Lonesome Pine Beekeepers

04/22/2026

Celebrating the Heartbeat of Our Earth 🌎🐝

Earth Day is more than just a date on the calendar; it is a reminder that even the smallest creatures play the biggest roles in our survival. As we reflect on our planet’s health today, we are looking at the incredible connection between the earth, the honey bee, and the hands that care for them.

The Pollination Powerhouse 🌸

Honey bees are the ultimate environmental stewards. By visiting thousands of flowers every day, they facilitate the growth of the fruits, vegetables, and wildflowers that keep our ecosystems diverse and our dinner tables full.

The Guardian’s Role 🍯

Beekeepers do more than just harvest honey. We are on the front lines of environmental conservation—monitoring hive health, providing forage, and doing our best to protect these vital insects from the many challenges they face in a changing world. When we support sustainable beekeeping, we are investing in the resilience of our local environment.

How to Join the Movement Today:

* Support Local: Choose raw, local honey to help sustain the beekeepers who look after your area's bee populations.
* Plant for Pollinators: Add some native, bee-friendly blooms to your garden or windowsill.
* Go Chemical-Free: Consider natural alternatives to pesticides to keep your backyard safe for all buzzing visitors.

Everything in nature is connected. Today, we celebrate the bees that keep our world blooming and the dedicated people who ensure their flight continues.

Happy Earth Day from Oak Point Farm! 🌿✨

04/21/2026

Honey bees are great and important, and we would be in a bad spot if we lost them. But wild pollinators are essential, and we would be much worse off if we lost them.

I am not a wasp. I am not a honey bee. I am not aggressive.

That small dark bee hovering around your fruit trees in April — the metallic blue-black one darting in and out of a hollow stem — is a mason bee. And your fruit trees aren't in trouble. They're being pollinated.

A mason bee is solitary. No hive. No queen. No workers. Every female is a mother building her own nest by herself. She collects pollen on the fuzzy underside of her belly instead of on her legs, and that messy method is part of why she pollinates so effectively. More pollen transfers per visit than most hive bees manage.

She emerges when the soil warms to roughly the same temperature that triggers apple, cherry, pear, and plum trees to bloom. If your fruit trees are flowering, she's likely already working them.

She lives about six weeks. Every female you see in April will be gone by June. But before she goes, she fills hollow stems with eggs sealed behind walls of mud — each one waiting through summer, fall, and winter to emerge when your fruit trees bloom again next spring.

🌿 How to support her:

- Don't swat — a mason bee near your face is navigating, not threatening. She'll move on within seconds
- Install a mason bee house with nesting tubes near fruit trees on a south-facing wall before the first warm stretch of spring
- Provide a muddy patch of bare clay soil nearby — she needs wet clay to build the walls between each egg cell. No mud means no nesting, regardless of how good the house is
- The large black bees drilling round holes into your deck are carpenter bees, not mason bees — different species, different behavior
- If your fruit trees aren't setting fruit, check for frost damage during bloom or pesticide timing before assuming a pollinator problem

She'll be gone in six weeks. The fruit she pollinated will be on your tree in fall 🌿

04/15/2026

Join us for the 2026 Spring Lake Cleanup at Flannagan Reservoir and help keep our waters clean, beautiful, and ready for the season ahead.

📍 April 18 | 8 AM – 2 PM
📍 Marina Parking Lot

04/14/2026