Our Trip to Dadant & Sons

In February, we stopped in High Springs, Florida en route to my college reunion. We made sure to plan the trip around a visit to Dadant & Sons for beekeeping supplies.

We did not buy any signs.

They said I could take pictures anywhere I wanted. They were super nice, and very helpful. We bought a pallet-load of frames, some foundation, some soap-making supplies, and some honey. More on the honey in a later post!

At the front of the store they had an assortment of supplies. Apparently they get more from other warehouses as needed. The phone rang constantly.

Out back, they had a tractor trailer-sized storage unit of beeswax. Huge, bucket-sized chunks of it. Talk about feeling like a small-timer!

We toured their assembly shop, where one of their staff members demonstrated the machine that shoots nails into the hive bodies that are assembled -- talk about getting it done quickly! They also had a guy putting together frames with a pedal-operated nail machine. If Mark hadn't been convinced before that buying frames was better than assembling them, the speed with which they constructed them did him in.

Apparently in Florida, beekeepers have to register and get a identification number. They can burn/stamp/imprint/paint this number on their hives, so if they're stolen, they're easier to recover. We saw all kinds of special order hive bodies -- you can get them copper treated, painted, imprinted, etc. I think they said last year they sold over 60,000 deep supers!

We really enjoyed the town of High Springs. We stayed at The Grady House Bed & Breakfast (amazing breakfast! nice guests! lovely hostess!), ate supper at The Great Outdoors (beautiful artwork inside, tasty food, amazing bread pudding), and wished we'd had time to stay and sight-see. Maybe someday we'll go back!