Hive losses this winter have been heavy all over the country. Unfortunately, our apiary isn’t any different. At the high point last summer we had 32 hives. We went into fall with 26. We have come out of winter with 7, and only 2 of those look reasonably strong.

For us, this is a huge loss. We now need to replace more hives than anticipated and, since our students graduate with a hive and we don’t have hives to split, we need top purchase 6 additional hives for them, too. That means we need to purchase about 30 hives total in the next few weeks (and find someone who has nucleus colonies available for purchase still.) These will cost is between $160 and $200 each, assuming prices don’t go up dramatically due to the increased demand.

So, this is where you come in. Our only way to purchase the hives we need is to ask all of you to help us out. We need to raise sufficient funds to pay for the hives and only have 4 to 6 weeks to do so. There are a couple of options for how you can help us out.

• Our raffle runs until the end of the month. You can purchase raffle tickets here on our site and there are still tickets available.
• You can donate to us through our donation page or by sending us a check.

Any donation will be a help, no donation is too small or too large. (We use PayPal for credit card processing. They take out 2.2% plus $0.30 per transaction. You do not need a PayPal account to donate.)

If you want to see what one of our students has to say about the program, please watch the video below, it will only take 60 seconds.

Thank you for your support of our program and your willingness to help us help our veterans and first responders.