About Honeybees-by-the-Sea

Honeybees-by-the-Sea is a micro apiary, or honey bee garden, on the Crystal  Coast of North Carolina.  Our primary goal is the nurturing of honey bees, helping to ensure honey bee survival.  As you can see from the map, Morehead City is surrounded by water, and our area abounds in wetlands.  Mandy Farms is less than a mile from the waters of Bogue Sound and within bee distance of the open ocean.  We have in our neighborhood many bird sanctuaries and areas that are 

undeveloped and will likely remain so.  This means an abundance of trees and shrubs ideal for honey bee foraging from early spring until late fall.  

Shown at left, three examples of the harvest in 2007.  The April honey, shown at far right, is the   2007 North Carolina State Fair Third Place Ribbon winner in the Senior Honey Competition, Extracted Honey Light.

      Our honey bees are gentle Italians.  They are lovely and tireless, worthy of the awe they have inspired over the centuries.  Our colonies are situated in our organic Terra Preta, or Amazonian Dark Earth, garden area, protected from intrusion.  We are utilizing eight frame  medium sized hive bodies for both brood chambers and honey supers.  

We have screened bottom boards for increased ventilation and natural mite reduction.  In spring 2006 we began a transition to 4.9mm small cell foundation, (see photo page for illustration of drawn 4.9mm comb) starting a new colony on that foundation exclusively,  and introducing it to our established colony a little at a time. In spring 2007, we added two additional 'organic' small cell colonies to the apiary, with nucs from The Fatbeeman, Don Kuchenmeister.  By summer of 2008, three of our four colonies are fully regressed small cell honeybees.  There is a great deal of anecdotal 

evidence that this more natural size foundation gives honey bees a shorter reproductive cycle and edge on the Varroa destructor mite and bee diseases. We use no miticides or pesticides in our colonies or our vegetable and herb garden.  Francesca, seen below, June 2010,

is celebrating her sixth summer with no losses!  This is especially important as she has survived with no pesticides or miticides, ever.  She has also had no supplemental feeding since the winter of 2006-2007 when I implemented a management practice of leaving an extra super of honey on all colonies.  My goal is to never use sugar syrup. 

The Noble Art of Beekeeping has been a romantic ideal held by us for years. That love from afar has now turned into reality.   We extend warm thanks to all those who have encouraged us in this adventure, friends and family.  We specially wish to thank the more experienced beekeepers that so generously share their knowledge and wisdom.