Country Barn Farm Hive Services

We can inspect your apiary and give you tips on better hive management.

Email us to schedule an appointment to meet with one of our beekeepers. Apiary visits in Allegheny County are $25 per hour including travel time. Travel time to be calculated based on roundtrip travel between Country Barn Farm in Glenshaw, PA and your hives. 

Currently North Hills Area only

We provide micro pollination for home gardens who want to try out boosting their local bee population. We generally try to stay in the North Hills area of Allegheny County PA to limit our travel time. We have two basic home owner options: 

Option 1 - A single small hive that provides pollination for $500 per year per hive.

Option 2 - A larger hive that will provide pollination and up to 24 pounds of surplus honey in one pound glass jars delivered to the homeowner for $1000 per year per hive. 

In an average year this will mean up to 12 one pound jars in August and up to 12 one-pound jars in October. While we cannot guarantee honey, we will do everything in our power to make sure the home owner gets a taste of honey.

We handle all state Department of Agriculture requirements. Homeowners are responsible for any local permitting requirements and all neighbor relations. 

We will provide some guidance to home owners on local requirements. This can be a fun neighborhood project since the bees will pollinate all the flowers in the neighborhood!

It takes a lot of berries to fill a bowl! Here are some of the ways you can help Country Barn Farm help the bees through sustainable beekeeping:

Naming a Queen Bee

 Country Barn Farm runs hundreds of bee hives. Each hive has its own queen that heads up the colony. For $25 we will name a queen bee with the name of your choice and email you a beautiful naming certificate suitable for gifting. Naming a queen bee is a fun way to celebrate someone you care about. We use the proceeds from naming certificates to make our agricultural operation more sustainable and able to support our huge commitment to beekeeper education.

Provide a home for a hive

If you have a large acreage property in the North Hills area of Allegheny, PA, that you want to use to host honey bee hives, please contact us. We may be interested in placing some of our hives on your property. 

The basic value proposition is simple: the landowner get the pollination and the beekeeper gets the honey. Country Barn Farm also gives all of its land owners some seasonal honey when we harvest in July and October to sweeten the deal!

If we are unable to site hives on your property or if you live outside of our area, we can likely connect you with one of the many responsible beekeepers we know in our region.

Want to help the Bees? Limit your use of insecticides and herbicides. Insecticides generally have an adverse effect on all or broad groups of insect species. 

Herbicides greatly reduce the quantity and diversity of flowers that pollinators need to thrive. Plants that benefit honey bees can also benefit the more than 400 native pollinating insects in Pennsylvania. 

There are a wide variety of insect pollinators on the planet that need flowering plants and an equally wide variety of flowering plants that benefit from the cross-pollination provided by insects. Flowering plants provide pollinators with nectar and pollen. Bees require a wide variety of pollen to achieve a complete diet. Plant diversity is a critical aspect of pollinator habitats and there are many flowering plants that are beneficial to pollinators.