The New Beginning
The New Blog on the New Site
As We Come Back from Disaster!
Welcome to Hood Brook Apiary & Learning Center’s all new website’s blog! My name is Bob Donovan, founder/owner/operator of Hood Brook Apiary & Learning Center. It has been a while in the making. We put up a website in 2021 when we first arrived here in Maine and set up our all-new apiary. We started out with 10 hives and Italian bees.
Prior to coming to Maine, I had lived in a couple other New England states as well as a brief stint in Maine before this time. At each location I was raising bees as a hobby beekeeper. Generally, between 1 and 3 hives. However, I decided to invest everything I had and come to Maine to start an Apiary on my own land with my own home. My first home! So, I looked around and ended up purchasing 29.1 acres of conservation land that was heavily wooded but a bit boggy. There are lots of springs in the area, so it was a great place for nature, the bees, and just enough “ruralness!” I only have 3 neighbors, and I can only see one of them after the leaves come off the trees! In the 3 ½ years I’ve lived here; I’ve come to realize I was lucky enough to have the 3 best neighbors anyone could ever have!
In the summer, it’s secluded here; No streetlights, beautiful night skies, sounds of crickets, peepers, and various other wildlife. Plenty of deer and turkey as well as a beaver family. All that yet we still have a full-fledged hospital in town about 9 ½ miles away. That was important as I am a now a senior and I have disabilities.
After I got this place, I had to come up with a name for the Apiary. After some thought, I concluded I’d call it Hood Brook Apiary. Why that name? Well, this was a new beginning for me and on my property, there was a spring fed beaver pond that created the starting point of Hood Brook. So, it’s the actual beginning for Hood Brook and for me. I felt the name was perfect.
Everything else about the Apiary can be found under “About” on the site menu. It will tell the story from the beginning, the first-year devastating loss that nearly wiped me out, and our fight to come back. That is where we are now. More of a Hobby Beekeeper again working at building the apiary back.
Now that things look to be coming along, I figured I’d build and launch the new, Official Website along with this blog.
Oh, you may notice under News & Blogs in the menu there is a second blog too. It’s The Funny Farm Blog. That isn’t my farm, but it’s people I knew from high school and are part of my apiary’s comeback as a secondary spot to have hives. They have a few hives now to, any my hives at that location are called Hood Brook Apiary at The Funny Farm.
