DC Council Hearing on Beekeeping in the City-VIDEO

Here is the video of the non-debate where Tommy Wells, Councilmember for Ward 6, introduces the amendments to protect rooftop beekeeping and top-bar hives.  Given the lack of debate, I am pleased that our activism has proven effective without any political fallout.  Let's keep it up, and push for further refinements in the future given the ease with which this passed.  Excellent work, all.

Why Honeybees Are Important

Check out this video, below, which does an excellent job of describing the reach of bees and beekeepers in the nation's food-chain:

Sugar Shake For Mite Control - Video

We have some friends who have a rooftop hive in the Shaw area of town that has had some problems with varroa infestation.  We could actually see the mites on the bodies of some of the bees, and the mite count board below the IPM screened bottom board told a similar story with lots of dead mites.

We hiked some confectioner's sugar and a sifter up to the roof to do a sugar shake.  The theory goes, the bees get the sugar on their bodies and groom themselves to remove it.  This grooming behavior also brushes off the mites, that then fall through the hive and out the bottom through the screen.

Here is the video we took of our vertical expedition and then a trip to Old City Greens to check on their hives:

The Truth About Honey From NPR-VIDEO

NPR did some back-of-the-envelope research on the benefits of honey, presented in this video from 2010.

Post Sandy Rooftop Status

With winds expected to gust north of 60 miles per hour, we got lots of inquiries from our rooftop beekeeping friends about the security of their hives in prep for Sandy.  Indeed, the entire east coast was on alert, and the eye took a path west only a little more than 100 miles north of us in DC.

EPA Rally in Washington Today

Well, not really a rally, more of a small gathering of like-minded folks focused on the the use of neonicotinoid pesticides organized by the Center For Food Safety.  I got a ton of hits on the blog page giving notice of the rally,  but alas the attendance was sparse.  More folks have shown for some local bee meet-ups than at this event.  Given the mid-day schedule and the downtown location it may have been difficult to rally the troops.

More Beekeeping Classes Scheduled

We've had a lot of interest in these classes, and thus we are adding (much to my wife's surprise) two more weekends:

November 3rd and 4th;
November 10th and 11th.

These classes run from 1-4 at my home in Georgetown.  The cost is $300, and includes a basic hive, a veil, and a textbook, as well as plenty of refreshments:

Please email me at jeff@dchoneybees.com if you are interested.

I HATE WAX MOTHS

Wax moths have been a consistent problem this season for all local beekeepers, and as I toured my hives this past weekend I discovered several that have gone belly-up.  I find this strange as the particular hives in question were very strong, thus allowing for better guarding of the entrance and protecting the infestation.

Save the Date For the Bee Rally At EPA

The Center for Food Safety is sponsoring a rally in downtown DC on October 25th at noon.  Bring your friends and encourage the EPA to scrutinize the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

Here is the flyer:

 

Harvesting Honey at the Farm

If you have been following us for a little while, you know we have a relationship with the folks at Paris Barns in Paris, Va, an organic farm and animal rescue.  They have become a little more famous as they have taken on the zoning board of Fauquier County and are now embroiled in a court case with the County.

Great New Urban Beekeeping Book

Our new friend from London, Luke Dixon, as just had his book published about urban beekeeping called Keeping Bees In Towns and Cities.

From the publisher:
Luke Dixon is a professional beekeeper based in Soho, London. He manages hives for the London College of Fashion, Ted Baker, and Kensington Palace, among others, and keeps his own hives in the gardens of London's Natural History Museum. In the winter, when beekeeping duties slacken off, he returns to his first career as a theater director. 

Fox DC Piece On Colony Collapse Disorder-VIDEO

Yesterday the professor leading the George Washington University beekeeping program was interviewed on the local news regarding colony collapse and the threat of pesticides in the environment that affect bees.

For some reason, the embed link does not seem to be working, but here is the link to the video interview:

http://www.myfoxdc.com/video?clipId=7759069&autostart=true

A Busy Honey Day

Recently we were contacted by a home brewing company called Craft-A-Brew from Tampa, Fla.  They had jumped on the bandwagon of interest in the President's Whitehouse Honey Ale, brewed with honey collected from the hive located on the Whitehouse grounds.

