It is blueberry-picking time out in Richmond, and our friends Doris and Harold Lougheed not only are open at their U-Pick in Richmond, but they have been graced with some special guests, a pair of nesting Sandhill Cranes.
Tag Archives | blueberries
Video: Moving Bees from B.C. to Alberta for pollination
I did this video last week of an Alberta commercial beekeeper who was staging his hives in a farmer’s field where we were pollinating raspberries. Paradis Valley Honey was getting ready to pull 2,000 hives out of the Lower Mainland where they had been pollinating blueberries, heading for canola in Northern Alberta. They needed a […]
We’ll be at EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival May 1-3
Amanda and I are striking out in a new direction with our honey. We will be at the EAT! Vancouver Food + Cooking Festival at BC Place next month, in the Canadian Artisan Food Pavilion artisanal food section sponsored by Edible Canada. We are absolutely excited about this opportunity and have been spending many sleepless nights trying to […]
Late-winter feeding of the bees as spring draws near
We spent much of the weekend out with the bees, making those important late-winter checks to see who had survived and who had not. Some are thriving. But not a few are struggling. What made this weekend both enjoyable and worrisome was the extraordinarily mild weather. February can be a tough month here, both rainy […]
That not-so-secret award-generating U-pick blueberry farm is open
I have a secret blueberry patch that I frequent out on River Road in Richmond. It’s not one of those great swaths of blueberry bushes that spread into the distance. It isn’t even a very busy place, sandwiched among cranberry fields and the Fraser River. But the Lougheed’s little U-pick yard at 19000 River Road […]
Treatment-free beekeeping conference in Oregon: searching for answers
This week we’re heading to a conference on how to manage honey bees without treatment. The question is, can we afford to? And at a time when honey bees and all native pollinators appear to be under grave threat – and as the debate over neonicotinoid pesticides continues to rage, there are legitimate questions about […]
Organic blueberries at the Lougheeds: picking time is here
What’s better than blueberry season? Picking huge organically-grown blueberries whose blossoms have been pollinated by our own bees! On the weekend we visited with Harold and Doris Lougheed, who own a four-acre U-Pick blueberry farm at the corner of 19000 River Road and Nelson Road in Richmond. They were putting the finishing touches to their […]
Lessons from our first blueberry pollination contract
We have just finished our first commercial blueberry pollination contract, an accidental affair that has left us both yearning for more and wary of this necessary side of beekeeping. On the one hand this was a perfect experience; we helped a partnership of four commercial growers at least partially satisfy their deep need for bees, […]
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Picking Blueberries With Sandhill Cranes: A Summer Event
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Canada’s ban on honey bee imports is folly, says B.C.’s biggest beekeeper
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Treating bees with oxalic acid; a late-winter mite-killing exercise
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Battling honey bee chalkbrood an expensive, maddening affair
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Four apiary sites in B.C.’s Fraser Valley found with small hive beetles
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Alberta Small Hive Beetle find means trouble for B.C. beekeepers
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New honey in our Swan Valley operations in Creston!
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New adventures for Honey Bee Zen Apiaries and Swan Valley Honey
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A Canadian honey goes to the North American Beekeeping Show
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If you are a bee, how the New York Times sees you
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Gary Thompson: Congratulations on another successful year in the ...
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Tom Hardern: Just found you today by accident... The name caugh...
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Jeff: They are open from early morning to dusk; they use...
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Hannah: This looks great. Do you happen to know their hour...
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Janet L. Wilson: I have polled my Washington state beekeeping conta...
