2025 Year End Letter
Dear Champlain Valley Apiaries community,
As we step into a new year, we want to pause and thank you for being part of our extended beekeeping family. This past year asked a great deal of all of us. Beekeepers across the country faced record-breaking colony losses. Here at home, we too felt the profound loss of keystone members of our beekeeping and farming communities whose knowledge, generosity, and love for the land continues to guide us.
Even in the face of these challenges, the bees never failed to remind us what resilience truly looks like. With careful management and a balance of cutting-edge research and intergenerational wisdom we rebuilt our bee numbers with intention. Our hives are entering this new year stronger and healthier and our commitment to thoughtful, responsible beekeeping has never been deeper.
We are also looking ahead to 2026 with great excitement. We are beginning the construction of a new beekeeping facility and, in time, transitioning our operations from Middlebury to New Haven, Vermont. This future home will be more than a working apiary—it is our vision for a campus that can serve our next 100 years of beekeeping. A place where people can learn about the essential role of pollinators, taste real raw honey, and experience how it all comes together on the land—starting with healthy soils and thriving ecosystems.
We are proud to continue advocating for bee-friendly practices and policies while maintaining a steady, dependable presence throughout Vermont. The bees connect us, to families, farms, and towns across the Champlain Valley, the State, and the Country. It is an honor to play a small role in that living network. After four generations of beekeeping, this work remains both a responsibility and a privilege.
Your support sustains far more than our business. It sustains the bees, the landscapes they pollinate, and a way of life rooted in care, patience, and community. For that, we are grateful. As the new year unfolds, we look forward to continuing this work together—tending healthy bees, sharing real, raw honey, and building a future that honors the past while investing boldly in what comes next.
With heartfelt thanks and best wishes for the year ahead,
Curtis W. Mraz
President & 4th Generation Beekeeper
Champlain Valley Apiaries