Trying To Make A Few Queens, Again - VIDEO

We broke out our newish queen rearing system to try our hand again at breeding a few queens.  As a reminder, we first tried our hand at this in June, and for either that we did not make the hive queenless ahead of time, or we were introducing the cell cups too soon into the hive, we were unsuccessful.  We also tried our hand at grafting, and were rewarded with one good cell from which emerges a healthy queen which now leads one of our nucs.  You never forget your first queen...

Successful Whole Foods Event

Today at the P Street Whole Foods we were asked to do a bee exhibit and Q & A during the evening rush.  This particular Whole Foods is located in an area of town that could be considered a little more open-minded than most other areas of the City, and ripe for our message and mission.

Wax Moths, Walk Away Split

Uugh.

I have heard from a material number of local beekeepers about the preponderance of wax moths this year decimating their colonies.  And I guess that makes sense...the winter was mild and beneficial for our bees so why would it not be so for the other bugs that threaten our colonies?

White Oak Apiary Queens Arrive!

I generally hate the post office because they generally under-staff their post offices, are expensive, and they lie about shipping times.  In this case, these bees from 300 miles away shipped priority mail were in travel for a longer duration than my nuc's sent parcel post to Memphis.  Liars. 

The Capital Buzz Is Showing Tomorrow, Downtown

If you'd like to see the excellent documentary about beekeeping in the District, here is your chance to see in on a big screen at the E Street Theater at 11th and E St, NW.

Here is the link for the information:
https://tickets.dcshorts.com/Showcase14

This film is part of the DC Shorts series and is now nominates in the top 8 of "Best DC Shorts."  Come show your support and cast your vote, and support urban beekeeping!

Jeff.

Fall Beekeeping Class October 13 and 14

Back by popular demand...our two-day beekeeping class.

We eat and drink:

We build hives (which you take home with you):

We play with the bees on my roof (sporting your new veil we provide you):

And we make products from the hive including soap, candles, lip balm, and honey if it is in season.

Seriously, this two-day course (from 1-4 at my home in Georgetown) teaches basic beekeeping and handling on the first day, and we spend the second day making products from the hive.  You leave with a basic hive, a veil, and a great beekeeping book called The Backyard Beekeeper.

We limit the class to only six so the discussion is relaxed and interactive, with lots of time with the bees.  The cost is $300, but with all the equipment you are getting its almost like getting the class for free!


Please email me at Jeff@DCHoneybees.com if you are interested.


Jeff.

A Harvest and Hive Inspection At Church Of the Pilgrims - VIDEO

We harvested honey from the three hives we have at the Church earlier this spring, but since it had been a while since we inspected these hives, and since the right Reverend Dr. Ashley Goff:

New Queen Supplier - White Oak Apiary

We are busy putting together nucs to over-winter for next spring.  We typically do this by taking two or three frames of brood, a frame of honey, and a shaking of some bees from the hive and put them in our 6-frame nuc box, outfitted with a frame feeder.  We then feed with pollen substitute and syrup to get them plenty of population, drawn comb, and carbs to overwinter.

We Move a Hive Off a Roof In Logan Circle - VIDEO

Our friends who put a hive on their roof purely for the benefit of the bees are now moving to Houston, and thus need to decommission the hive.

We do this in two steps.  First note that this hive has a two-deep brood chamber with an (empty) honey super on it.  We are using ten-frame equipment, so there are 20 frames of bees in the brood chamber to move.

We divide these frames into sets of five, and put them in five-frame nuc boxes, these cardboard ones we purchase at Brushy Mountain.  That's a total of four boxes.  If the brood and honey/pollen frames are evenly distributed (3 frames of brood in each of the four boxes, plus honey frames) one could simply make four nucs to sell out of this one hive after requeening the three queenless boxes.

In this case, because it is late in the season and thus there was not a huge amount of brood in this hive, we will reconstitute this hive elsewhere as a single entity, and nurse it with syrup and pollen patties to confirm it has enough bees to go into winter.  We also will requeen with one of our excellent queens from Long Lane Honeybee Farms.

We transfer the four boxes of frames away from the hive (to my dining room) and will come back the next day to retrieve the equipment.  Hopefully at that point the stragglers will have left and I won't have to carry bee-covered equipment through the home of our friends.

Check out the video:



Also, don't forget to check out our store!

Nuc Building Part ?? Our Bread and Butter Deep Nuc Revised.

