Gallery – BeeManiacs

Nuc delivery date update

Old Sol Survivor Stock nucs are arriving on May 20 and will be available to pick up from 10 am to 4 pm.

The supplier of the Economy Nucs had to delay delivery date one more week, so Economy Nucs are going to be ready to pick up on May 27, from 8 am to 4 pm.

We are sending email updates to everyone that purchased nucs, as soon as we have any schedule change notice. If you are not receiving the emails, please check your spam folder.

Old Sol Nucs for May 20 are sold out. Since we changed the schedule of the Economy nucs to May 27, some customers may need to cancel their orders and some Economy nucs may become available. If you want to buy nucs for this season, you can see what’s available here:

http://livebees.beemaniacs.com/

Nuc delivery date pushed to May 20

Both of our nuc suppliers for the 2017 season had to push their delivery dates until May 20.

If you bought nucs through BeeManiacs, for delivery dates of May 6 or May 13, the new delivery date is May 20.

We are sorry for the delay but the unusual weather in Oregon delayed the flowering and the beekeeping season, which pushed the nuc delivery dates until at least May 20.

We are sending email updates to everyone that placed an order. If you did not receive email updates from us, please check your email spam folder.

Bad weather delaying nuc delivery dates

The 2017 season is breaking some records as the coldest and most rainy season in the last 45 years.

Live bee suppliers are struggling to deliver bee packages and nucs on fixed schedules that worked fine in previous years.

If you bought live bees from us, please check your email for updates. The Economy nuc delivery date was delayed from May 6th to the 13th and still pending final confirmation.

If you are not receiving updates from BeeManiacs, please check your email spam filter or email us to livebees@beemaniacs.com.

Bee suppliers are doing everything they can to deliver live bees on schedule, but in some cases they will need to delay the delivery date to make sure that the nucs are properly made.

New Products Available In-Store

For the 2017 season we almost doubled the number of products we have available in-store. We are working to bring some of these products to our online store later this year.

We now distribute Beeline woodenware. We have now two qualities available on beekeeping woodenware: Economy and Prime.

The new options include higher quality wooden frames (assembled and unassembled), Deep and Western-size 5-frame nucs, wooden top feeders, spacers, entrance wooden feeders, top bar hives, top-bar hive feeders, garden-style top cover, etc.

We doubled the options available on wooden frames, assembled or unassembled.

Look at the picture below showing the difference between the economy and prime frames. The prime wooden frame, right, has a wooden tab in the center of the side bar, so when we staple the bottom bar to the side bar, we have a stronger fit. All of our assembled wooden frames are glued and have 6 staples in the key points to make for a durable and strong frame.

If you are in driving distance from BeeManiacs, we recommend you to visit us any Friday or Saturday from 10 am to 4 pm to see all the new items brought into the store.

BeeManiacs Expansion – Phase 1

As business grows, we have the need to expand operations in our current location. The first phase of our plan has just started.

Phase 1, as we call it, consists of adding a new building of almost 4,000 sq ft for warehouse and office space.

With this larger space, we will be able to increase the amount of items we carry in order to provide even more options for our customers. It will also allow us to bring most of our in-store items to our online store, for the benefit of our nation-wide customers.

Thank you to all customers that have made this possible.

Bee Cozy

We just received our first shipment of Bee Cozy winter wraps and inner cover pads from NOD.

These products will be carried in-store only for now, but we are planning on bringing them to our online store for nationwide shipping by 2017.

Beekeeping Field Day Visit at BeeManiacs

Last Saturday was the second annual Backyard Beekeepers Association field trip, where lots of new and experienced beekeepers gathered to inspect a variety of hives and beekeeping techniques in commercial and hobby bee yards.

BeeManiacs was featured as one of the field trip destinations. We checked foundation-less Langstroth frames as well as Top Bar hives, followed by a honey extraction demonstration by Ari Jr and Maria.

Thank you all for the visit.

Mann Lake Products at BeeManiacs Store

We have been carrying some Mann Lake products at our BeeManiacs store, but we just took it to the next level. We are now Mann Lake distributors just brought in over 25 new items that we were not carrying before.

New products include frame feeders, escape boards, swarm traps, testing kits, summer and winter inner covers, insulation, and many other parts for your hive and beekeeping tools.

For now, we only sell these items in-store, but we’re working towards bringing most of these items to our online store.

Pollinator-Friendly Plant Mix Sown at BeeManiacs Bee Yard

We just finished sowing more than 5 acres of a pollinator friendly mix at our BeeManiacs honey bee yard.

We teamed up with the Spokane County Conservation District, and we’re running this program for the first season as a test. We will monitor the progress of the germination of the mix of pollinator friendly plants and confirm how much of the active season different flowering plants will cover. Depending on this year results, the Conservation District will expand the program coverage for the 2017 season.

The seed mix includes some non-flowering plants for providing wind-erosion protection or improving soil condition. This is the list of seeds used:

Common Vetch

Mung Beans

Guar-Kinman

Chinese Red

Sainfoin-shoshone

Super Sugar

Wildlife Grain Sorghum

2120 Forage Sorghum

Spring Forage Barley

Nitro Radish

Safflower-Finch

Sunflower-Peredovic

Buckwheat-Mancan

Okra- Clemson spineless

Clover- Yellow Sweet

Proso Millet- (Red)

White Wonder Millet (Hay)

Pacific Gold Mustard

African Cabbage

Sesame

The pictures do not show much going on the ground because a no-till drill was used. The seeds and the organic fertilizer were applied directly through the current, mostly grass cover. Our goal is to increase the amount and diversity of flowering plants available to the bees in our yard throughout the season.

Online Beekeeping School

We have been working in beekeeping education for several years. Every year we try to find ways to improve the quality of the educational material and how to reach more potential beekeepers. We had requests from people having conflicts with class schedules, looking for ways to get beekeeping classes online.

We decided that it was time to release an online school system for beekeepers. We have been working on this project for the last year. The original idea was to supplement our classes, so if a student would miss a class, the content would be available online to catch up. But then it expanded to reach out to people that are not able to attend the classes at all.

We are currently working with the Backyard Beekeepers Association to develop this online education option.

For questions please contact us at education@beemaniacs.com

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