Day 2 of the Shenandoah Valley

       On our second day at the Shenandoah Valley we traveled to the Shenandoah Valley Bee Supply where Fred Hollen spoke with us about the facility, supplies for beekeeping, and how to manage bees. Their facility was opened four years ago and had to increase their inventory two folds every year to keep up with the demand. The business is the only beekeeping supply store with a storefront in the Shenandoah Valley. Competing companies such as Dadant doesn't have a store to buy your equipment like the Valley has, you have to order from Dadant and it comes from their main headquarters to the branches that customers can go to. The Valley Bee Supply has one of the seven machines that can manufacture the wood supers that holds the bees. Mr. Hollen said that colony collapses can be due to pesticides sprayed on fields close to the hives that gets on the bees pollen and nectar. There have been certain parasites such as the Buroa mite that affects the brood and causes a weakened or deformed bees. The mite was brought here by introducing the Eastern Russian bees coming to America with them. Bees are not native to America and different breeds were brought here from different countries. Jamestown
was the first settlement to have bees in 1620, and they were Northern German bees.

     Bees only sting to protect their hive. African bees are known for their harsh attacks due to their swarming and large numbers stinging you. A population of one hive contains one queen, 100s of drones, and 50,000 worker bees and these are sterile females. If the bees raise queen bees they will feed them royal jelly to the larvae the entire time, if a worker bee then it is fed royal jelly the first three days, the honey and pollen throughout until the last three days where they receive royal jelly. Once a queen bee has emerged she will kill the other queens. Valley Bee Supply receives their queen bees from the other companies that specifically breed them. Minnesota University breeds queen bees called Minnesota Queens the Valley have received queens from them before. For beeswax production the bees secrets the beeswax from plates on their abdomen. It takes eight pounds of honey to make one pound of wax. Also, two supers of honey will hold five gallons of honey.

       Our second stop for the day was to the Mountain View Farm and Vineyard and Dr. Megan Seibel, she manages all sprays due to her background in Chemistry and she manages the labor due to her background with Spanish. The farm has been here since 1962, but they built and planted there grapes by hand in 2000. The farm use to be a dairy and now has became a hay, pasture for beef, and vineyard. They operate 120 cow-calf operation. The vineyard yields 85 to 100 tons of grapes and their are only 256 Vineyards/Wineries in Virginia and Virginia is the fifth in grape production. Dr. Seibel sales mainly to companies such as King Family, and are sold in state and to Pennsylvania. The Vineyard has seven different varieties of grapes. She does not grown Champagne grapes it is called Sparkling grapes in America due to the Champagne name from original producers of Champagne. Grapes are self pollinated therefore there is no need for bees. She sprays the pesticides every ten to fourteen days at time of budding and blooming or they will face bad mildew problems. The pruning of the grapes can be done two ways one is Cane pruning and the other is Spur pruning which Mountain View Farm and Vineyard uses. During harvest time they pick nine to twenty tons of grapes a day. Grapes are able to tolerate heat very well but not a lot of water.
          Dr. Seibel had had problems with bear, deer, and especially birds. The deer were prevented by having deer fencing put up around the vineyard. The birds on the other hand still have problems due to them flying and puncturing through the netting and eating the grapes. Her crew personnel come from Waynesboro. She has had problems with Grapevine Yellows that comes from a shooter to get rid of this disease you have to take up the plants that are affected. Ladybugs can be a major problem especially to taste since they affect the juice. The plants at the Vineyard came from certified grape nurseries. The cows on the farm are able during the winter to graze in the vineyard but wire is low enough on the vines for the cows to not harm the plants. The vineyard's name was very accurate due to the beautiful "Mountain View."