Runamuk Acres Conservation Farm
Soil-first farming, building health from the ground up!
A swarm of bees is a beautiful thing. A veritable cloud of bees all flying in every direction as they search for a pace to land their Queen. They choose a spot and form a protective ball around Her; a mass of bees with only one goal in mind: finding a new home. I didn’t…
I got the call last week from the local beekeeper I’d ordered nucs with; they were ready. I was at Johnny’s at the time and could not contain myself─everyone around me knew my enthusiam and excitement. Yay bees! That moment of elation was quickly followed by a moment of panic. The loan I had applied…
Every year at the annual meeting of the Maine State Beekeepers’ Association our state apiarist, Anthony (Tony) Jadczak talks about the condition of our bees throughout the course of the year. We all laughingly refer to it as Tony’s “State of the State Address”, but it really is important information to relay to the body…
Studying under Professor Frank Drummond at the University of Maine, Brianne Du Clos is a PhD candidate studying how bees use the landscape and what types of land offer good forage resources. She also happens to be a beekeeper and a member of the Knox-Lincoln County Beekeepers group, and she presented her research to the…
What does a beekeeper do in the deep depths of winter when it’s too cold and snowy for bees and beekeeping? I know you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to, lol. My season at the orchard is over, my vacation was wonderful but that is now over; and on January 4th I started back…
If you’ve been following along with my story you’ve likely already heard about the situation with our local skunk. He─or she─took out a clutch of half a dozen chicks a couple of months ago, and since then he’s been terrorizing the beehives and digging up the lawn all around the farmhouse in search of grubs….
Saturday’s “Beekeeping 101” workshop was a success and I am enamored–ecstatic–and relieved, lol. Okay, so there was only one student–but she was a very important guest on the farm. This woman traded me the new group of birds–the 18 laying hens, 4 heritage breed turkeys, and a goose named Michael–for 2 spots in Runamuk workshops….
With the Open-Hive behind me, the garden in maintenance mode, and the bees content to do their thing, there’s a momentary lull in the activity here at Runamuk that affords me the opportunity to write. Generally speaking, things are going well here at Runamuk’s new location. It’s painstakingly slow progress, but it’s progress and I’m content…
We’ve got a beautiful location for this event, and new Queens arriving this week–so as long as the weather cooperates, beekeepers from around the area can participate in making splits at the Runamuk apiary. I also plan to demonstrate some of the various mite-testing methods since this is such a crucial aspect of beekeeping these days. These…
A week ago today I was in a frantic frenzy to get the Runamuk homestead de-cluttered, cleaned, and scoured in preparation for an inspection by Maine’s Division of Quality Assurance and Regulations. Marshall Piper, the Consumer Protection Inspector who manages inspection and licensing of home-processing and commercial kitchen licensing for our area was due to…