If you plan to do more than small amounts of maple or birch syrup rather than steaming off the water use a reverse osmosis system keep the waste drip it’s your product it reduces time and energy required to process plus if you use too much heat it changes flavour of syrup expecially if wood heat.as smoke even from closed oven seems to make it into finished product. There are also stainless steel sply they are best as you can reuse for years, just boil before use to sterilize.
For potatoes to limit weeding cover in hay, potatoes make it through you will have to weed but in 3 months not every week.
<p style=”text-align: center;”>Bees where to start there are several breeds main companies like bee maid get them from new Zealand, those are not suited for cold and are low production just like russian bees. If you can find it there was a strain made by canadian government that is far superior but is hard to find only old professional keeps will have and jealously guard. They produce 2 to 3 times more honey and are much hardier. New Zealand bees have 5 traits the canadian ones have 20 main and 5 minor genetic characteristics. I have seen the main source for these bees harvest 150kg per hive in season of wild flower and clover source. Only ones that I have ever seen make willow honey as they start that strong in spring.</p>
Bees make a huge difference in your pollenation, honey is a plus. I would also suggest only using half boxes even for brood. Lighter and easier to handle. Full honey box can be over 70 lb and hard to handle as hand holds are not super easy. To drain honey if you scrape the frames pUT the honey mass in a separator covered in black bag in greenhouse it makes the separation happen way faster.