Honeyfest 2014

-Posted by Isaac

Lithopolis had their annual shindig this last Friday and Saturday. This year the program was dedicated to Dan Cottrell.

We lost Big Dan about a week after last year's Honeyfest. Everyone remembers him as an exuberant volunteer in the Scioto Valley Beekeeper's demonstration booth and a permanent fixture cranking out the honey. He was a Santa Claus figure at the extractor-- surrounded by kids. Teaching, laughing, entertaining; always a twinkle in his eye. It was painful not to have him here.
The Honeyfest sponsored their first honey contest this year, and the "Best of Show" award was sponsored by our SVB club in Dan's honor.
More on that later.

Honeyfest is a big deal for central Ohio beekeepers and as usual we brought a whole bunch of stuff.

However, this year I got a bit smarter with the transport of this stuff to the festival. We now have a big flatbed... why not use it? This would eliminate the need for multiple vehicles to carry things. The only problem is, you can't run a thousand straps across a thousand different items.

Sideboards were needed. Another last minute project on a hot Thursday afternoon:

Friday morning: Here come the Clampetts.

By noon, everything was taking shape, looking good.

Once again, a wonderful Jayne-inspired masterwork of honey, ready to fly home with eager Honeyfesters.

And they came in droves.

Another (very smart) development this year. We were aided in the honey selling by no less then seven attractive young ladies over the course of the two days.

(Were the sales better this year?  Well duh...)

Eight, if you include the star of the show:

 

It quickly became evident that they didn't need me standing there looking stupid.

I got to walk around and take pictures. This year I soaked up the Honeyfest.

There were bee beards all day long-

American Honey Princess, Elena Hoffman models the latest in Bee Fashions.

And music-

And Art-

Both to wear..


And to buy...

A little Education-

And a Little Fun-

Food, of course-

And Honey of Every Shape, Size and Color-

Candles Too-

And Interesting Things-
Having nothing to do with honey or bees.

"Are you kidding? Yes, for the thousandth time, local anvils are good for your allergies."

"Seriously, I hate that question!"

Demonstrations of all Types-

I've got to highlight our own club!

SVB put on the ever popular extracting demo.

And Contests Galore-

ECOBA sponsors the annual photo contest:

My vote for "Peoples Choice" award- 

These crotchety beekeepers doing "American Gothic"

Who are these guys?

Carmen and The Devil

As I mentioned earlier, this year was the first for a real honey judging contest.

Maybe I got overzealous, but I entered honey or comb in seven different categories.

It was the shotgun approach.

Which fits nicely with that Taj life philosophy I talked about--(Many fish bites if you got good bait.)

So with the odds in our favor, we were bound to collect a few ribbons.

And we did.

But what about the Dan Cottrell "Best of Show?"

Well, you know...

I don't never like to brag none.

But you know...

Joking aside, I'm humbled and honored.
And I really felt moved when Dan Williams our club president shed some tears while presenting the award and talking about Big Dan.


What a two day whirlwind. I was happy to be able to document all my playing around.
When the big band plays late Saturday, you know it's about time to wrap things up.

Time to get back to the bees.
And kids, and everything else. On Sunday Maizy demonstrated one of the new time saving routes they had learned in our parental absence.

Masters of efficiency, our children.

Putting Food in Jars

-Posted by Jayne

Ah, Labor Day.   Every year I imagine a Labor Day with no laboring.  However, this will never be a reality for us, as Honeyfest quickly approaches every year on the Saturday after Labor Day.  But that's okay- it's not in our nature to loaf around, so we toil on, busying ourselves with the chores of our farm, our four young children, our 400 some beehives.  Today Isaac put pollen traps on 45 of the hives.  It took him over half the day and at least a gallon of sweat, and he still has more to attend to tomorrow.  I worked on preparing packages to ship from our Etsy online store, amidst entertaining the kids with baking soda and vinegar volcanoes.  We ended the day with some blackberry jam, so I thought I would show you the progression of my jam-making this summer.

So far, I've made 39 half pint jars of black raspberry jam.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.  Earlier this summer, I got a little overzealous about the black raspberries when I was visiting my hometown.  I purchased 42 quarts to fill my freezer, where they sit waiting to be turn into jams, along with about 40 quart bags of red raspberries from our own garden.

