04/29/2021
UPDATE
Hello all, and thank you for the tremendous response. I am very impressed and thankful for the outpouring of support and people willing to help out. Currently I’m in the thick of pollination season, and at the same time, getting the last two semi loads of these up from Georgia. I may be slow to respond to you. I was not expecting 100+ people reaching out. If you could, when you email me, if you email me. Include the property address. I will take a look from the satellite view to see what area is around you get back to you. Thank you so much!
Hello neighbors,
If I haven’t met you yet, I’m Bill Crawford. I own New England Apiaries LLC / Billy C’s Raw honey on Klaus Anderson road.
I currently run approximately 1650 colonies, most of which spend the spring and early summer in dozens of locations from Westfield, to Palmer and Hatfield to Hartford. And while our home, business, and honey house is here in Southwick, we actually don’t have any bee yards in Southwick other than on my property, and I am looking to change that. (We are always looking for Beeyard‘s not just in Southwick, but also in the surrounding towns North south and east of Southwick (sorry Granville)
We have approximately 400 more honey producing colonies now than we have ever had before. (Roughly 1400 honey producing colonies once New York and Vermont apple pollination finishes up) And thus, I’m looking for more locations to place hives in May, June, and the 1 week of July to produce local raw honey. (Almost all of our colonies are sent to NW Ohio in July and August for pollination before returning to Georgia for the winter)
The ideal location would be along the edge of the field, behind a business, or generally in any fairly open area where our busy and generally friendly bees wouldn’t cause a nuisance. We would need to be in an area where we can occasionally get close the the hives with a small/medium flatbed truck to service the colonies
Our average sized bee yard for honey production is 8 pallets, or 32 colonies. However, sometimes we may have 24 or up to 48 colonies of location (4 hives on a pallet) depending on the location and anticipated amount of target honey producing plants and trees in the area. If you can imagine 6 to 8 pallets on the ground with enough room to walk in-between and around them with a smaller T post electric fence around them, that’s how much room I’m seeking.
Don’t think because you don’t have very many flowers around, it wouldn’t be a good spot, bees readily travel a couple miles in every direction. Some of our target plant species that way try to be near are black locust trees, basswood trees, Russian/ autumn olive, Sumac, clover, amongst others.
Please feel free to share this, especially with folks who on larger parcels of land in the area.
For bee yard rent, we generally pay in honey.
If you were interested potentially hosting a location, please reach out to me in a private message here on FB, email me at [email protected], or call/text 413-454-8403
In addition to this, maybe you aren’t interested or able to host hives, but don’t rule out backyard beekeeping as a hobby. I started as a hobbyist with the local Hampden County Beekeepers Association when I was 15 and would highly recommend their bee school every winter.
In addition to Southwick, we are ALWAYS looking for more bee yard locations in:
Amherst, MA
Bloomfield, CT
Chicopee, MA
East Granby, CT
East Longmeadow, MA
East Windsor, CT
Easthampton, MA
Enfield, CT
Granby, CT
Granby, MA
Hadley, MA
Hampden, MA
Hartford, CT
Hatfield, MA
Holyoke, MA
Ludlow, MA
Northampton, MA
Palmer, MA
Simsbury, CT
South Hadley, MA
Southampton, MA
Southwick, MA
Springfield, MA
Suffield, CT
West Springfield, MA
Westfield, MA
Whately, MA
Wilbraham, MA
Windsor Locks, CT
Windsor, CT
