Saturday, April 30, 2011

Rain rain go away!

Blueberry crops are starting to bloom in the Fraser valley and the bees are on the move we're getting the hives ready to go into our contracts next weekend ! After a long cold spring the bees are in need of some nice flying weather to help them build up. Feeding pollen substitute and sugar syrup helps them build but nothing works like the real thing. Last year at this time we were already spliting collonies to control swarming. Our summer markets start May 22 in Steveston and June12th in Ladner. We put some of our products into Richmond country farms (Steveston Hwy and hwy 99 )and they've been selling well! KEEP THE BUZZ IN BRITISH COLUMBIA BUY LOCAL HONEY !

Sunday, March 6, 2011

California Dreamin

I had a nice trip down to Sacramento California in mid February to pick up some equipment for our operation. The almonds where just starting to bloom and truck loads of bee's were arriving. Half the bee's in the united states are trucked into California for almond pollination. I stopped by some hives in one orchard and ate my lunch the bees were flying and it was nice to hear the hum and watch them working. I would have liked to had more time to visit but my priority's were at home. As I look outside and it's pouring rain I start dreaming about beekeeping in California and how nice it must be to work in the sunshine! Spring has sprung in the Fraser valley and the first signs of spring are here daffodils are poking through the ground and the day time high temperatures are reaching near 10 degrees Celsius. Feeding our bee's in the early spring stimulates them to raise brood so that there ready to go to work in Blueberry's in mid April. Spring hive inspections will start as soon as the bee's are flying regularly and the day's are a bit warmer. We have 3 more indoor market's in the gulf of Georgia cannery in Steveston B.C .We've signed up for 2 summer market's this year Ladner farmers market and Steveston Farmers market I'll post schedules in my next blog. Keep The Buzz In British Columbia Buy Local Honey!

     Winter Market Schedule
   Gulf of Georgia Cannery Museum
    Steveston B.C
   March 13-27
  April-10

Saturday, January 22, 2011

MOTHER NATURE IS ONE TUFF CHICK !




Summer Farmers Market Ladner.B.C

Happy New Year! 2010 has come and gone and it was quite the year.Our small little easy to manage 80 colony operation grew to a little over 200 hives this past season. Besides biting off a little more than we could chew mother nature gave us a run for our money every step of the way. Spring in Vancouver is normally quite wet but this past spring was one of the wettest on record. Summer finally arrived mid June and the thermometer went right to 30 degrees and we went from mud puddles to a dust bowl in two days. The wild blackberry crop started to bloom
Blackberry Bloom
but all the heat put them into stress and the flowers didn't kick off much nectar.After a poor Blueberry honey crop we needed some blackberry honey to keep our hives healthy.The lack of Blackberry nectar forced us to move our colony's onto a Raspberry farm in Abbotsford B.C and thankfully the raspberry blooms were dripping with nectar.After two weeks in Raspberry's the hives put on 60 pounds of light colored fruity honey. Our Cranberry contracts started calling looking for bees as there bloom was well under way we quickly moved to Richmond B.C for a very uneventful Cranberry pollination season! Right a the tail end of Cranberry's the bees managed to bring a little bit of pink Cranberry honey this was a nice surprise as this is a rare honey to harvest! Our bees were in great shape ready to get to work on  200 acres of pumpkin bloom this is our #1 selling honey and we build our colony's all season to be as big as possible for pumpkin pollination. Any of the farmers that irrigated there pumpkins kept there plants healthy and the bees were able to collect average nectar and pollen from the huge yellow flowers.After some intense fall management the hives were fat and ready for winter. Grant Ball from corporate campaigns has been building our brand new web site www.goldstrikehoneybee.com We would like to thank him for all his hard work and for the great customer service ! Keep the Buzz in British Columbia Buy Local Honey! -Steve Gourley /Goldstrike Honeybee Company

Winter Market Schedule 
Gulf of Georgia Cannery Museum
Steveston B.C
Jan-30
Feb-13-27
March-13-27
Apr-10 
Market Hours 10am-3pm