Anyone looking to stock their freezer with fresh local produce should take a visit to the Farmer's Produce Auction in Mt. Hope, Ohio.  This is where I purchased most of my berries this year.  I love to visit anytime I go back to my hometown.  Even if I don't need any produce the people-watching is great, and the colors and quantities of the fresh produce are amazing.  Candy onions were the hot item of the day.

And who can get enough of little Amish babies in their bonnets.  

I think my baby is cute... but really, is there anything much cuter than an Amish baby?

Maybe a Mennonite/Methodist baby with some sunflowers?
But I digress... back to the Black Raspberry Jam.  I am not a strict follower of recipes when it comes to jam.  I love to attempt low-sugar recipes, but I won't lie- they have not come out perfect for me this year.  My first two batches resemble more of a syrup than a jam, which is great for spreading on pancakes and in homemade yogurt (or plain yogurt if you don't make it yourself).  But after my first two batches were a little runny, I went ahead and bought some sure-jell and liquid pectin to see if I could improve the texture and get to that jam phase.

Isaac grabbed his camera while I was working.

So even though I didn't follow an exact recipe for each batch, here is the skinny on how you make jam:

6 cups black raspberries (mine were frozen, thawed, and mashed in the pot)
4 cups sugar
one pouch liquid pectin

1. Prep 9 half pint jelly jars (I sterilized mine in the dishwasher)
2.  Combine the berries with juices and sugar in a large pot.  Bring it to a boil, stirring as you go.
3.  The jam will begin to thicken and the boil won't be easily stirred down.  Add the liquid pectin and stir.  Cook for an additional 5 minutes and allow jam to thicken.
4.  Remove from heat and ladle into jars.  Wipe the rims with a clean cloth, apply lids and rings.
5.  Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes.
6.  When time is up, let jars cool on a wire rack.  When cool to touch, remove rings and test the seals to make sure they have properly sealed.

Now- here's the part where you question why I used sugar and not honey?  I know I know... honey is better.  I'm sure it would taste better too.  I simply don't like to boil my honey.  I do like to bake with honey and I have no qualms about turning raw honey into "non-raw honey" by baking it.  However, with such large batches of jams, I simply prefer to use sugar.  It pains me to see such large quantities of honey at a rapid boil on my stove.  Just my personal preference though... I am sure honey jam is more lovely in many ways.  If you would like to make jam with raw honey- I would suggest trying a freezer jam recipe and adding the honey after the hot jam/water mixture has cooled below 100 degrees.  Here is a great one to try from the Montana Homesteader website.

Another food we put in jars today was homemade refrigerator dill pickles.  Maizy is my pickle lover.  Yet she still gets confused about which one is the cucumber and which one is the pickle.  So I thought I'd give her the chance to make them herself.  I even let her cut the cucumbers herself with (*gasp*) a real knife.  :-)

We followed a recipe from my favorite food blog, Annie's Eats.  However, we decreased the amount of salt in the recipe because when we made them last year they were way too salty for our liking and we ended up throwing them out.  Here is our amended recipe:

Refrigerator Dill Pickles:

• 1 bunch fresh dill
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 3-4 medium-large cucumbers, sliced how you like them
• 3 cups water
• 6 tbsp. distilled white vinegar
• 1 tbsp. kosher salt
• 
  

Combine the first three ingredients in canning jars.  Combine water, vinegar, and salt in a pitcher.  Pour this mixture into the canning jars so the cucumbers are completely covered.  

Refrigerate for two days and enjoy!

Even though Labor Day is supposed to signal the end of summer, there is still plenty of time to enjoy summer adventures.  Toads in the driveway...

Camo toad!

 ...and hiking trips to Honey Run waterfall.  That's right!  There is a beautiful little waterfall on the way to my parents house with our very own name.  If you're ever traveling on Route 62 I suggest you take the 1 minute detour and check it out.

Me and Bridger at the Honey Run Waterfall

We hope to see you at the Lithopolis Honeyfest this Friday and Saturday!  It is guaranteed to be a good time for all.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

-Posted by Isaac

The bee farmers are busy.
Allow me to take you on a pictorial tour covering the last seven exciting days and (dreamy?) nights.

