About Burnley Farm Apiary
Being a beekeeper is amazing. Whether you're hobbyist, a sideliner or a professional pollinator, there simply isn't a greater pleasure than knowing you're caring for an animal that could be the single most important species to human survival. Because of the honey bee's ability to pollinate plants, they provide 1/3 of the food we eat, the honey they make has many medicinal uses and the wax they produce is used to make candles and beauty products. I personally can't think of a better way to help my fellow man than by being a beekeeper.
The Company
I became a beekeeper in summer of 2013 and lost my colony. I tried again in 2014 with 10 and had better success so I kept going. I then worked with a migratory beekeeper in 2015 traveling from Ohio to Florida. I started the company in the final days of 2015.
I got into beekeeping as a way to help my garden produce more food but it didn't take long before I realized that honey bees were capable of doing so much more. The more I learned the more I found that these little creatures were perhaps the most important species on the planet. I really took a great interest in them and decided to do more than just keep a couple of hives. Hence, Burnley Farm Apiary LLC. was born.
Presently the farm run between 100 - 200 colonies set up in many yards. I see a lot of growth in the coming years and look forward to spending my golden days as a beekeeper. Seems to me as a pretty good way to spend forever.
Presently, I do swarm removal services, sell honey, wax, nuc hives, 10 frame double deep hives, package bees and nucleus colonies. We produce queens from and for our own stock as well as sell to others. Pollination is something else that we do but presently only in small scale. And we sell honey, lots and lots of honey.
The apiary may be small now but like any healthy colony, it will grow. Follow along and see how I do it. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, join my Facebook Group or check back here. I'm happy to share my love of Honey Bees with all.
Thurman
Honey
My bees produce wonderful honey which I sell in its raw form, meaning that it is not heated or pasteurized and only lightly strained so that all the taste and health benefits can be fully realized.
In my opinion we produce some of the best honey around. Just ask my customers. Our wildflower honey comes from our many bee yards around Spotsylvania. If you're looking for honey to cook with, make mead or help with allergies than you can't beat our wildflower honey.
Our blueberry, cranberry, butter bean and other varietal honeys come from pollination jobs we do outside of Spotsylvainia but are just as delicious.
Health Benefits:
1. Helps prevent cancer and heart disease:
Honey contains flavonoids, antioxidants which help reduce the risk of some cancers and heart disease.
2. Reduces ulcers and other gastrointestinal disorders:
Recent research shows that honey treatment may help disorders such as ulcers and bacterial gastroenteritis. This may be related to the 3rd benefit…
3. Anti-bacterial and anti-fungal:
“All honey is antibacterial, because the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide,” said Peter Molan, director of the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. This contributes to the incredibly long shelf-life of honey.
4. Increases athletic performance:
Ancient Olympic athletes ate honey and dried figs to enhance their performance. This has now been verified with modern studies, showing that it is superior in maintaining glycogen levels and improving recovery time than other sweeteners.
5. Reduces cough and throat irritation:
Honey helps with coughs, particularly buckwheat honey. In a study of 110 children, a single dose of buckwheat honey was just as effective as a single dose of dextromethorphan in relieving nocturnal cough and allowing proper sleep.
6. Balances the 5 elements:
Honey has been used in Ayurvedic medicine in India for at least 4,000 years and is considered to affect all three of the body’s primitive material imbalances positively. It is also said to be useful in improving eyesight, weight loss, curing impotence and premature ejaculation, urinary tract disorders, bronchial asthma, diarrhea and nausea.
Honey is referred as “Yogavahi” since it has a quality of penetrating the deepest tissues of the body. When honey is used with other herbal preparations, it enhances the medicinal qualities of those preparations and also helps them to reach the deeper tissues.
7. Helps regulate blood sugar:
Even though honey contains simple sugars, it is not the same as white sugar or artificial sweeteners. Its exact combination of fructose and glucose actually helps the body regulate blood sugar levels. Some honeys have a low hypoglycemic index, so they don’t jolt your blood sugar. (Watch this video Sweetener Comparison where I compare stevia, brown rice syrup, honey, molasses and agave, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each.)
8. Heals wounds and burns:
External application of honey has been shown to be as effective as conventional treatment with silver sulfadiazene. It is speculated that the drying effect of the simple sugars and honey’s anti-bacterial nature combine to create this effect.
9. Probiotic:
Some varieties of honey possess large amounts of friendly bacteria. This includes up to 6 species of lactobacilli and 4 species of bifidobacteria. This may explain many of the mysterious therapeutic properties of honey.
10. Helps improve skin:
Its anti-bacterial qualities are particularly useful for the skin, and, when used with the other ingredients, honey can also be moisturizing and nourishing. For a powerful home beauty treatment for which you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen already, read Carrot Face Mask.
Pollination Service
Centrally located in Spotsylvania, VA. Serving Virginia.
12 hive minimum if less than 100 miles. 32 hive min over 100 miles. Rental costs very due to distance and crop. Call or email for recent prices and contract agreement.
Pollination service is available on a first come, first serve basis. The length of stay varies by crop and weather, though 3 to 6 weeks are typically required for bees to sufficiently pollinate a given crop. Hive placement must be reachable by truck and trailer and typically takes place during the night or very early in the morning when bees are in their hives.
Pollination of the world's fruit, vegetables and nuts depends on the availability of honey bees and other pollinators. Without the honey bee the human race would lose one third of the food it eats including all those wonderful foods parents want their kids to eat. Honey bees support the cultivation of an estimated 90-130 crops by pollination.
We pollinate apples, cherries, peaches & any number of orchard trees including some nut trees. Also melons, pumpkins, cucumbers and lots of other vegetable garden plants. Let's not forget about the bramble fruit like blueberries, blackberries and Raspberries. Lastly, there's grapes and sunflowers.
We will not place our hives where pesticides and other chemicals are being used. If insecticides or other sprays must be used I must have a chance to remove hives thus providing safety to my honey bees.
Please contact me if you would like a larger crop this year and let our honey bees take care of your pollination needs.
Contract will be emailed to grower upon request.
For more information on pollination please visit http://www.ent.uga.edu/bees/pollination/managing-bees-pollination.html
Thurman Burnley
5817 Smith Station Rd.
Fredericksburg, VA. 22407
burnleyfarmapiary@gmail.com
540-429-3638
