Honeybees behind the Cider apple tree.

Domaines Calvados cider apple tree and Honey bees

Boy it was cold this morning.  We met up with friends Barbara and her dad John and had breakfast at the Tollgate restaurant in Sandy.  Then we headed to Colton to pick up a couple of nucleus hives (aka Nukes) from down in Colton.  We've worked with George for several years now, when we need bees, or Leonid over in Damascus.  Our hives from last year had only one little spindly hive left. 

We'll be attempting  to use some of the new bees to try to save that old hive and the rest to quickly start new hives for the season.  Several years back when we made our first attempt at bees, we had bought package bees. 

For us that didn't seem to be the way to go.  In our climate it just seems like the bees don't have enough time to fully develop a hive while the majority of our bloom is around.  The Nukes, being 3 weeks ahead seem to work out best.  Do to the recent wave of interest in raising honey bees, supplies and the bees have gotten extremely expensive, 3 or 4 times as much as it was 10 years ago.


Leaning Star Winery offers small batches of handcrafted wines.  Our winery is located on the outskirts of Gresham, Oregon, a short jaunt to the freeways in all directions. Learn more about Leaning Star Winery or send us an email and contact us.