Although our farm has always hosted bees for the pollination season, we have just completed our first year with our very own hives!  Bees are greatly at risk due to predatory mites and disease worldwide and are an essential partner in agriculture. (Remember the lesson about the "birds and the bees?")  There are many reasons to host bees on the farm, but assuring a pollination supply is certainly one of them. Delicious honey is another!  Bees also offer a rich learning opportunity for farm interns, visitors and us! Paul Darrah is an experienced beekeeper and is teaching Janet Cameron and farm interns the art and science of beekeeping. 

A year ago we purchased queens all the way from Hawaii to locate the most disease free bees we could find and introduced them our hives locally. Late August was our first honey harvest and Paul thinks the taste of our honey is something special! Could it be the unique combination of organic orchards, cut flower fields and the desert adjacent to our bee yard? Ten hives are now active in the early spring apricot blossoms. It is pretty exciting to suit up with Paul and open the hives to a whole city of bees at work. 

We hope you take the opportunity to taste our honey this year!