Apiary:
noun - a place where bees are kept,
especially a collection of hives of colonies of bees kept for their honey.
pleural: apiaries
"apiary." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2020.
Web. 7 August 2020.
Millis Meadows has been transformed over the last 8 years from a large backyard to a bursting apiary.
We currently have 25 bee hives, a native garden, a vegetable garden, a flower garden, and a workshop.
Tom installing his bees for the first time, in the spring of 2016.
Tom acquired his first 3 hives in May of 2016. Since then his hives have grown to 12 by way of savvy splits, the collection of swarms, and the removal of feral hives from undesired locations. Tom’s first honey surplus came in the late summer of 2017 and since then we have extracted a larger and larger surplus every year. In 2020, we made our first specialty honey (Black Locust Honey). And in that same year, we began the production of other hive products from the beeswax surplus.
During these years of beekeeping, Millis Meadows has also developed a large native garden to support natural insect species. First planted in 2015 with a seed mix from MO Wildflowers, the native garden now includes milkweed, monarda, rattlesnake master, yarrow, foxglove, coreopsis, goldenrod, black raspberry, several rudbeckia varieties, and several echinacea varieties. In 2020 we are preparing to expand the native garden.
The vegetable garden has existed from the time of the previous owners. Each year we grow some staples and some new veggies. We are constantly testing out new planting methods. Staples include lettuce, kale, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, dill, and basil. Some rotating favorites include radishes, carrots, beets, watermelon, cantaloupe, and pumpkins. From these veggies we usually make pickles, pesto, and tomato sauce, which will last us year-round.
A note on the workshop at Millis Meadows. Tom has been an avid woodworker since 2009 and over the years has developed a functional shop for the creation of his various projects. Some of the bee hives were actually made within the workshop. Past projects have included decorative boxes, side tables, stepping stools, plant stands, cutting boards, kids toys, garden boxes, and birdhouses.
A note on the woods at Millis Meadows. There are three sections of heavily treed area on the property, we refer to them as the front woods, the middle woods, and the back woods. Since 2012, we have been working on eliminating the invasive bush honeysuckle within these woods and replanting the understory with native plants. About 2/3 of the woods on the property have been cleared of honeysuckle and replaced with native plant species. In the back woods, which have been restored for the longest period of time, we have a large bramble of native blackberries that produces fruit each year.
