We're a small business located in Bedford VA. We make all the woodenware and bees locally that we sell.
We also sell woodenware and honey.
Email Tony for questions.

updated Feb 2022

Bees

We have not yet been inspected for the 2022 year by the VA state apiarist.
example Apiary Health Certification from 2019

2022 nucleus colony in complete hive

$360 plus tax
Complete colony of bees including queen, pollen, honey, and brood on 10 frames of comb covered in bees, started in 2022. Includes assembled painted bottom board, entrance reducer, 3 assembled painted mediums with assembled frames, assembled inner cover, and assembled painted telescoping outer cover. Pickup usually in late May, sometimes sooner, sometimes later depending on weather.

2022 nucleus colony

$180 plus tax
Complete colony of bees including queen, pollen, honey, and brood started in 2022. Includes 10 medium frames of drawn comb with brood, pollen, and honey in a medium wooden box. Pickup usually in late May, sometimes sooner, sometimes later depending on weather. You'll need to bring a bottom board and inner/outer cover for transporting.

Beekeeping Lessons

$40/person/3 hour session
We offer teaching sessions at our production yards. We'll teach you how to read what is happening in the hives, what to do based on hive assessment, seasonal management activities, and practical tips. Each session lasts about 3 hours. Since it is extremely hands on and interactive, we cap the classes to 4 people. In the spring we're in our yards almost every week, so lots of opportunities. We recommend 2-3 sessions, but you'll get value out of every minute.

Notes

There are 3 attributes to our bee products: age(overwintered/2019/2020/etc), how many bees(colony), and equipment(hive).

Age(overwintered/2020) refers to the age of the colony, and loosely the age of the queen. A hive with the current year most likely has a brand new queen, and an overwintered colony most likely has a queen that is at least a year old, but they could have requeened themselves. A requeened overwintered colony is still the same colony because the genetic line is the same.

Colony(nucleus) typically refers to the amount of bees. We only offer nucleus colonies: 5 frames of comb filled with resources/brood and covered in bees.

Hive(complete/cardboard) typically refers to the equipment(boxes, frames, etc). We make and run all 10 frame medium equipment(6 5/8"), even for the brood nest. We believe the management pro's outweigh the con's of standard equipment. Our complete hive consists of 3 mediums with frames, bottom board, inner cover, telescoping outer cover, entrance reducer.

We don't use foundation, wax or plastic, so there is no need for our frames to support foundation. To get more comb, we insert empty frames into the broodnest to suppress swarming and to encourage new comb production for the queen to lay eggs in. This requires more attentiveness on the part of the beekeeper and a willingness to correct mistakes when they happen, but has an overall positive effect on the bees.