At The Bergs and the Bees, Winter is anything but idle—We’re discussing the successes and lessons from 2024, starting new projects, and ordering seeds for a new year of harvests!

What's New
This is the season for laying the foundation for big things to come. We are excited to share we are working on a roadside farmstand and expanding our CSA offering this year! We have also added raised beds in the gardens. In the fields, we’ve partnered with the Natural Resource Conservation Service to adopt no-till and cover-cropping practices. It’s a big step toward healing soil that’s been worn down over decades, and it’s already showing great promise. We’re also preparing a section of forest for maple syrup production, adding to the orchards, making mushroom logs, expanding our Apiary capacity, and sourcing seeds that will bring vibrant diversity to the fields this year. From new offerings through our farmstand, regenerative practices to heal the soil, or creating opportunities for people to connect with their food, there’s plenty to look forward to in 2025!

Continuing the Mission
With every decision we make, we’re driven by a simple but powerful belief: food should nourish more than the body. We believe in food that’s grown with care, connects the people who eat it, and benefits the ecosystem that surrounds it. Here’s what sets us apart:

• Diverse Offerings: Shiitake mushrooms, fruits, nuts, honey, herbs, maple syrup, eggs, and a variety of vegetables—all grown with health and flavor in mind.
• Regenerative Practices: No-till farming, holistic composting, sustainable forestry, and thoughtful seed sourcing help us grow delicious food while supporting a sustainable food system.
• Transparency and Values: We’re committed to staying toxin-free, avoiding exploitative practices, and keeping our impact on the planet positive.

By choosing food from a farm like ours, you’re doing more than filling your plate—you’re supporting a healthier, more sustainable future.

​Why Local Food Matters More Than Ever
The global food system is stretched thin, and the risks are real from contamination recalls, ultra-processed foods, nutrient-depleted produce, and the massive environmental costs of industrial agriculture. We won’t be able to offset all of your nutritional needs, but where we can, local farms like ours offer a better way. We’re tastier, safer, healthier, and more resilient, and one that prioritizes community over corporations.

How You Can Get Involved
We are on a path that brings people closer to their food, connects our community, and stewards the land for future generations. If this is something that you find valuable or you want to support our work, here is how you can get involved:

• Sign up for our mailing list to stay in the loop about upcoming events, CSA openings, and new offerings.
• Attend our 2025 Harvest Preview Webinar on Thursday February 6th at 6pm cst.
• Consider joining our 2025 CSA and enjoy fresh and preserved foods and goods year-round.
• Visit our seasonal roadside farmstand for fresh eggs, veggies and more.
• Join us at the farm for our Annual Cooperative Meeting on Saturday July 26.
• Connect with us about foods, natural remedies, how-to’s, or workshops you are interested in.
• Be conscious of your impact! Start a garden, think about where and who grew your food, compost your food + yard waste and ditch the manicured turf lawn for native forbs and grasses!

 
Let’s make 2025 a year of growth and connection!

Introducing our trial CSA boxes! Each month of the 2024 growing season, we will curate a selection of fresh produce from our farm for your table!

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a farming model where consumers buy shares or rights to a portion of the farms harvest for the year. CSA programs foster a direct relationship between local farmers and consumers, promote seasonal eating, and often include opportunities for members to visit the farm and participate in farm activities. Buying a CSA share is typically an upfront investment for the consumer because much of the cost of growing food occurs long before the products are ready for consumption.
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This year we are focused on learning how to scale our production based on demand and experiment with the logistics of operating our own CSA. Each month we will offer a farm box filled with a variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, eggs, and other handmade farm goods. We will post when boxes are available, the contents, price, and a pick-up schedule. Depending on interest, we will rotate one pick up day a month around the Twin Cities area!

If you are interested in purchasing a trial farm box, check out our Farm Shop for availability!

​On April 16th our local post office called to say our bees were here! Andy raced to the post office to pick them up while Cait made them some syrup and got the equipment loaded into the ranger. We were in a race against time, as thunderstorms were expected throughout the day. We installed (2) Three-pound packages of bees into their new hives. To help with observations and notetaking we previously painted the two hives differently, one pink and one green. During the installation we gave each hive a pollen patty and 2 gallons of 1:1 sugar syrup in a gravity feeder to assist them in drawing out the wax comb.

