A Major Leap Forward: Desert Farms Apiary Acquires Jade’s Farmstand Apiary Equipment and Colonies
What started as a plan to gradually build Desert Farms Apiary over the next several years just took a very big step forward.
We're excited to announce that Desert Farms Apiary has acquired the apiculture equipment, honey inventory, hive equipment, and six active honey bee colonies from Jade's Farmstand of Sunnyside, Washington.
This isn't simply the purchase of a few beehives and some tools. Jade's Farmstand previously maintained approximately 20 active colonies, and the acquisition includes much of the equipment and infrastructure accumulated to support that operation.
For Desert Farms Apiary, it represents an opportunity to preserve and put back to work years' worth of beekeeping equipment while dramatically accelerating the development of our own apiary in West Richland.
Six Established Colonies Are Coming to West Richland
At the heart of the acquisition are six established, actively producing honey bee colonies currently located in Grandview, Washington.
And these bees have been busy.
Each colony currently has between one and three medium honey supers, with this year's supers still waiting to be harvested. That means our first major task isn't going to be waiting for the bees to make honey.
It's going to be figuring out what to do with all the honey they've already made.
Before the colonies make their move from Grandview to West Richland, their harvestable honey will be removed and transported separately. The hives will then be carefully secured, ventilated, and relocated to their new home at Desert Farms Apiary.
Once established in the bee yard, the colonies will undergo our normal health assessments and become the foundation of our growing apiary.
For bees accustomed to flying over the agricultural landscape surrounding Grandview, West Richland will be a new environment to explore—and we've been working hard to prepare it for them.
More Honey Than We Expected
The honey currently on the colonies is only part of what we're acquiring.
The purchase also includes six 5-gallon pails of honey, along with three large tubs containing frames still filled with honey waiting to be processed.
Add the honey currently sitting in as many as 18 medium supers on the six colonies, and we have a considerable amount of extracting, filtering, settling, bottling, and labeling ahead of us.
Fortunately, the acquisition also includes the equipment to do it.
From Hive to Jar
One of the most exciting aspects of this acquisition is that it gives Desert Farms Apiary much of the infrastructure necessary to handle honey production from the hive all the way to the finished jar.
Among the major equipment being acquired is a Maxx12 12-frame radial honey extractor, equipped with upgraded spring feet; a 24-inch professional uncapping tank; a Speed-Fill Plus automatic honey filling system; two 100 kg stainless-steel bottling tanks; and the associated food-grade suction hose and processing equipment.
Much of this major processing equipment was purchased within approximately the last 12–24 months and has seen relatively little use.
The Maxx12 is particularly well suited to the operation we're acquiring because our honey supers are mediums. Twelve medium frames can be extracted radially at a time, giving us considerably more processing capacity than we originally expected to have at this stage of the farm's development.
The Speed-Fill Plus will then allow us to move beyond hand-filling every jar as production increases.
In other words, we're not simply acquiring the bees that produce the honey.
We're acquiring much of the equipment necessary to harvest, extract, process, store, and bottle it.
And That's Only the Beginning
Anyone who has kept bees for very long knows that an apiary consists of much more than colonies and an extractor.
Boxes multiply.
Frames multiply.
Tools multiply.
And somehow you can never find the hive tool you were just holding.
The acquisition includes a substantial collection of hive bodies, medium supers, frames, drawn comb, covers, bottom boards, feeders, screens, nuc and transport equipment, protective equipment, hive tools, and other woodenware accumulated during years of operating a larger apiary.
There are also six smokers, an oxalic-acid vaporizer, two mini leaf blowers, bucket heaters, mite-management equipment and supplies, winter equipment, feed, sieves, filters, wax-processing equipment, and numerous other tools and supplies.
Some of the equipment is nearly new.
Some of it bears the unmistakable marks of years spent working around bees.
We're happy to have both.
A scratched and propolized hive box isn't worn-out equipment to a beekeeper. It's equipment that has done its job.
And already-drawn comb is particularly valuable. Every usable frame of drawn comb represents thousands of wax scales that our bees won't have to produce before that space can be used again for brood or honey storage.
Beyond Bottled Honey
The acquisition also expands what we'll eventually be able to produce from the apiary.
Included is a honey-stick production system, allowing us to produce individual honey straws, along with equipment and supplies for making and filling beeswax lip balm.
There is also a solar wax melter, honeycomb and wax-processing equipment, bucket heaters, an electric decrystallizing system, jars in multiple sizes, blank labels, and other packaging supplies.
That opens the door to making better use of more of what comes out of the hive—not only honey, but beeswax and other value-added products as Desert Farms Apiary develops.
Carrying Forward Another Beekeeper's Work
There is a bittersweet element to acquiring an established beekeeper's operation.
An apiary isn't built overnight.
Every box, frame of drawn comb, tool, and established colony represents time. Behind all of it are thousands of hive inspections, heavy supers carried across a bee yard, hot summer afternoons, cold-weather preparations, stings, swarms, harvests, mistakes, successes, and countless hours spent learning from the bees.
Jade's Farmstand built this collection of equipment while operating as many as approximately 20 active colonies.
Now much of that equipment—and, most importantly, six of those living colonies—will have another chapter.
We are grateful for the opportunity to carry some of that work forward.
Building Desert Farms Apiary
When we began developing Desert Farms Apiary, the vision was never simply to put a few beehives on the property.
The goal has been to create a sustainable small agricultural operation centered around honey bees, responsible hive management, improved pollinator forage, local honey, and products made from what our farm and bees produce.
We've been steadily building toward that goal in West Richland: clearing and leveling the future bee yard, improving the property, planning forage, acquiring equipment, and developing the infrastructure necessary to support a growing apiary.
We expected that growth to happen gradually.
Sometimes, though, an opportunity comes along that changes the timeline.
Acquiring the remaining apiary operation from Jade's Farmstand gives Desert Farms Apiary access to equipment that could otherwise have taken years to accumulate individually. More importantly, it gives six established colonies a new home where they can continue doing what honey bees do best.
There's a tremendous amount of work ahead.
We have equipment to move and inventory.
Honey supers to pull.
Hundreds of frames to sort.
Honey to extract.
Equipment to clean and organize.
Colonies to relocate.
And an entirely new bee yard for those colonies to learn.
Soon, bees that have spent their lives flying from their hives in Grandview will emerge from their entrances in West Richland, take their orientation flights, and begin mapping an entirely new landscape.
When that happens, Desert Farms Apiary will officially enter a new phase.
Six colonies. A whole lot of equipment. More honey than we expected. And one very exciting next chapter.
Welcome to West Richland, girls.
We've been getting ready for you.