Our bees gather nectar from nearby flowering plants, shrubs
and trees. Our farm is situated on over 100 acres of forests and meadows, so there is plenty of foraging for the bees.
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| Sheepy Valley sells
its honey at local fairs and festivals |
The worker bees bring the natural nectar back to the hives-which is then
collected and aged in small cells throughout the hives. Essentially, the bees work
together as a big team--including drones, workers, and the queen--to collect and store
honey as food for the winter, and to breed and produce additional worker bees. You may be
surprised to find out that the average bee lives less than a month.
We remove the honey supers (the section of the hive the bees put the honey in)
each fall. We leave some honey behind for the bees to eat, and we also supplement their
food supply with sugar water. Extracting the liquid honey from the supers is a
time-consuming task. First, the wax which seals the honey in the comb must be removed with
a hot knife. Then, the uncapped combs are placed in a round extractor, which is spun at a
high speed until the honey runs out through a spout into our waiting buckets.
Then we have to strain, bottle and label the honey, and get it ready to
sell!
The wax which is removed from the honeycomb is also useful. We melt it down, and make
beeswax candles either by hand-dipping or pouring into molds. (See the
column to the right for more about our candles.)
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We also sell hand-dipped and hand-molded beeswax
candles. They have a sweet fragrance, and burn longer and cleaner than other candles,
giving off more light.
- Hand-dipped pair of six-inch or twelve-inch tapers
- Hand-molded Santa candles
- Hand-molded beehive candles
- Hand-molded bear candles
- Hand-molded tree candles
For pricing and ordering information, please visit our
order page. |