I love the nuc that I designed with lots of help and from internet and other influential parties, as a nursery for future hives.  This original 6-frame nuc was originally highlighted here and had a number of advantages:

• Used stock 1 x 12 lumber without ripping so needed nothing but a handsaw and screw driver;
• Cost only about $22;
• Was quick to build;
• No fancy joinery;
• Can hold FIVE FRAMES PLUS A ONE GALLON FEEDER, so great to overwinter nucs;
• Long lasting with a painted finish.

The negatives were few, but one that I identified was the requirement to add the plywood inserts that act as a shelf for the deep frame. 

The Capital Buzz Will Be Showing At The DC Shorts Film Festival

The Capital Buzz, a film about DC beekeeping and yours truly, has been making the rounds nationwide at numerous film festivals.  Coming soon to DC, here is an article about it!

http://www.gazette.net/article/20120829/ENTERTAINMENT/708299681/1149/george-washington-grad-student-makes-a-bee-line-for-dc-shorts-film&template=gazette

Please check it out if you can!

Our New Online Store Is Now Open

Please visit us at the Georgetown Honeybee Company Store.

Purchase local honey, hives, bees and bee products.  The site remains under construction so please email me with any requests, comments, or commendations!!  Jeff@DCHoneybees.com

Jeff

We Get To Tag Along With A Commercial Beekeeper-VIDEO

Jerry Mattiaccio, of Rock Hill Honeybee Farms, was kind enough to invite me to join him on a pollination run to southern Virginia to visit and feed some hives on pumpkins.

Jerry could not resist describing me as a "city boy" as I wondered out-loud how many tanks of gas it took to get to his hives.  But it was an excellent learning experience, and a window onto the backbone of the bee industry, the pollinator. 

We cannot be hobby beekeepers without them as they provide the bee root-stock that gives us bees.  And honey.  Oh, and high yields that keep food prices low.

It was an awesome time, hopefully more experience to come!  Here is the vid.

Our Friend Charles Gets Some Love From the Washington Post

Charles is a beekeeper in the Anacostia area of Washington, and is a very active member of the community.  I have worked with Charles on not only bee-related stuff, but also in wearing my other hat as representative of the Mayor's office.

You may remember Charles from this post:
http://dchoneybees.blogspot.com/2012/03/bees-east-of-anacostia-river.html

These pics of him show him after a rather eventful and reactive encounter with his bees, and his face was in recovery at the time!

Thanks, Charles, for keeping the momentum!  Still waiting for that honey...

Here is the link to the Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/a-local-beekeeper-brings-honey-to-anacostia/2012/08/23/fb78a8a6-e555-11e1-8741-940e3f6dbf48_page.html?hpid=z5

Nucs Arrive In Memphis Safely!

The two nucs that we sent on Monday from our local post office arrived yesterday (Thursday) in Memphis via Parcel Post from the US Postal Service.  That was much better delivery timing than was quoted (seven days) and bolsters our belief that we can now make a habit of mailing our DC-raised bees and queens to folks around the country.  The cost for shipping for each nuc was about $30.

This fall and winter we will be setting up a limited number of nucs to over-winter.  Those that survive we will sell in early spring, with the bees in a position to actually collect some honey for harvest next season.

 Let me know if you would like to reserve one! Jeff@DCHoneybees.com

Test Driving Mailing Nucs

 We have a client in TN who was anxious to get one of our nucs!

Hooray for us as we had some that were in great shape, but we had never shipped nucs, only provided them for pickup or drop-off.

We first tried overnight shipping through UPS.  They specifically do take bees, but don't take them to the UPS Store...you're not going to get the best understanding of their policies or their legendary customer service.  I would argue that the UPS Store was a bad move for UPS as it debases their otherwise excellent reputation.

The cost to overnight the nucs was over $110 each.  WOW.  And then a few bees escaped and they aborted the whole thing and returned the nucs to me in a sealed box and with our queens dead.

Charges returned (thankfully) we took the nucs a week later to the US Post Office.  I know, right?
Who uses USPS anymore unless you have a catalog to send.

Full disclosure, we are using Brushy Mountain nucs for shipping.  They are waxed cardboard with lots of ventilation.  But we needed to use the inner cover (which we have been neglecting) to fully enclose the bees. For some reason the shippers are not fond of bees escaping their colony.  UPS shipping did not get our best effort at full containment.

