We're proud to be responsible  Annapolis beekeepers

What is important to Apricity Apiary?

At our core we believe in transparency and sustainability. This is one of the reasons we use clear glass containers with clear labels wherever possible. Glass is infinitely recyclable and less likely to end up in a landfill when compared to plastic squeeze bottles. We also use metal or cork stoppers to seal our glassware. Both are durable, reuseable, and cork is highly sustainable resource.

Our Beekeepers Journey

Ron is deeply interested in the quality of food and suffers from an insufferable desire to "do better." Bees and beekeeping is a perfect outlet for these personality "features." Along the way he discovered that beekeeping helped him professionally and personally and that many of the hive products can also be used for other things that he needed around the house. If you are ever upset, one of the best ways to reset, is to go into the beehives. One of the great adages of beekeeping is "Never work bees when you are angry or in a hurry," this worked wonders in calming Ron down after a hard day at work or after losing, yet another, "discussion" with his CF-No officer/spouse. If you work bees angry, you will be stung...many times.

We also found that hive products such as propolis tinctures, body butters and balms helped with numerous chores/needs and resolved some skin issues with our Belgian Malinois, Zeus, who is also our Chief Security Officer.  Our family, loves knowing exactly how these products were made, know that they were made responsibly, and where they came from.

Ron's beekeeping journey has taken many different meandering paths over the years. It all started during Ron's childhood and his early life as an "Army Brat" growing up in first West Germany and finally graduating high school in Seoul, South Korea.  Ron was a toddler in West Germany but remembers vividly laying on cobblestone benches and watching the honeybees zip around grapevines that arched over the benches. The benches in the spring would be cold from the night but he could feel the sun warming his skin as he would soak up the gentle sunlight. He was mesmerized by the gentle deep buzzing sounds and the seemingly chaotic movements.

His home was across the street from a medium sized farm on the outskirts of Fulda, West Germany. Ron, like many 5-year-olds would endeavor to make mischief. This urge many times brought him across the street to the crop fields, friendly diary cows, and beehives. Immediately after the Cheronbyl disaster occurred, Ron would spend hours sitting on a small tarp carefully watching the bees fly in and out of the hives to make sure they survived - sometimes to the chagrin of the farmer.

Eventually Ron and his family made it to Seoul, South Korea. Seoul, being a major urban center in Asia, was almost devoid of agricultural greenspace. This absence drove Ron to be more and more interested in "bucolic" hobbies such as gardening, cooking, and honeybees. Over the years Ron's career in IT took him and his spouse to places such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Arizona and now Maryland. Eventually Ron and his wife decided to purchase a home based on a couple of key requirements: the house was livable and it had at least 1 acre of land for "projects."

One of the first such projects was to install elevated gardens. We carefully planted our first vegetable and fruit plants. Like many we ended up with 20+ varieties of tomatos but also ~20 strawberry plants. Every morning we would walk and carefully count each of the strawberry flowers anticipating our first huge strawberry harvest. Needless to say, mistakes were made. That year we got about 50 strawberries out of about 500 flowers and most of the strawberries looked like gnarled fists due to under pollination. The 10-15 pristine strawberries were the best $32.53 strawberries (each) that we ever had. Ron then came to the conclusion that he will now need honeybees this then started yet another project, hobby, expense, and topic explored in MANY spousal negotiations.