I got home from work this evening to see four large boxes sitting on the front porch.  Our bee hive that we ordered from Brushy Mountain Bee Farm had arrived from North Carolina.  Ironically the boxes were being snowed on.  They will have to spend time in the garage until the four feet of snow that is on the ground at the homestead has melted.

My plan is to put the hive in what is our front yard.  It is on the south side of the house and I am slowly turning the front yard into a edible landscape.  I have already planted raspberries, strawberries, asparagus and blueberries.  There are also fruit trees in the front yard.  The peaches and apricots have been planted up close to the house because we are in a marginal area for those fruits being in low zone 4.

The bees will be introduced to the hive in June.  So we have until then to get their new home ready for their arrival.

Even though there is four feet of snow on the ground here at the homestead we are thinking about spring.  The new beehive was ordered yesterday.  This is our new adventure this year.  We will be setting up one hive and installing a nuc of bees in June.  My mother had bees when I was in college but she never harvested any honey from them.  She kept them for their pollination of their orchard.  We will be using them for pollination but also hope to be able to harvest some honey by their second year.  Honey has so many wonderful properties that my husband and I hope to take advantage of.  He suffers from seasonal allergies and it is said that eating local honey from the blooms and pollen that cause allergies will help to build up ones resistance to the allergy reaction.  Besides, it sure does taste good on biscuits.  We will keep you up to date as the project moves forward and hopefully have some pictures.  The hive we ordered is beautiful.