Come see us at PRIDE Festival - June 14th STUDIO CLOSED - B.M. Dooney Farms will bee on location with our mobile Beeswax Studio under our tent in Ives Park. Look for our black & yellow flag! Come support our LQBTQ community & enjoy a day...
STUDIO CLOSED June 7 - Becky Harblin Memorial B.M. Dooney Farms will be closed Saturday, June 7th, to attend the Celebration of Life for Miss Becky, a true kindred spirit, animal lover, painter & pastel artist of the North Country. All who knew her are filled...
B.M. Dooney Farms will be helping the new WISER Center Summer Beekeeping Interns learn how to make their first colony nucs! Nuc bees are already socialized to one another (coming originally from the same hive) and inherit frames of honey stores and brood from...
Why Do You Ask About Ethics?When we relocated our business from a southern US climate to a far northern US climate, we made the decision to acquire new honey bees that are naturalized to the local region. At BM Dooney Farms, we value the...
How Do Pesticides Affect Honey Bees?There’s a lot of information out there about impacts of pesticides on honey bees, and on other pollinators that have agricultural importance (like bumble bees), in addition to information on keystone organisms with social-economical relevance like Monarch butterflies. Here, we have...
Each season, inevitably, I find a colony that has become queenless. To fix this nearly hopeless situation, you’ll need another healthy colony to pilfer resources from. This is one of the reasons why I recommend that you keep more than one bee hive. Sometimes,...
Equipment PreparationOnce you’ve decided what kind of hive you wish to use for keeping bees, you now need to paint it. I recommend painting each hive body to protect the wood from weather damage. A painted beehive will last much longer than one left unprotected. ...
ClassificationKingdom: Animalia (Animal)Phylum: Euarthropoda (Arthropod)Class: Insecta (Insect)Order: Hymenoptera (includes: wasps, bees, & ants)Family: Apidea (largest family of bees)Genus: Apis (Latin for Bee)Species: Millifera (Latin for Honey Bearer)The Caste SystemHoney Bees live in a social community collectively called a colony. The job of each individual depends...
Types of Hives - Vertical vs HorizontalThroughout history beekeepers have experimented with countless styles of hives for maintaining and managing honey bees. Some hives are extremely ornate resembling something more like a Victorian dollhouse (similar to the picture above) while others are as simple as...
The history of beekeeping has intrigued me ever since becoming a beekeeper. Although, as fascinating as this topic is to me, it is impossible for me to discuss everything regarding this topic in one blog post. This topic deserves more time and...