in this teaching apiary at Lincoln Land Community College. https://www.llcc.edu/campus-map/west-lake-nature-grove July: A meeting of hives Quincy hosted the… Continue reading It’s been a busy summer
Almost harvest time
The bees have been busy making honey in spite of the horrible dry spell we are experiencing. We’re looking forward to harvesting some honey, and comb honey (!) soon and getting to supply some of our customers again. After extracting the honey, we will be rolling into getting the bees ready for fall and winter.… Continue reading Almost harvest time
Queen Bees
Our VSH breeder queen (varroa-sensitive and hygenic) is thriving and laying. We are busy making queens to replace last year’s package queens, and making spring nucs. We are running MP-style cell builders aiming for fat, happy queens and will have some available soon for sale. The cold spring and winds delayed us a little but… Continue reading Queen Bees
Swarm Season
We have been busy in the bee yards getting ready for the bees to expand and grow this spring. New queens are being reared to replace queens where needed (re-queening), and where we are able to split strong hives. Some hives are going through a swarm response – we’ve had a couple eerie moments when… Continue reading Swarm Season
Dear Property Owner…
We finally updated our apiary host letter. What is that? It’s a letter to property owners asking if they would be interested in hosting some of our bees. Dear Property Owner, We are a local beekeeping business and are looking for hosts for our bees. We are a family-owned business based in Springfield. Please visit… Continue reading Dear Property Owner…
Spring!
It’s been a rollercoaster watching the weather these past couple weeks. I know we live in the Midwest, but c’mon! Regardless, we’ve started grafting for our spring queens and there may have been some bees in our basement to weather the cold, cold nights. We have overwintered nucs available in our shop right now and… Continue reading Spring!
Where’s the honey?
We get asked a lot if we sell at the farmer’s market, a road side stand or from our home. The answer is “not quite”. We do sell in bulk to other, locally retailing beekeepers. It’s a trade that allows all of us local producers to keep our customers in locally produced honey consumers can… Continue reading Where’s the honey?