Pushing to be one of the best in the beekeeping industry at Colorado Mountain Honey
October 23, 2017
From: Post Independent
Derrick Maness started beekeeping 23 years ago when he was only 14 after being inspired by his middle school science teacher. He began working at Western Colorado Honey with Paul Limbach at a young age and now owns Colorado Mountain Honey, which is located in Silt next to the Pauline S. Schneegas Wildlife Foundation.
Although the farm and facility is located in Silt, the hives are spread throughout the Western Slope. Limbach, Maness and their teams take care of close to 3,000 hives, which equates to roughly 200 million bees raised locally.
Maness has spent the last several years researching and working with Colorado State University to fight the varroa destructor mite, which has contributed greatly to the rapid decline of honey bee populations. “Mites are on everything,” Maness said. “They already knew how to combat mites, we just didn’t know how to fight this mite,” he added. “How do you kill a bug on bug?”
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