2013 Announcements

September 17, 2013 - The summer has been a difficult one for us due to the extreme rainfall and humidity, and we have lost several hundred lavender plants to fungus disease. Luckily our bloom was good and we managed to have many pleasant mornings between the showers for Cut Your Own Lavender here at the farm.

Our bees had a great season, and right now we're deciding whether we'll harvest a second time this year. It's tempting but we have to carefully consider leaving enough honey in the hives to support our hard workers all winter.

More herbs were planted in the spring, and they continue to supply terrific ingredients for our popular loose-leaf lavender based teas and Herbes De Provence. Our lavender honey walnuts have also become best-sellers at the farmer's market, and we've also been very happy to see so many of our Philadelphia market friends coming to Moorestown to buy our products!

Be sure to see our revised schedule below. We look forward to seeing everyone through December.

May 19, 2013 - We've started our market season at the Agricultural Center in Moorestown and it has been wonderful seeing everyone again.  We are looking forward to a good lavender season, although bloom time will be a little later this year--many plants are just now in bud.  Work on the still has taken longer than we had hoped, so it looks as though we won't have our own essential oil this season. The bees are doing well so far, too, so we're hoping for a good honey harvest this spring.  We've also been busy hanging more herbs for loose-leaf teas.

January 12, 2013 - Busy Bee Farm has had another great year, and we'd like to sincerely thank all of our amazing customers for their continued interest and support.  We appreciate every single one of you.  So many acts of kindness and encouragement have come our way since we began this journey in 2007, and we are hoping to stage a get together here at the farm to show our thanks for all of our very special friends.  We have also tried to support local agricultural and environmental efforts in a small way with baskets of our products for fundraising, trips for Cut Your Own Lavender, or volunteering time to the following organizations:

The Food Trust

The Rancocas Conservancy

Rutgers Master Gardeners of Burlington County

Burlington County Farm Bureau Womens' Committee

Burlington County Legislator's Tour and Luncheon

Burlington County College

Burlington County Agricultural Center

Rancocas Nature Center

One of our winter challenges is trying to plan for our Cut Your Own season, but we will put out a tentative schedule as soon as we can with the hope that people will check our Facebook and this page for updates and revisions.  Prior to that, we will again schedule time for artists and photographers to visit.  Our Farmers' Market and Events Schedule will also be available soon.  

In the meantime, we are working on cleaning up some diseased lavender plants and ordering some additional culinary/essential oil varieties.  Steve will be working on the still and we hope to begin some small-scale distillation this season.  More herbs will be planted after the positive response to our lavender based loose leaf herbal teas, and we will also offer Herbs de Provence this season.  So far, our bees are doing well and we haven't decided how many new hives we'll order for the coming year.  

But most of all, we look forward to seeing all of our friends when the events begin in May!