This winter we have been taking a beekeeping class and we are learning alot! It has been really interesting and we are hoping to expand our beehives this Spring. We had 3 hives on our farm last year (1 belonging to us and 2 others belonging to a friend) and we could really tell that they helped pollinate the garden. We saw bees all of the time and our yields for most things were good, even though we had a less than ideal growing season with our wet and cooler than normal Summer. The wet and cool weather also took a toll on the honey harvest. We were only able to harvest 3 pints of honey from our hive and our friend harvested around 150 lbs. ( I think) of honey from 4 hives. We have learned in our bee class that in a good year it is nothing to harvest 150 lbs of honey per hive! We are hoping to add 2 more hives to our 1 that we already have...and we are hoping for a Summer that is a bit warmer and drier! If all goes well, we'll have some all natural honey to sell!
