After successfully completing The Modern Beekeeper course at Dalhousie University’s School of Agriculture in Truro, Nova Scotia, Nicole Dixon started keeping honeybees in 2018. Urban beekeeping is steadily growing in popularity. Urban bees often produce more honey as they have access to better and more varied forage (flowers) in urban settings. Since New Waterford is both urban and rural, our bees get the best of both worlds—plenty of native species and cultivated plants to choose from, resulting in one of the most unique flavours of honey we’ve ever tasted!
In 2019, with funding from the Nova Scotia government, we ran “Grow@Home/Town Grow’r,” an urban farm summer camp for youth aged 11-16. Participants had the opportunity to learn about beekeeping, wear bee suits, and participate in a honey harvest. As well, our youth employees have several opportunities during their internships to assist with our beekeeping operation.
Learning the ropes during the Modern Beekeeper course in Truro, NS. May, 2018.
Our first bees arrive. July, 2018.
Bee inspection. August 26, 2018.
Bee inspection.
Honeybee gathering pollen from the kale flowers in our garden.
L-R: Lauren, our Clean Foundation intern, Nicole, and Kendra, our intern from BEC, suit up and get ready to check on the bees. July, 26, 2019.
Nicole hands a frame of honey to two Town Grow'r youth participants. July, 2019.
Lauren and her bees.
Four frames of honey (2 sides each). From the 2020 honey harvest.
Lauren uncaps honey while Kendra gets the footy. Summer, 2019.
Honey pouring from the extractor.
We bottle all our honey by hand.
Busy bees at the entrance to their hive.
In July of 2019 our hive swarmed and landed in our neighbours' tree.
This is the same hive that swarmed and it still managed to produce a massive amount of honey. This hive was huge! August 7, 2019.
New nuc installation at our second apiary location. May 28, 2020.
Juneberry petals around the hive. June 1, 2020.
Queen spotting! June 10, 2020.
These girls were comb-building machines. This burr comb was quite messy to clean up. August 23, 2020.
This bee swarm landed on our fence.
Our bees in the woods. June, 2020.
Can you find the beehive in this picture? This yard offers the bees lots of protection and privacy.
2020's homestead bees.
A mix of guard bees and workers fanning honey. September 11, 2020.
Happy bees produce lots of honey. July 19, 2020.
Autumn bees. October 15, 2020.
What all that work is for: beautiful, delicious honey!
WOW! WE ARE COMPLETELY SOLD OUT OF SEEDS!! If we get more, we'll get the word out. Thanks! Dismiss