Lesson learned.

We have now modified our program to guarantee the containment of the girls.  We used a plastic wrap product to wrap the entire box in cellophane.  From Uline, it is this stuff.

After speaking with the Don, I think we are in good shape as long as the bees do not get overheated.

Please stay tuned as we hear about the health of the arriving bees.  There may be an opportunity to share our genetics with folks outside out market if it is successful!

We Have Local DC Honey For Sale Now

After this year, in spite of a few crashed hives, we were able to harvest about 60 lbs per hive out of many of our urban colonies.  we now have honey to sell.

This is honey we harvested using the crush and strain method and has not been filtered, only strained to leave in all the goodness of the local pollen.  We have varieties collected from Georgetown, the Mount Vernon Triangle, and Takoma Park (DC).  All delicious!

Please email me if you would like some!  jeff@dchoneybees.com

Friends at Paris Barns Are In Trouble

As you may remember, we have a bunch of hives out in Fauquier County that we help with.  This is at the Boneta Reserve where they rescue livestock, raise agricultural products, and do farm demonstrations.

 
Apparently, the local government has been giving them a rough time for the "commerce" they are undertaking on the property, in spite of their possession of a business license.

From the Washington Examiner:
Farmers in Fauquier County are planning to bring their pitchforks to an Aug. 2 hearing before the Board of Zoning Appeals to protest the arbitrary treatment of one of their own. On April 30, Zoning Administrator Kimberley Johnson sent Martha Boneta an official cease-and-desist notice for selling farm products and hosting a birthday party for her best friend's 10-year-old daughter on her 70-acre Paris, Va., farm without a special administrative permit.

Johnson threatened to fine Boneta $5,000 per violation if she did not stop the alleged unlawful activities within 30 days. In doing so, Boneta's fellow farmers say, Johnson stepped far beyond her authority. They're supporting her appeal before the BZA because they rightly fear that left unchecked, this infringement on one farmer's freedom to make a living will spread to other agricultural enterprises like a dangerous pest.

The Virginia Right to Farm Act prohibits local authorities from treating agricultural activity as a "nuisance" -- which seems to be what's happening here, since Johnson was reportedly responding to complaints from nearby residents. Boneta already had a business license the county issued her in June 2011 that allowed her to operate a "retail farm shop" on her property. Her license application specifically noted her intention to sell handspun yarns, birdhouses, soaps and other handicrafts in addition to fresh vegetables, eggs, herbs and honey.

The following month, the Fauquier County Board of Supervisors changed the classification of "farm sales" to require a special administrative permit for activities that were in compliance with the ordinance just one month before. But documents received under the Freedom of Information Act showed that Boneta is the only farmer in Fauquier County who has ever been cited -- even though the county's own website lists dozens of farms that sell similar products to end-use customers.

On July 12, supervisors voted to limit the number of visitors allowed at food- and wine-tasting events to 25, and to limit such events to two per month, even though they were warned by the county attorney and Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Todd Haymore that such restrictions are illegal. Virginia's growing wine industry and its small artisanal farmers contribute millions of dollars to the state economy while providing urban residents with a taste of country life. But even in picturesque Fauquier County, their future is clouded by the growing burden of capricious government regulation.

Here is more commentary on the subject:
 

http://disruptthenarrative.com/2012/08/06/tyranny-coming-to-a-neighborhood-near-you/

Why is this beekeeping blog covering this?  We certainly we want to support our friends the Boneta's who have been huge proponents of the bees.

But also important are the impacts of this kind of government intervention on your beekeeping operations, or your honey sales, or your farmer's market activity.

Making a Few Queens, Part 2 VIDEO

After a poor first attempt, where I failed to provide a queenless hive for our bees, we try again with some queen-rearing equipment from Mann Lake to improve our success.

To Veil, Or Not To Veil....

We get a lot of inquiries about our use (or lack thereof) of protective gear when we work the bees.  And it is true, I do not own a bee suit or gloves, and use my veil sparingly.  You are likely to find me in the hives in shorts and a tee-shirt in summer, and on my roof generally in bare feet.

There are a couple of reasons for that:

• I'm lazy;
• Vision is hampered in a veil, especially if one is looking for eggs;
• Our mission includes promotion of bees as gentle and non-aggressive.

