Our Beginning
We started in Sring of 2019 with one hive and a lack of knowledge on our part. This one hive was quite large and very productive. In our first year, we had little equipment and even less understanding of the needs of the bees. We figured the bees would do it all and we could sit back and collect honey. Unfortunately, many people have the same idea, and it doesn’t fare well for the bees. You see, honey bees are an invasive species and partially domesticated. They have been bred for some very particular traits which should be monitored and managed. By the end of our first season, we started to learn about the mites. We checked the colony for mites with a mite wash and found 33% infestation. As we learned more, this high rate of mite infestation at the end of a season (October) can be a death sentence for a colony. With some help from our friends at Kelly’s Fram Market & Bakery, we treated our bees and hoped for the best. The next spring our bees were still alive and well. This is where the Queen naming comes from. After a Queen makes it through a winter she gets a name. Being a huge SciFi fan I named this absolute survivor Queen Ellen Ripley or ER.
Her line is our preferred stock. They are the most gentle and easy-going bees in our yard. We hope to keep naming our queens each spring. For purposes of bottling honey, each queen will have a number. ER is #1. We are waiting for the 2021 spring to names some Queens. Newt is definitely of the names coming.
Hilton Honey Company launched in June 2020 with the desire to keep bees responsibly. We are a small family run apiary located just outside the village of Hilton surrounded by apple orchards, clover, and a variety of wildflowers for our honeybees to forge from. Our raw honey is never heated, and it always tastes amazing.
Raw honey often has bits of wax and pollen left in it. Straight from the honeycomb, it can look like this:
Hilton Honey Company is a growing company, and we currently have 7 hives (Fall 2020). After a colony survives through its first winter the queen is given a name. The first colony we acquired in the Spring of 2019 is named Ellen Ripley. The remainder of our colonies are given numbers (hives 2-7). This Spring we will (hopefully) be naming 6 new queens following our theme of strong women characters in science fiction, like Ellen Ripley or maybe Arya Stark. You can meet our queens here.
Our bees’ health is vital to what we do and of utmost importance to us; you can read more about our hive management practices here.
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