After installing the bees, we had a few days of cold and rainy weather but were greeted with some warmer days toward the end of the week. After observing our hives for a few days, it looked like the green hive was slightly more active than the pink.

On April 21st we did our first hive inspections to check on the colonies and look for eggs, a sign the new queen is doing well. We had warm sunny weather with temperatures reaching the low 60’s. Walking up to the apiary we were amazed to see hundreds of bees doing orientation flights. The air was peppered with buzzing bees! It was a bit intimidating at first, but we proceeded with the plan for the day.

The green hive had significantly more bee activity, so we started our inspections with the pink hive. During our inspections we removed a few frames until we could see the presence of eggs. This was a sign that the worker bees were drawing out comb and the queen was laying. Once the eggs were spotted, we replaced the frames, added a mite treatment strip (more on this later), replaced the feeder and closed the hives.

An essential aspect of permaculture is the lowly pollinator, who play a crucial role in food production and ecosystem health. Without the natural labors provided by honeybees and other native insects, human agriculture would likely have never arisen and here at the Bergs and the Bees we consider them as important as the air we breathe. Additionally, beekeeping is a rewarding hobby that helps a beekeeper read the natural cycles of the seasons and protects our very existence. Also, did we mention a well-managed hive can provide a surplus of 60 pounds of honey each year?

At this point you are probably thinking that it isn't simple, and you would be right.  The main issue is that bees have evolved over millions of years to NOT share their carefully collected honey and pollen stores. As a beekeeper, it is our role to work with the natural order of the colony and provide an environment where the queen can sustain a population of workers beyond what would typically be needed to gather and store resources for winter. Provided this workforce is born at precisely the right time, they are then able to gather unbelievable amounts of nectar during key blooms throughout the summer. In addition to the 60 pounds available to the skilled beekeeper, a single hive will also retain up 100 pounds of pollen and honey to sustain them through the cold Minnesotan winters. Although we did not reach this level of success in year one, we took the first step!

The first steps in beekeeping are fairly straight forward. In addition to requiring a certain amount of space and nectar resources, there is a well-recognized set of starter equipment. The University of Minnesota estimates the startup costs associated with beekeeping are anywhere from $1,700-$4,000! The high end of this figure assumes that you follow their recommendation of two hives. We did not invest in a second during our first summer, but we plan on adding another for year two. In addition to hives, you will also need to order bees, some cool new clothing, a smoker, and other useful tools. 
 
Before we started, we read that roughly 50% of colonies fail to survive winter. Feeling we were setting ourselves up for possible failure, we approached our first year with a goal of getting comfortable being around so many stinging insects and becoming good observers. Spoiler: We did end up losing our bees in the first winter, but I think it was a valuable way to prepare for enrolling in the University of Minnesota's short course on Beekeeping in norther climates in January 2024. If you are serious about beekeeping, I would highly recommend taking the course but have no regrets about giving it a try first without out it.  In the words of Thomas J. Watson, "Failure is a teacher; a harsh one, but the best." 

When purchasing bees you have two main options, a package of bees or a nucleus colony or “nucs” for short. Packages of bees are sold by weight and typically contain 7,000-15,000 bees and a mated queen. This option usually results in getting your bees earlier in the spring (which can increase honey production for the year), but requires more supplemental feeding and a there is a chance your bees require mite treatment.  A nuc is an established colony on 4 or 5 frames of waxed comb, with stored pollen, nectar, a mated queen, and approximately 10,000+ bees in various lifecycle stages (eggs, larva, pupae). This option typically starts later in spring allows for faster population growth but it can be harder for bees in northern climates to store enough honey. There is an additional risk of that the established comb has been contaminated by residue from pesticides.  Both options have their own sets of pros and cons: and after assessing our goals for the year we opted for the nucleus route. In year two we have already opted for packaged bees to trial another option.

We purchased our nuc from a local Minnesota based beekeeping company at the end of June and rushed home to get them set up. We immediately identified the fresh anxiety of visiting the bee yard in the first few months.  Honey Bees gather nectar to produce honey as a source of food for winter, and any human harvest must be weighed against the hive's need to store food for a Minnesota winter. In our area, a hive will need anywhere from 75 to 100 pounds of honey just to feed themselves! For your hive to produce that much honey, plus any excess for the beekeeper to harvest, we would need to do a lot of supplemental feeding. Although we love the golden goodness, we wanted to save the honey for the bees and spend the year observing and opted for a more hands off approach.
 