Do I get stung?  Absolutely.  Sometimes I can get into a hive and have no problems, just a little smoke and they are quiet as mice.  Other times, they hit me repeatedly like kamikazes.  The former is more generally the outcome.

Does it hurt?  Sure, a little, but the lingering affects of swelling are the greater aliment.  Thankfully, after hundreds of stings (yes hundreds) I am finally building up a modest resistance to the bee venom.

Note that we take a lot of our cues from the FatBeeMan Don Kuchenmeister who is similarly fearless around his hives.

During our classes, we provide veils for folks to wear around the hives, which they do.

With our kids, it is a different story.  If you have a child, you know how difficult it is to tell them what to do, and if they don't want to wear a veil, like tough love, I leave it up to them.  And it has consequences:

This is Kaitlin (our No. 1) after she entered a hive to pull a frame for a bee display she was managing.  Note the swelling around the lip, eye, and ego!

And this is Maddie (No. 2) who got stung on the finger while carrying a nuc and who then had a bad enough reaction that it warranted the emergency room.  Note the irony of the "Got Bees" t-shirt she is wearing!  Obviously, a veil would not have mattered in this case, but this is for illustrative purposes...

So bad parenting?  I'm more of the view that raising a kid in a plastic bubble is both unkind and belays the realities they should expect when they reach maturity.  So a little controlled pain is not necessarily a fault.  Maybe they will wear a veil next time?

Then is it do as I say, not as I do?  I think you should decide for yourself what feels most comfortable for you.  I think requiring oneself to put on a bulky suit in the middle of summer before hitting the hives might hinder one from spending time there.  But at the end of the day it is about personal preference.

We Try To Make a Few Queens - Video

Queen rearing is as much of an art as science, and although the bees do all the work, it is the help of the beekeeper that ensures success and manages the outcome.

As we put together nucs for our bee-supplying services one of the biggest risks is the availability of queens that can manage our climate, be resistant to hive pests and diseases, and be gentle. Oh, and honey production!

We have had great success with queens we have purchased from suppliers, from whom we receive queens in the mail.  But we also have many hives that have successfully overwintered here treatment-free and we would like to consider breeding queens with stock, have them open-mate with feral survivor stock, and introduce these queens to our nucs.

Thus, this new adventure into queen rearing!

Our foray began with elements of queen rearing from videos by the FatBeeMan and Long Lane Honeybee Farms with our own twist.  Here is the video.  SPOILER ALERT - we were unsuccessful on this try, but we are now putting together another video with a more foolproof method, and we will also retry the FatBeeMan method again.

Here is the video:

More Urban Beekeeping Coverage - VIDEO

Here is a recent report done by Voice of America on our DC bees.

Pulling Nucs, A Trip to the Smithsonian - VIDEO

Today we pulled some nucleus colonies, and hived a couple young ones, at our secret apiary in SE DC.

Of the three we pulled (all Don the FatBeeMan's small-cell stock), one was destined for a very special place, the Smithsonian Natural History Museum on Constitution Ave.

The museum has an observation hive of rather ingenious design, and they have been having trouble with their colony for a couple of years.  You may remember that last year we provided a couple of honey frames for them in order to boost the health of the colony.

We were pleased to be able to help them out again, with a fresh and thriving colony produced in Lula, Georgia by the great Don Kutchenmeister.

Here are some excerpts from our day:

Summer Splits Season - Nuc's Coming Soon

With the flow almost over we have begun splitting up our robust hives into nucs for introduction into new hives.  Generally, we take three frames of brood, a frame of honey, and a frame of foundation and introduce them into five-frame nuc boxes, like the ones in the picture above.  We then introduce a queen from one of our queen purveyors: Russell Apiaries or Long Lane Honeybee Farms.

From Russell, we use the Sunkist variety for queening.  From their site:

They are of Italian origin, and have been selectively bred since 1951 for heavy laying, low swarming, honey production, distance of foraging, mite and disease resistance, gentleness, comb building, and early build up. They were created for his use as cell builders and for package production. They produce a much higher than average number of bees per hive.... with swarm levels around 100-120k. 

Having run several hives with these girls, I can attest to their huge hives and plenty of honey.  They also survived last year's winter in a single 10-frame deep box, so they are hardy, although last winter was not a brutal test.  Given their large numbers, these girls may not be ideal for an urban setting, however.

