The main Booger Hill Bee Company apiary is located north of Athens. The areas where our bees forage encompass a watershed that feeds the Broad and Oconee rivers. This basin contains rolling and steep hillsides, wetlands as well as river bottoms. Here is an enormous range of native trees, shrubs and other flowering plants. The diversity of blossoms provides a rich stream of nectar and pollens throughout the spring and fall. bee outyardsWe maintain a number of bee outyards across the Georgia Piedmont. These outyards are located in places with names like Furnace Creek, Roger’s Mill, Wolf’s Branch and Mill Shoals. We limit their size to 10 to 15 hives. It is our belief that foraging competition between honey bee colonies as well as with native pollinators should be maintained at levels that encourage a thriving community of each. The biggest threat to our bees is the Varroa destructor, a small mite that has devastated much of the honey bee population world-wide. We use selected queen bees that have demonstrated levels of tolerance to this mite. We periodically check the mite populations in each of our hives. On those occasions that a colony requires treatment we use the naturally occurring compound thymol. Thymol is an extract from the herb thyme. This compound is effective. Unfortunately it is also labor intensive, which is why few commercial beekeepers use it.