Today is the day!
Peter met a fellow beekeeper in the Northern Virginia area, and through sharing our story of our homestead and new apiary, our dream for Broken Chair Honey, and the heartbreak of the Great Bee-Saster of 2025, our new friend is gifting us a new hive (a swarm he caught earlier this year) to get this honey show back on the road!
This evening, Peter will pick up our new Bina bees and transport them to the homestead to get Bina, Part Two, settled in. The wonderful opportunity to spend some time with a seasoned beekeeper is a gift, and we are beyond thankful for this apiarist friend!
We are thrilled to have the opportunity to restore what was lost!
We are also increasing our Vermicompost (worm farm) production. The thing about starting to vlog and record what we are doing at the homestead is that there is clarity afforded in hearing yourself say the same thing over and over! For me, it was us talking about how bad our soil is (which is an understatement). Here we are with the most amazing soil/compost makers (our Gerards) and complaining about not having enough good soil! Answer: get more Gerards and kick this Vermicompost production into high gear. This weekend, we will set up more bins and order more worms to join our army of compost creators!
And then there are the Grendels, our Black Soldier Fly Larvae...
We ironically dehydrated them (which is the intended outcome for the future generations of the larvae) before they had a chance to complete their whole lifecycle. We need a do-over! Peter and I will move our BSF setup to a cooler spot in full shade this weekend, and we will try again. Replacement Grendels are on their way!