From Long Lane, we import their Pioneer Queens.  From their site:

We finally decided to name our queens and call them "Pioneer Queens". There are several definitions for pioneer in the dictionary. One says, "Leading the way; trailblazing". We hope to join many others, like us, who feel the importance of seeking greater diversity within the queen genetics, traits and characteristics that show resistance toward pests, diseases and harsh winters. Most of our pioneer queens are dark in color, more along the line of being Carniolan or Russian.  

These queens have done great over the winter and have provided a significant honey crop.  Their Central Illinois background has them hardy and stingy of resources during the winter and they have been raised treatment free.

We should have a few of these nucs available in the coming weeks, they are now "ripening" by which I mean I want the new queen to have a cycle of brood under her belt, and have the hive bursting with bees when we sell.

Please email me at jeff@dchoneybees.com if you would like to reserve one.

 

Moving Hives Off the Roof - VIDEO

As you may remember, we began our urban beekeeping adventures like many city-dwellers in placing our first hives on our roof.  Since then we have done countless rooftop installations in DC for our new beekeepers.  Never, however, have we had to do the reverse, and take a hive off a roof.

Requeening a Couple Hives - VIDEO

It is requeening season for DC Honeybees, especially as we are starting to create new nucs for sale this summer.  This is especially true for now as we are not only seeing strong demand for nucs among new beekeepers, but also because we are now forced to reconfigure one of our apiaries and convert some strong hives to nucs.  But more on that later.

Huffington Post Article

Now I rarely agree with the bias of the Huffington Post, but I have to admit, they get it right sometimes, like when they are doing a story about ME!

Here is the article.  More great press for urban beekeeping.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/dc-honeybees_n_1539309.html?ref=dc

Nuc Recovered from Restaurant, More Crush and Strain Extraction - VIDEO

We had a busy weekend with a swarm (stay tuned for that vid) an installation, a home site survey, and some extraction!

We promised our friend Tom, who is getting married later in June, that we would provide him with some honey as a guest gift.  So we have been extracting several hives to give us the yield we need for these gifts, while our partners are getting the other half of the honey as their share.  Here is the vid of some of our activity...Thanks to Maddie for being an excellent copilot.

The District Dish - VIDEO

I was asked to be interviewed for this local program.  Here is the result:

Visit to Blair Gardens and Church of the Pilgrims-VIDEO

I has been a couple of weeks since we visited each of these sites and installed their honey supers.   The Blair hives (two of them) seem to have taken turns in being healthy and vibrant.  We had to replace the bees of the right hive with a nuc late last summer due to some unknown malady, but now that hive is going gang busters, making honey, and took a new honey super. 

Inspecting My Nucs with FatBeeMan Bees

Today (3 weeks after we hived his 2 lb packages) we checked on the progress of these colonies.  Note we put these in six-frame nucs that left room for a one gallon frame feeder.  In a portion of our nucs we added a pollen patty to determine whether it improved colony development (it did).  In a few of our nucs we ran out of feeders to let them fend for sugar on their own thanks to a healthy flow.

How We Assemble Frames With Our New Toy - VIDEO

 

After spend the morning with Don the FatBeeMan several weeks back, I saw some of his equipment and methods for building boxes and frames, including his nifty pneumatic stapler.  Wanting to stay ahead of the curve I purchased an inexpensive compressor and stapler set up from harbor freight tools.  The set up cost me about $100, but makes putting together frames a snap.  And versus assembled frames from our supplier Mann Lake (when bought in bulk) I can put together ten frames in about five minutes and save myself $7.00 per box.

We Visit NYC for Eight Installations - VIDEO

I think I have mentioned that my brother Ben is taking on some bee responsibilities in the Metro NYC area (especially Connecticut) as our new expansion area for the Georgetown Honeybee Company.  To establish a beach head we ran a Zozi promotion to get the word out.  We got eight hits on our urban beekeeping promotion.  However some are a little unclear about a trade area, and we ended up WAY outside NYC metro, logging in 370 miles over 12 hours of installations on a Sunday.

Our Newest DC Apiary/Nuc Nursery

Here is our latest apiary in a secluded site in Anacostia.  It was meant to be a site for 10 package installations of some of the bees we got from FatBeeMan,  but we got a little overzealous with our purchases and thus these nucs represent 20 package installations.