As a Port Orchard, Washington resident, I have been keeping bees since 2016. The first year was a struggle and it was all I could do to figure out what the heck this was all about. By my second year, I thought I knew it all and started posting YouTube videos to instruct others (you know, those instructional videos that start with 'I have never done this before but I'll walk you through it).
By my third, fourth and fifth years, I found myself becoming more and more despondent. Why were my hives failing? Why did I continue to suffer horrible hive losses over winter?
After my fifth year, I started to get enough experience under my belt to start figuring it out - what worked and what didn't work. Soon, I was having greater success and with each passing year, my hives flourished.
In 2022, I built a shop and started designing my own equipment, adding modifications as necessary to fit my particular environment. Beeking in the Pacific Northwest is always challenging and it seems the season one year is nothing like the same season the next year. I had to learn to be fast on my feet and to have options and redundancies in place.
Today, I'm offering these designs to the public to help honeybees thrive in our unique environment and plan to really ramp it up when I retire from my day job in five years. In the meantime, I'm doing this in addition to my day job and that's always a delicate dance, so patience is appreciated.
I'm always available by appointment if you'd like to come to the shop or pick my brain for ideas on how to succeed. If you want to purchase something while you are there, that's great. If not, that's fine too. We're all in this together.
I'm here to help you bee a success!
Jim W. Coleman
360-440-6745