Throughout the summer, we did several hive checks, some minimal supplemental feeding of sugar syrup, and sat back and watched the bees do their thing. During one of our hive checks at the end July we found a new queen cell and noticed our hive replaced the queen! This was likely an emergency requeening or supersedure, meaning the previous queen likely died or stopped laying eggs. During this inspection we were able to find the new queen and see eggs and brood in various stages. Our hive box was about 80% full, so we added another deep box for the bees to fill with brood, pollen, and honey for the winter.

​Fall of 2023 was busy around our farm! From hosting our first “Stump Fest”, completing the construction of our high tunnel greenhouse, to harvesting the bounties of our garden and mushroom logs. Every day was spent working elsewhere around the farm and preparing for winter. All that to say we just let the bees do their thing and continued our hands off approach. We provided a water source external to the hive and added an insulation box to the hive as the temps started dipping into the 50’s. Here is where things went wrong… in providing our hive with more room to grow at the end of summer, we should have been also providing them with more supplemental feed in the fall to help them expand. It takes honeybees a ton of energy to draw out the wax comb, and at this point in the year the nectar flow likely wasn’t enough to support their efforts. We entered winter hopeful the hive would survive but naive to their lack of stored resources for winter.

Over the winter months we completed the University of Minnesota’s Beekeeping in Northern Climates course. We learned a ton and were presented with great information that shifted our perspective on beekeeping. One of the biggest takeaways we will be implementing in our second year of beekeeping is having two hives! Having two separate hives helps identify if one colony is struggling and allows beekeepers to intervene sooner.

We did our first hive inspection of 2024 in February when we had some unseasonably warm days. Upon opening the hive, we found that our colony had died due to starvation. The hive was completely empty of honey and the top super only had one frame of drawn wax comb. With our new resources from the U of M we were able to reflect on where we went wrong and come up with a better plan going into our second year of beekeeping.  We composted the dead bees, cleaned up the hive, and rendered the extra beeswax.
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Over the years we have lost chickens, a whole orchard of trees, pets, etc. Loss of any kind is hard, but each time it has given us the opportunity to reflect on what went right, what went wrong, and how we can do better next time. If we stopped every time we failed at something, we wouldn’t be where we are today! With new knowledge and a better plan, we are looking forward to trying again in spring of 2024!

During one of our hive inspections at the end of July we captured this photo of one of our frames. Do you see the queen in the photo below? Her golden color and impressive size help distinguish her from the rest of the worker bees! 

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This photo also captures the presence of the remaining queen cup! It was at this point in our hive inspection that we realized our colony requeened itself.  While looking at the comb we could see eggs, larva, and pupae. That was a reassuring sign that our new queen was doing well. 

As we have gotten into beekeeping, we have learned some amazing facts about the queen bee! Here are some of our favorites...

• Worker bees build special cells called "queen cups" when it is time to rear a new queen. Nurse bees will feed the queen larva royal jelly, which is a special food secreted from their heads. This food is higher protein, sugar, and fats than food given to worker bees. 
• Queen bees only take 16 days to develop from egg! Worker bees take 21 and drones take 24.
• A virgin queen will embark on a mating flight where she will mate with 10-20 drones from other colonies. Having multiple mates helps with genetic diversity!
• The queen has an organ called a spermatheca that stores the sperm from her mating flight. After her mating flights are complete, she will not need to mate ever again. She has the ability to control her spermatheca. "On" to lay fertilized eggs that will develop into female worker bees. If she turns the spermatheca "off" the result is a male drone bee.
• A queen lays approximately 1,000 eggs a day!
• A queen bee can live for 2-3 years, whereas worker bees live for only around 25-25 days (up to 200 for bees overwintering)

It is not always necessary to see your queen when doing a hive inspection. In fact, going through every frame looking for her could end up in her getting rolled between the frames and killed by the beekeeper or even dropped on the ground outside of the hive! 

Did you find the queen in the first photo? Check the photo below to see!

