Adk. Balloon Festival

As many as 100 hot-air balloons take up to 275 flights over the festival’s four-day run, and adults, as well as children, enjoy getting close to the unique aircraft as they inflate and take off — a rare aspect of most hot-air balloon festivals.

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The Dominique Chicken

This breed enjoys searching the fields and ground for bugs and plants to satisfy their hunger. This means they will eat less feed than the average chicken making them perfect for chicken owners on a budget.

You will often find them foraging from dawn until dusk.

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First pollen this year

A good crop of well raised nucs (small independent colony) and queens are very valuable. Equal to or better than a big honey crop in some years. Work progresses slowly in April, unwrapping colonies, cleaning frames from dead colonies, moving equipment to where it is most convenient , and getting bear fences back in place. At first glance it seems a disappointment to find colony that ‘didn’t winter’. But that equipment is very valuable in the making new colonies from the best of the surviving colonies of well adapted bees. These will be colonies headed by two year old queens who’s offspring made a good crop of honey last year. Some years are better than others, but even losing half your bees allows you ‘split’ the surviving colonies and filling the empty equipment.

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Thoughts from the hive

So we think of winter as a time to settle down pull inward, rest. Bees on the other hand despite what you would expect keep the heat on and maintain a cohesive cluster to maintain warmth as the thermometer heads downward. If by chance the air temperature should rise into the 40’s or even the 50’s for a “January thaw” bees will enjoy a “cleansing” flight to relieve themselves on usually snow covered landscape.

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Thank you for your interest in our honey!

This area of the Champlain Valley has proven in most years to provide the bees with a variety of pollen and nectar sources over the season. Though each year is a little bit different, the varied plants that produce a honey crop can include basswood (linden), honeysuckle, locust, sumac, various clovers, bird foot trefoil, vetch, golden rod, Japanese knotweed and asters. Every harvest has been delicious.

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WHAT IS “VERMICOMPOST”

Composting is a great way to help the environment. Composting reduces the amount of waste sent to landfills. It also produces a great amendment to your garden soil.

There are two main types of home composting: thermophilic composting and vermicomposting. Traditionally, composting refers to thermophilic composting, which is merely composting using the natural heat produced during the process…read on to learn more!.

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Mission To Save The Honey Bees

The staggering decline of honey bee colonies has alarmed experts across the United States, but an unconventional apiculturist in California thinks he has found a way to save them.

Michael Thiele has championed an approach he calls the "rewilding" of honeybees, allowing them to live as they did for millions of years — in natural log hives high above the ground.

"We can do this very, very simple thing — return bees into their natural nest environment, into their natural biosphere," said German-born Thiele at his home in Sebastopol, California. "If we lose them due to human-induced mass extinction, will there be a tomorrow?"

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