I was talking with a friend one day explaining what I was up to with my bees. I had mentioned that I lined up an organic farm that was very excited to have my bees come live on their property. She asked if I pay them to have the bees stay there and I mentioned no, the farms producing certain crops a lot of times pay bee keepers to get bees on their land. So she said to me "so you pimp your bees out to farmers to work their crops"? I then said yes... and that's where Honey Pimp Apiaries came about! Currently our hives are located on three properties called apiaries. The first one is at Prairie Erth farm in Atlanta IL, the second is at Homestead Harvests LLC in Heyworth IL, and the third is in Downs Illinois. Each of these have a few things in common:
- They have forage for the bees through most of the growing season
- The properties do not use hazardous chemicals prophylactically
- They are environmentally minded and understand some of the issues negatively impacting pollinators today
With that said, the three sites produce different honeys based on available forage. I truly look forward to letting people taste the difference themselves instead of trying to describe it. People seem to get "it" when the flavor hits their tongue. As I learn more about bees and understand more of the issues, I'm now focusing on trying to manage my genetic stocks. I have suffered severe losses over the last 4 years and I plan to stop that going forward. My bees are all:
- Managed with NO man made chemicals
- Managed with screen bottom boards spring, summer, fall, and winter
I hope you enjoy this blog of sorts. Please jump in the conversation and leave us feedback as we go forward.