We start with two days of hiking and camping in Shawnee State Forest down by the Ohio River.

Great Fun

Soccer, marshmallows and evening movies. We really got back to nature.

Then it was time for two days in Amish country.

(Young Daniel Mast hones the very skills he will someday use to navigate the competitive and increasingly tech reliant global marketplace.)

We were the featured speakers at an Amish beekeeping meeting.

Leave hats at the door, please... 

Had to rush home for the first day of school!

Actually, I had to rush home for some pumpkin pollination... the night before school.
Circle S Farms called while we were camping. Desperate for bees... The pumpkins were starting to bloom!
Tuesday night I delivered 30 strong hives.
(Here I come to save the day!)

Daybreak in the Pumpkins

(Now get out that checkbook.)

And a sore back to show for it.

I made it home to see our boy genius on the bus.

Then went out to to pull honey.

Then took a nice long nap.

The nap was required because that night a semi-famous beekeeper was giving a talk.
Randy Oliver was in town!

I annoyed him with questions about neonics and CCD.


The Next Day...
The comb honey yard needed attention.

We gleaned several Ross-Rounds supers,

And a few cut-comb boxes.

(It occurs to me, I should probably do a blog post about this.)

That night, more Randy Oliver!

This was at the Dawes Arboretum in Newark. He talked right up until 9 pm, and took no questions. I had a ton of them... he got lucky!

The Newark thing worked out nicely because I finished the night off by driving back up to Amish country. I was late with the mite treatment for the thirty five hives we have up there. (Beekeeping from a hundred miles away sometimes poses problems.)

Look at what is starting to bloom up there:

Goldenrod!

Back home again.
More summer honey to pull.
In this batch I looked for a nice full frame to enter at the upcoming Lithopolis Honeyfest.
Is there a winner in there?

Saturday, after the markets, it was time for another hiking / camping trip.
This time in beautiful Athens County.

We made a visit to the very cool Moonville abandoned train tunnel.

And noticed the bees really working the joe pye weed.

That's good, because there was a lot of it down there!
Just beautiful.

I love "the sticks."

Our friends, Mike and Angie, recently moved to the "sticks" of Athens County.
Bought themselves some acreage, and promptly began restoring this old barn.

It was Mike's 40th birthday.

An old barn given new life. A milestone birthday. Such momentous events called for a fantastic party.

And they threw one.

A real "barn burner."

Ha Ha.

I actually turned in at 11:00. Just couldn't hang with those 40 year old whippersnappers.

But our kids came ready to party.
First they did a lot of drinking.

Then got totally sloshed.

And reckless.

And belligerent...

...but they seemed to sleep it off all right.
Smiles and Mama.
By morning it was all just a hazy dream.

Summer Honey - The Journey

-Posted by Isaac

It's harvest time. For the past two weeks I've been pulling the summer honey. It's gorgeous this year. Beautiful and light. On the right is this year's Summer:

We seem to have a fan of last year's honey.

 It's a decent crop. Not incredible, but it sure beats the misery of last summer, which was a mere 27 lb / hive average. We have at least doubled that and we've still got the coming goldenrod this fall.
Two or three bee yards and about a thousand pounds of extracted honey per day has been status quo of late. If we can keep this up until the end of August we'll keep the kids in clothes for another year.

The clover went crazy this year, as some of you have mentioned.

I think this may be the reason this year's summer honey is lighter. More clover, less thistle and soybean? I don't know... it tastes about the same. It's definitely been drier this summer. But still cool. One of these years it may actually hit 90 degrees-- then we'll really have a crop!

During last year's summer honey extraction I showed you some of the different forage that the bees seek out... from flower nectar turned into honey. Now we'll take a tour of the honey processing... from hive to table.
Here are some pictures taken over the last few days.

A bee yard: ten to twenty hives depending on the surrounding forage. We're up to 29 bee yards.
The upper boxes are the honey supers-

Just as it is with people, some are go-getters...

...and some are slouches.

Don't you wish they could all be Boomers?

So the honey-laden supers are taken off the hives and loaded on the truck. Some days are harder then others. I won't get into the specifics.
This load happened to come off the golf course:

They hate it when I drive across the greens.

