Apiary adventure: Carleton couple buzz into beekeeping

Started in 2021, the couple own and operate Two Jays Farm at 8581 Exeter Road in Carleton. It's a home-based business providing swarm removal, pollination services and educational presentations like looking inside a real live hive. 

“Jessica comes from a family with a long history of beekeeping and we wanted to continue the tradition ourselves,” Christopher Jarvis said in an email. “Our passion for bees led to successful beekeeping with bountiful harvests and excess bees. Everyone wanted to buy our honey and there was a demand to buy our excess bees each spring.”

Jarvis describes the business as sweet, for the honey; sticky, for how messy it can get; and sweaty from the heat when inspecting a hive on a sunny summer day covered head to toe in gear.

He said white clothing helps reduce defensive behavior because bees are more aggressive toward dark colors.

“Beehives are also frequently painted white to help with heat stress in the summer and it is often a budget-friendly choice,” Jarvis said.

When it comes to flowers and what bees like best, Jarvis suggests borage, bee balm, lavender, coneflowers, sunflowers, clovers and most anything in the mint family.

“Honey bees are attracted to flowers with blue, purple or violet shades the most,” he said. “Bee colonies require a diverse selection of floral sources for proper nutrition. Bees collect both pollen and nectar as their protein and carbohydrate sources and will favor different flowers depending on their nutritional needs at the time.”

The farm bottles and sells raw honey that is minimally processed and has not been heated for pasteurization.

“This contrasts with processed honey which often has most of its pollen content removed during filtration to help prevent crystallization and undergoes pasteurization which can destroy enzymes naturally found in honey,” he said. “Raw honey can be used in the same way as any other honey can, although it should not be fed to infants as it has not been pasteurized.”

In addition to keeping bees, the couple offers swarm removal where they will move a group of bees to a location where it can be managed, often by a beekeeper.

“When a honey bee colony is successful, its way of reproducing and creating new colonies is to send off a swarm to establish a new colony elsewhere,” he said. “If they do not find a suitable home immediately, the bees will create a temporary cluster called a bivouac, which often looks like a large ball of bees on a tree branch. Relocating this temporary cluster is a swarm removal.”

There are laws and regulations regarding beekeeping. Jarvis said at the state level, beekeepers need to follow at the Apiary Law Act, which focuses on preventing disease spread among bees.

“Some local governments in the state have additional regulations and zoning requirements,” he said. “Many of the regulations beekeepers must be aware of and follow are related to the processing, labeling and sale of honey as a food product and not beekeeping itself. Some requirements can change depending on the value of your yearly honey sales, with the requirements increasing along sales volume.”

What Jarvis enjoys most about owning an apiary is the way it makes him feel.

“Being in a bee yard still puts me in a state of serene childlike wonder to this day,” he said.