About

I’m Diana – but my family nickname growing up was Dee. I keep bees with my dad, Dave, in Minnesota. We started with one hive in his backyard, and today we run around 8 hives (give or take) across three sites in Minneapolis and Mounds View, Minnesota.

We are hobby beekeepers; we don’t do it for the money, we just like working with the bees! We keep our bees at home year round – they do not get sent west or south to pollinate crops. Our main focus is to support the bees as best we can – make sure they have food, water, shelter, and monitor them to make sure they are healthy. We give them extra support for dealing with Varroa mites, one of the biggest issues honeybees contend with in the United States. We only take honey that the bees won’t need for the winter. Some years we get a honey crop, some years we get none.

We use gentle beekeeping practices – meaning we don’t wear gloves or jackets, just a veil to keep the bees off our faces. This means we have a lot more dexterity with our hands, and it makes us more careful and mindful while we are in the hives – which means fewer bees getting squished. This keeps the hive calm, keeps us from getting stung, and keeps bees in the hive!

Some years, once the bees have their winter stores filled, there’s some left over for us to take. When that happens, we extract honey in the fall and bottle it for sale. As a part of the extraction process, we also get bits of beeswax that we then process and use in products like lip balm. We sell these products and honey to family, friends, friends of friends, or anyone who asks. The proceeds help offset our beekeeping costs.