Greenfield Hives & Honey
1179 Nova Scotia Trunk 14 B0N 2N0 Dartmouth, NS, Canada

Here’s an entry for our Sweet Selfie Contest. Post a selfie on your social media and tag or check in Greenfield Hives & Honey for your chance to win 4 x 500g jars of Honey in time for Christmas. Draw date is December 17th.

A peek inside the entrance. They are all bundled up on this cool wet day.

Setting the bees up for winter, with a helping hand from Nathan, my eldest.

Beekeepers use what they have at hand.... built 2 x 3 shelf pallet shelves which will definitely help keep things organized!

Honey Supers all tucked away for winter.

Contest Details: You send us a selfie featuring a bottle of our honey to [email protected] and you will be entered to win 4 x 500g jars of honey for Christmas. Contest closes 11:59pm December 16, 2020. Winner announced next day. One entry per customer accepted. All entries are subject to approval of content. Anything deemed inappropriate will be disqualified. All images submitted become the property of Greenfield Hives & Honey and submission acknowledges that submitted images may be used for marketing purposes and provides consent for such use.

Honey for sale now, order by email at [email protected] 500g for $10 or our new 1kg for $18 e-transfer accepted.

We deal with a Drone hive and hope to save this struggling hive!

Setting the beeyard up for Hurricane Teddy!

There’s a bee in my bonnet!

In the shop and a bee was checking out my bee mug!

Did a live Honey Extraction demonstration today for my community. Thanks to all those who came by to talk and learn all about honeybees!

Had some visitors to our Windsor Yard today. Cyndi and Tim shared a couple pictures they took while we pulled Supers. Another beautiful day! Thanks for visiting us!

I don’t know what kind of plant this is, other than some sort of thistle, but it’s covered with bumble bees and only feet away from my yard containing over 30 honeybee hives. Suggests that wild species and honeybees can forage in the same area.

Today was Super Day in Greenfield. You can see the before and after pics. Yard 1 done, number 2 tomorrow!

The honeybee industry work hand in hand with wild blueberry producers in Nova Scotia. Miles and miles of blueberry feilds like this one in West Brook. Did you know Nova Scotia’s largest agricultural export are wild blueberries?

How good are your eyes? Can you spot the Queen in each of the pictures? The first contains an unmarked Queen, the second picture she's marked to make it easier. Have fun! @ Greenfield Hives & Honey

It's closing time at the beeyard! In this short video you can see bees "washboarding", that's a gentle rocking back and forth motion while they sweep their front legs. It's called Washboarding because it looks like they are scrubbing the surfaces of the hive. Although it's hard to say why they do it, it is usually done near the end of the season. For a beekeeper, it's one of the signs to pull supers and start the fall feeding to get ready for winter.

Although there is a small river close to the beeyard, on a hot day like today they appreciate a closer water supply! We put out a large planter base filled with rocks and top off with water. As you can see the bees make good use of this handy resource. They use it to cool their hive when the brood gets too warm. @ Greenfield Hives & Honey

One of my brood frames. This hive was requeened after an attempted swarm. I got a Queen Cell and installed her before she hatched. After a mating flight this girl is in high production laying eggs and producing young. The frame is almost edge to edge capped brood! Wow!

Here I cut out some of the comb and place the elastics

Did a Cut-Out today in Cole Harbour. Bees built lots of comb, brood and honey stores. It called a Cut Out because you literally cut out the comb and place it in a frame. I use elastics to hold in it in place until the bees do it. I did not find the queen. It was hot and dark in that corner and there were so many bees! Finished with a trip in their new box ending up in my greenfield yard. I will let them settle in for a couple days, then try to locate the queen again.

So if you saw my last post, you will notice some new security measures in place. A raccoon got into one of the nucs and tried to drag off a frame of honey. The little intruder dropped it a mere few feet from the nuc as the bees took their own action. Although the raccoon made off with little, the hive suffered the loss of those defenders. So, heavier nuc boxes and some straps to keep them safe. I am sure that raccoon will be back to try again!

After installing Queens in my hives that needed one, I had 5 left over! What to do? Well, make some splits in Nucs. The one on the far left is part of a colony I rescued from Cow Bay. Unfortunately they were queenless when I got them, now they will be part a a growing colony! I will leave the Nucs in these boxes until a full hive body is ready. Then off to Windsor to join that yard.

Queens have finally arrived! Now time to get busy! @ Greenfield Hives & Honey

4 hives, with 9 supers in total, which equates to almost 600 lbs of surplus honey!

The food that feeds the bees that help feed us!