About Us...
Wisconsin Crew
Pictured above is our 2007 crew. Pictured on some of our most memorable days! The last day of pulling honey and the last day of extracting. Our help included all of our family (notice our newest member) plus Angela and Layla along with Monique and Gabrielle. We are VERY grateful for their long hours of sticky work.
Our Florida Crew
This year we plan to raise fewer queens and so our family will be our main crew. Above Chris and Becky cage together in '07 and below our own queen 'wranglers' lookin' out for any stragglin' queens gittin' ready to dot those girls and ship 'em out.
Established in 1982, Indian Summer Honey Farm has gone through many changes since its beginning as a sideline business. In 1987 Chris married Becky and together they have (with God's help) worked together to make Indian Summer Honey Farm into what it is today. Honey producing in the summer months, queen producing in the winter months.
Our crew in Wisconsin works with us in making a great honey crop. We return to Wisconsin from Florida in early June and the honey producing season lasts through
August. We usually begin extracting honey sometime in July and try to have things wrapped up by the end of September or October.
Over the years, some things haven't changed since our business began. Our goal, to sell exceptional raw locally produced honey , satisfy our customers, and make honey and other bee hive products more popular in the Milwaukee area.
While in Florida we seek to serve our neighbors in the Sumter and Lake County areas with that same dedication to locally produced high quality honey. Since 2000 We also produce and sell to beekeepers all over the country the highest quality Carniolan Cross queens and nucleus hives available on the market today.
We are a migratory operation, which means we have the privilege and great joy (my wife is rolling her eyes) of spending the summers in Wisconsin and the winters in Florida.
A migratory year in the life of Indian Summer Honey Farm starts in November once the weather turns cold and we are able to group all of our colonies for shipment to Florida at our farm in Germantown Wisconsin.
Most years the bees head for Florida on two semi-trucks just before Thanksgiving, they arrive early in the morning 36 hours after leaving Wisconsin to our ranch "South Branch" . Under sprawling oaks they are unloaded in stacks four hives high, we will move these bees over the next several evenings out to locations around the Withalcoochee Swamp in groups of 160. Around mid-January we begin preparations for that years' queen rearing season. The months of February, March, April and May all the hives are turned into mating nuclei and used to raise queens. A portion of these mating nuclei will be sold to beekeepers needing new hives.
In late May, the mating nuclei are converted back to single queen hives and shipped back to Wisconsin on semi-trucks to Germantown. Once there the colonies are moved out to locations of 40 hives per yard. In Wisconsin our bees have the opportunity to pollinate apples, pears, cherries, strawberries, and vegetables. Our primary interest lies in making honey, however, and most of the hives stay put all summer long. Our main honey producing months are June and July (see honey page).
We run all of our colonies on screen bottom four -way pallets in single 10 frame brood chambers. Treatment for Varroa mites is initiated when we pull honey in August and continues with every visit until the colonies are turned into nuclei in February.
Ready to leave Florida
Just arrived in Wisconsin
e-mail:
info@indiansummerhoneyfarm.com
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Updated by Gail Love
Updated Jan 08