The Family Festival at the Ridge Meadows Home Show will be literally buzzing this year, because Golden Meadows Honey Farm is on the way.
Owner Lydia Hall said the family business will offer entertainment for both kids and adults, in both cases “sharing our love of bees.”
Kids can visit a kiddie craft area and make Mothers Day cards, and Golden Meadows is also working on bringing live bees contained in an observation hive.
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Golden Meadow Honey Farm is an apiary that carries honey, while the other side of the business is West Coast Bee Supply for beekeepers.
Adults will be able to get information about beekeeping, and browse beekeeping supplies. Raising bees is a growing pastime, Hall explained, both for people living on acreages and urban beekeepers.
“We’ll be promoting the benefits of keeping bees,” she said, explaining there are many touted health benefits to bee products including, honey and propolis, that make it “like a medicine cabinet in your backyard.”
They teach basic and higher level beekeeping courses, and Hall said urban beekeepers are allowed a limited number of bee boxes. Having pollinators on a property is a benefit to any fruit trees or vegetable gardens, she said. Any plant benefits.
“Even the trees in our yard are just bursting this spring,” she said.
Hall said bees are not a nuisance – they go off in search of pollen, and don’t buzz around your grilled steak the way wasps do. They seem to get to know their beekeepers, and even get used to their dogs, she said.
“They’re like your pets,” she said. “It’s a neat hobby.”
And of course, there will be honey and honey products for sale.
The Ridge Meadows Home Show will start on April 29 at 4 p.m., and runs through the weekend at Planet Ice and the Maple Ridge Fairgrounds.
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