At regular junctures over the course of the year, we’ll be harvesting considerable volumes of honey for sale and all the while adding to the totality of our hives to provide ample inventory of nucs for our valued customers.
Our Commitment
Our Story
Our Calendar
Copyright © Jonathan Orloff
At VESA we’re committed to building and maintaining a thriving enterprise which will serve our customers needs for bee products. Our approach to hive management entails careful tracking of the condition of our hives. We are constantly and regularly assessing our hives for the presence of a healthy queen, the brood pattern, bullet brood, fullness and disease and of course the evidence of any unanticipated pesticide exposure. We are thus able to react in real time to deal with any problems that may arise, harvest honey at optimal times and engineer splits as conditions require. In this way we ensure that we can keep the promises we make to our valued customers.
Virginia Eastern Shore Apiaries (VESA) was founded in the Spring of 2016, and it is the first and only commercial beekeeping operation on the lower Delmarva Peninsula.
With the exception of a few winter months, the heavily rural and forested Virginia Eastern Shore enjoys a climate blessed with months of prolonged sunshine and ample rain to nurture its extraordinary diversity of flowering plants, shrubs and trees. Our hives are populated with diverse strains and our full-time hands-on management allows us to maintain roughly 1000 strong hives.
Our plan is to take our bees where they’re needed most and of course where they can remain healthy and productive. We are confident that by careful and vigilant hive management and careful avoidance of harmful pesticides we can maintain a valuable and robust body of healthy hives.
While the Virginia Eastern Shore is home to VESA’s bees, it’s not to say that at any given day in the year our bees won’t be found buzzing almond blossoms in California or apple blossoms in New York or cranberry flowers in New Jersey or Massachusetts. Meanwhile a winter month or two in Florida and then of course home on the Virginia Eastern Shore.
About Us
Our customers enjoy the value of our pollination services, our fragrant natural and local honey, and of course the opportunity to acquire nucs and full hives.
Felicite (Licho) Berrouette is VESA’s chief beekeeper. Licho was born in Haiti, raised in Belize and came to the US as a 15 year old. Born into a family of beekeepers, he has worked in every aspect of beekeeping since he was a child. On Virginia’s Eastern Shore Licho keeps a watchful eye on some 1000 hives at any given time ensuring that each and every hive has a healthy queen, shows a healthy pattern, is free of mites, disease, and dangerous pesticides.
Virginia Eastern Shore Apiaries (VESA) is led by two individuals whose friendship has produced a winning team.
Our Apiary
Jonathan Orloff is the General Manager of Virginia Eastern Shore Apiaries (VESA). Jonathan has led several successful consulting enterprises over the years supporting a number of different industries. A longtime resident of the Eastern Shore, Jonathan was drawn to beekeeping because of its qualities of sustainability and its critical value to agriculture everywhere. Nevertheless, he has fallen in love with that small creature: the bee!