Michael D Bush

This is just outside Nehawka, Nebraska, which is south of Omaha and East of Lincoln and North of Nebraska City.

Good advice.  First, the soil.  It's used to be a flood plain and it's good soft black loam.  A rarity in Nebraska which is usually brown clay.  I don't have any pictures that would show it all, since it's 18 acres, but here is the view from near the road looking back over some of it.  It's sloped but all in all, pretty flat.  Not hilly.  I have a lot of chicory, clover, milkweed, asters, goldenrod etc. that I have planted.  I have a number of fruit trees that are producing.  Cherries, apples, pears, peaches, plums.  Most of those go to waste because I don't have time to harvest them and it's far more than my family can eat.  I probably should build a cider press.  I have some American Chestnuts that are producing very small nuts.  I assume they get larger as the trees get larger.

I am in Southeastern Nebraska near Omaha and Lincoln and would be willing to allow someone to grow some crops on my land.  I have a tractor that we can use to plow/till etc.  This would be at no charge.  I would just like to help someone trying to get started.  We can negotiate details, but I have 18 acres.  I would not want to plant all of that in crops as I have fruit trees that I have planted and I have plantings for bee pasture.

https://bushfarms.com/beesapprentice.htm

Opportunity to learn natural beekeeping from a leading expert in the field.  I am in need of an apprentice or apprentices to learn, and help with, queen rearing and natural beekeeping. Also help with other farm work. We are one of the leaders in treatment free beekeeping. We do treatment free beekeeping and want to make treatment free queens available. Intern/Apprentice will receive training in all aspects of queen rearing, queen marketing and treatment free beekeeping, as well as room and board in exchange for work at queen rearing and other farm work. You will learn to set up “swarm box” queen cell starters, queen right cell finishers, queen mating nucs, graft larvae into queen cups, catch, mark and bank queens, ship queens, handle orders, build equipment, repair equipment, do splits (make new colonies), catch swarms, remove bees from houses, and many other aspects of running an apiary. You will have access to an awesome library of bee books and access to my discussion of any aspect of bees or beekeeping that you would like. Other work that needs to be done around the house and farm will include some construction, some feeding of the livestock and some general cleanup and maintenance. The room is in a beautiful solid brick house that was completed in 1895. It is five thousand square feet and has 6 people living in it currently. I need someone from April until September. My schedule is that I work full time off the farm, Monday through Friday and do instruction and beekeeping Saturday and Sunday as well as some work on some afternoons. I would like someone who would put in 40 hours a week with three days of that work week, Friday through Sunday, when I am available to do and teach beekeeping. This is an unpaid position. If you are interested, please contact Michael Bush at bees@bushfarms.com. A summary of experience and skills would be helpful in the determination process. No particular skills are required but many skills in other areas would be useful.