A member of "loudoun, va grown - loudoun, va raised" organization.
All the apiaries are located on Loudoun County farms that are practicing and/or certified as organic farms: Williowsford Community Farm (Ashburn), JK Community Farm (Purcellville) , and TheBeeKeeper's Farm (Aldie).
Nucs are created (crafted) from strong production hives that survived the Northern Virginia (NVA) area winter(s). The Beekeeper's Farm LLC is a self-sustainable operating which started with Italian bees which are now fully climatized to the NVA area.
Current Types of Nucs which are available:
Over Winter Nucs - these are nucs which were created during the summer of 2019 from our apiaries and are available immediately after an inspection from the State Apiary Inspector - typically scheduled in early April. The quickest option we have available to go from nuc to full size colony.
Post Winter Nucs - these are early spring colonies created from strong production hives that survived the NVA winter. The queen bee, bees, and brood will all be from the same colony thus creating a cohesive unit. These are 5-frame deep boxes. The colony grows from a nucleus to your full size hive.
Spring Nucs - these nucs are a joint early spring time venture by the beekeeper and the bees themselves. Instead of the beekeeper assisting with the development/raising of queen cells, the bees themselves, who are the true experts, develop each queen cell during the month of April. The beekeeper then creates a starter nuc with queen cell which should hatch x days later. The starter nuc with its new queen will grow to a full size nuc towards the end of May.
Summer Nucs - are identical to the spring nucs except these nucs are created early July filling the nuc with bees by the fall time frame. Beekeepers use these nucs over the winter to help with loss replacement of any hives during the winter. Typically these are not in high demand since there is an overwinter risk of losing the nuc. However, they are very useful if a beekeeper loses a queen during the fall or has a need to boost a hive since these nucs can be combined with a full-size hive. The BeeKeeper's Farm only produces five frame deep nucs.