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About Us

 

We are Peggy & Brian Pride living & working on our small farm in Southern Maine since 1984. We began beekeeping to enlist the honeybee’s help in the pollination of our fruits, vegetables and flowers. We became so enamored with these hardworking little bees and their fascinating lives that we wanted to be more involved in the beekeeping field. Our store opened in 2010 in a building located next to our house. We strive to use sustainable methods for our bees, gardens and our land.
Brian is a Certified EAS Master Beekeeper and he is a very enthusiastic teacher for our classes and workshops. He has also won several awards for his mead, especially his elderberry mead. Peggy manages the 20+ hives, raises queens, organizes classes and runs the store.
We started our apiary using nucs and queens from Mike Palmer and later from Troy Hall. We work hard at making a sustainable apiary and selectively raise queens and nucs from the survivor stock. We have consistently had lower than average colony losses over the years so we feel we must be doing something right. Making lots of honey or bees to sell is not our focus. We feel a sense of responsibility to the bees to ensure that their lives are as healthy as possible through better nutrition and management decisions.
In 2014 we participated in the Bee Informed Partnership through the University of Maryland in their “Real Time Disease Load Monitoring of Nosema and Varroa” over the course of 6 months on 4 of our hives. The results from this program showed that our Nosema and Varroa loads were significantly below average. In 2015 we participated in a double blind study using a homeopathic remedy for mites on 20 hives. The hives treated with the remedy showed less mites than those treated with a placebo. In 2015 Peggy attended a 1-week workshop with Gunther Hauk at Spikenard Farms Bee Sanctuary in Virginia to learn Biodynamic methods for beekeeping and gardening.
Sue Doiron joined us 4 years ago and brings her teaching experience and patience in helping new beekeepers get started. Sue manages 6 of her own hives in 2 locations. She did an excellent job of heading up our Intern program. We are excited to have her in charge of our 2018 “hive side lessons” intern program.
We will continue to do educational outreach in the non-beekeeping community to encourage others to be mindful of what they use in their gardens and lawns so they can help all pollinators. We are in the early stages of creating honeybee foraging demonstration areas that we plan to be open to the public for educational purposes. We share our knowledge with others so that they may enjoy and appreciate the honey bees as much as we do.

Buy local – save time & money.