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
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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. I dont want to put too many of these videos that are not mine on here but this is a great documentary, 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. 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
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 |
Drake FarmsTim, Jen, Emma and Drake would like to thank you for taking the time to visit the site. The farm is named after our dog Drake who has been a constant fixture in our lives for the past 8 years. His easy going and friendly nature is the reason the farm is named after him. He is the first one to greet you when you arrive, and makes you his friend instantly. He is the heart and soul of our family Archives
May 2013
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