Drake Farms Pure PEI Honey - Blog

The big one

Sat, 25 May 2013 01:22:42 GMT

So today is our one year anniversary of becoming commercial beekeepers, we would like to thank everyone that has supported us this past year. We have received a lot of positive feedback on our business and website, feel free to contact us as we enjoy hearing from all of you.

We have meet a lot of great people and look forward to bringing more products, flavours of honey and more options for payments and of course more places to purchase our products. When we started keeping bees and selling products from the hive we weren't sure what we were doing. We are constantly trying to adapt and cater to your requests for products. This year we will be carrying bulk propolis, more pollen, new candles to our beeswax line, and of course more honey products, this fall we will be trying a honey mead line as well. A road side stand will be coming this fall and as always we don't mind bringing the hive products to you.

Also we will be offering from our farm fresh free range chicken eggs, we started with some laying hens and will offer some eggs to our customers and neighbours.

If you have any requests feel free to send us an email and we will do our best to accommodate your request.

So from myself, my wife Jen and daughter Emma thanks to everyone that had made this past y

More bees

Sat, 25 May 2013 01:02:25 GMT

So I was lucky enough to receive some great bees with awesome genetics from Ontario. As some might of noticed that PEI bees have been in the news for quite sometime now. One thing that never seems to make it to the public is that our bee stocks here on PEI are the equivalent to the boy in the bubble. Our bees have never been exposed to any diseases nor have we tried to bring in any resistant stock. Its very similar to a newborn's immune system and yours, you have been exposed to many viruses over time and are now resistant; however our PEI bees are not. Finally we can now import the much needed genetics to allow our stocks to become resistant to any possible mites or diseases. The above picture is just a couple of the new arrivals, they are going to be a great addition to the bee yard.

Spring is coming

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 19:22:19 GMT

Winter Check up

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:22:38 GMT

Checked on the hives this morning, last check was two weeks ago. Today I've lost two big hives as dead outs and one more is just hanging on. They had lots of food stores but with the weather being cold then warm then cold then warm its very hard on the bees. Its disappointing as things were going so well, however hopefully I will have more Nucs coming this spring. I made some mistakes over-wintering them that I wont repeat in the future, but mainly it was due to the weather. It takes a lot of time and money to bring a hive up to full strength and loosing just two is a big hit. I will try to post some pictures soon but the snow is a bit deep for me to get my tractor over to collect and clean out the dead hives.
Anyone who wishes to help out feel free to click on the Donate button as any contributions will go directly to purchasing bees.
Stay tuned for another up date next week when I check the weaker hive.

Another bee video

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 18:41:22 GMT

I dont want to put too many of these videos that are not mine on here but this is a great documentary,

Silence of the bees

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:29:45 GMT

Here is a great video, it's about CCD (colony collapse disorder) in the US. Some are looking for a smoking gun to point towards what causes such as phenomena. Is it systemic pesticides , is it PPB (pretty poor beekeeping) or is it something more than that. Watch for yourself and another good video is " Vanishing of the bees" as well as " The last beekeeper". I enjoyed all of them, the last beekeeper is hard to find the full version but I believe Netflix has it.

Candle making time

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 01:17:23 GMT

Here is a picture of our new candle label, it needs a little adjusting but this is it. Its now time to start production of candles, hopefully we can create enough to supply the demand.

We will post more often as I have been very busy and just did not have time to dedicate to the blog. But we will let you know where we are going to be selling candles and honey this coming week. Thanks to everyone for making our first year a great one and feel free to as questions

Splitsville

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 22:47:01 GMT

So today was a good day to make some splits. Meaning that each hive is generally two hive boxes (supers) high, however I had three on for a while now. I did this so I can make splits at a later time, so basically all I did was take one of the boxes off of two hives and combined them to make one hive. The bees will make their own queen from one of the eggs that are available on the comb. Each super has ten frames consisting of some honey, capped brood, larva and eggs. Along with nurse bees to look after them. I will post some pics and show you in more detail what I am talking about, today was a rainy day so no pictures were possible. Stay tuned

July 21st, 2012

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 21:33:35 GMT

Ventalation

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 02:36:07 GMT

This is a picture of a vent hole that I made in the ventilation rim that I made. Phillip from mud songs is the owner of this invention ( or at least that is where I got the idea). The bees cannot enter as the #8 hardware cloth is covering the 1" hole

I still have some feeders on (above the ventilation rim) as I am still trying to get them to draw out comb. I won't be putting anymore syrup in as I now (finally) have enough drawn out comb so next year they won't have to work as hard in the spring.
The ventilation rim allows air to circulate throughout the hive allowing the bees to cure the honey faster, imagine if you plugged the vent on your clothes dryer. The clothes would get hot but won't dry near as fast as if you allowed the air to exit carrying the moisture with it.