Valley Bee Supply

Valley Bee Supply is the only store front bee keeping facility in the state of Virginia. However, there is a big franchise company in Chatham, VA. They manufacture most of their wooden equipment.

They use one of 7 machines in the world to make the drawers. They say the reason for so many colonies collapsing is because of systemic pesticides (nicotinoids). Honey bees are not native to North America, they were imported in 1620 at Jamestown. There are several different breeds of honey bees. The African bee is more protective over hive and more presistent. In most hives there is one queen, 200 drones, and 50,000 worker bees which are sterile females.

21 days after an egg is laid it becomes a worker bee unless it is fed royal jelly for the entire pupal cycle which creates a queen bee. The hives should be checked once a day and they should look for the queen as well as eggs, larva, and pupa. They harvest the nectar and evaporate out the water to make honey. A box full of honey will weigh about 90 pounds. The bees wax is secreted from underneath the abdomen then the bee chews it up and spits it back out. Honey can not be fed to children under the age of 1 because there are botulism spores present which can effect the child's immune system. The hives are made out of white pine. They sell the pieces separate, assembled, and painted. The black combs show the eggs and larva better than the white combs.

They sell their products online and through ebay to all of the U.S. including Hawaii. The government does not have much involvement in bee keeping so there are not many regulations. They offer a bee keeping class on Saturdays and Fred teaches a class at Blue Ridge Community College. The business was opened 3.5 to 4 years ago with a start up cost of $10,000. They now have an inventory of over $500,000 and there is an increasing number of bee keepers in the area since they opened.


This operation was interesting especially the finances with only starting out with $10,000 and now having an inventory of $500,000 in only 4 years. This company is a well known company and it did not take them long to become well known. Although this is not something that I would like to make a career out of it is amazing to see how it is done and how the bees work together and honor the queen.