 Ingredients

• 8 oz. Bread Flour
• 8 oz. Semolina Flour
• 5 Eggs 
• 0.5 oz. Olive Oil
• Large Pinch of Salt

Equipment 

• Scale
• Sifter or Whisk
• Fork
• Bench Scraper
• Pasta Roller & Cutter -or- Rolling Pin & Knife

Instructions for making and shaping pasta dough

1. On a large cutting board or flat surface, whisk or sift together flours into a mound. (Tip: if this is your first time making pasta or you are nervous about using a well method, try using a large bowl instead!)
2. Use a measuring cup or glass to make a well in your flour mound.
3. Sprinkle the salt and drizzle the olive oil into the well.
4. Crack the eggs into a small container or bowl.
5. Pour one egg into the well and beat with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour. Continue this process one egg at a time. It helps to use your free hand or bench scrapper to push against the flour wall to help keep it from breaking. If your well does break, you just have to work fast!
6. When all eggs are incorporated, kneed your pasta dough for around five minuets. Use a bench scraper to help scrape up any stuck pasta. Making pasta has a lot to do with how the dough feels... if it is feeling really dry you can add a tablespoon or two of cold water. If your dough is really wet and sticky, try giving it a sprinkle of bread flour while kneading it. 
7. Form dough into a round disk and wrap in plastic wrap or a beeswax wrap, and place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. it is important that whatever you wrap the dough in, that it is touching the dough to avoid air forming a skin or oxidizing the dough.
8. When you are ready to form and cut your pasta, remove from the refrigerator and allow the dough to get close to room temp. I like to cut the pasta disk into 4 equal pieces, that way once I am rolling it out, it is a much more manageable size. Any pasta dough that you are not actively using needs to stay covered.
9. The possibilities are endless when it comes to shaping your pasta!

• If you are using a pasta machine, whether it is for an attachment for your stand mixer​ or the hand crank kind, start with your machine at the widest setting. With each pass through the machine decrease the width. Every few passes or if your pasta feels sticky, dust with bread or semolina flour. If your pasta gets too long, use your bench scrapper or a knife to shorten it. When you have reached your desired thickness, it is time to cut your pasta into the shape you want. 
• If you do not have any sort of pasta machine, you can roll your dough using a dusted rolling pin. When you reach your desired thickness, you can cut with a knife or pizza cutter. An easy way to do this is rolling the pasta into a log and cutting thin strips.

Cooking 

1. Cook your fresh pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water. Fresh pasta cooks very quickly! But it also depends on the thickness of your noodles, so watch it closely. When I make thin, spaghetti  or linguini pasta, it cooks in under a minute!

Storage

• If you want to store your fresh pasta for future use, you can leave it out at room temperature overnight to dry. You can either use a pasta drying rack or place loosely on a sheet pan and sprinkle with plenty of flour.
• Once your pasta is dry, it should snap and not bend. At this point you can store in an airtight container in a cool and dry place for several months. 
• Without drying the pasta, pasta can be stored in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months!

At first you might be wondering "why on earth would you recycle your eggshells?".  We are here to tell you, there are so many reasons! Our main reason is that we love composting, and adding eggshells to your compost is a great way to incorporate calcium back into your soil. Anytime a plant grows in soil it absorbs the different nutrients it needs (such as calcium) through its roots! For a gardener, it is beneficial to amend your soil in between plantings to reintroduce nutrients the plants need to thrive. 

Much like how humans need calcium to grow strong bones, plants use calcium to help build strong cell walls! Lucky for us, eggshells are almost entirely made out of calcium. That means free fertilizer! Instead of discarding our eggshells, it is just as easy to give them a rinse, dry them out, and give their life another purpose. 

Instructions:

1. Rinse your eggshells underwater, don't worry about removing the membrane.
2. Place your shells in a place where they can dry out for a day or two. We like to put them in our windowsill behind our sink. This allows for them to dry out without being scooted off of the counter by our cats!
3. Once they are dry, the shells will crumble easily. Simply crush them up with your hands or in a blender. The size of the crushed eggshells is completely up to you, smaller eggshells distribute more evenly in soil.
4. Add to your compost or sprinkle around your plants! And there you have it, you were able to provide your plants and soil with the calcium it needs with something that would have otherwise been discarded!