But it's so fun!

The honey gets stacked in the drying room / hot room. This year, most of the honey has been coming in at 16.5 to 17.5% moisture. No drying required.

The stack can get pretty high when we get behind on the extracting.

Eventually the frames come out and are run through the uncapper. This takes the outside wax capping off the honey so that the extractor can "sling" it out of the honeycomb cells.

Petyn and Bridger- our honey models.

The liquid honey goes into a large settling tank...

And is drained into buckets or barrels at the end of the day:

Light, Pure, Raw... High Quality Honey!

 If we turn our heads just a second, Bridger takes an opportunity to sample.

The boy is uncontrollable.

The honey is weighed,

And put into storage.

Here it awaits bottling. Could be now, could be next year...

The wax capping I mentioned earlier takes another journey.
The honey-soaked wax drains for a day or two...

...then is taken out to the bees. 

Honey bee cappuccino.

I have resisted buying a cappings spinner because I like watching this.

They chew on this little treat for another day or two, "fluff it up," and the loose wax gets rendered, filtered and poured into bucket molds:

From this point it can take about any form.

One thing we've been doing lately is dipped candles.
The wax is remelted:

And the wicks are "dipped" over and over.

Jayne will explain this in depth on a future post.

Back to the honey...

Empty frames go back into the supers.

Some "wet" supers go directly back on the hives with the hope that the bees will fill them with fall honey.

Others are cleaned out by the lucky bees here at home.

 What a morning treat!
They make short work of it.

For store shelves and the markets, the honey is pumped into the bottling tanks, never heated above the natural temperature of a beehive (we never go above 100 degrees), and strained through a cloth filter. The fabric still lets the pollen grains through and under this low heat, the honey remains raw with the enzymes intact.

The summer honey takes other forms. 

It's the one we use for the granulated, spreadable honey. It is also bottled around chunks of comb and sold as chunk honey. 

And it can be steeped with herbs for a couple of weeks and turned into infused honey:

All material for future blog posts.

So unti next time...

Enjoy!

Maizy likes her summer honey with Lucky Cat bread.

Back to the Neonicotinoids

 -Posted by Isaac

Back on the warpath.
The whole neonic controversy has been back in the forefront of my mind lately. There are a few recent happenings which have gotten me thinking about it, and I'm going to share with you.
For one, the bees are bringing in a lot of corn pollen:


For those of you unfamiliar, neonicotinoids are a relatively new class of pesticides that are used to treat corn and soybean seed, among many other things. Specifically, something called clothianidin on corn.
These are different than the old style insecticides in that they are systemic, meaning carried with the plant as it grows. It's not a one shot, short period ordeal as far as killing insects. It's a many days or months ordeal. The controversy surrounding neonics involves the argument that the chemical remains in the environment for too long and damage is caused to way more than just the target pest. They have been banned in Europe and may soon be outlawed in Canada due to evidence that the chemicals are wreaking havoc on pollinator populations.

If your livelihood depends on keeping insects alive and those insects happen to be foraging on a neonic treated plant, it tends to make you worry:

I'm not an alarmist.
And I don't want to be. I follow and almost always side with Randy Oliver at scientificbeekeeping.com.  Oliver is a commercial beekeeper in California and in my opinion a top tier scientist. He basically says, of yet, there is no overwhelming evidence that neonics are causing the harm many are claiming. I read his research and always feel better about life... we can continue to put faith in the system, the science, the testing and the fact that there are many intelligent people working on this.

On the other hand...

Some things make me wonder.

Are we really looking that hard?

Many of us carry a nervous and suspicious outlook regarding our regulatory agencies. Specifically the EPA and ODA here in Ohio. There are reasons for this. Allow me to expand-
I got the lab results back from my May bee kill. The conclusion... drum roll... NO CONCLUSION!
Well, not exactly. The lab did find evidence of nosema in a few of the samples and no varroa was found. But??? But??? What about the dead bees from the pesticide? This was a PESTICIDE RELATED KILL! In small print near the bottom of the page it said that the samples were not tested for chemical toxins.
So what was the point? Come on ODA? Nosema and varroa? Whoop de do.
I would normally just write this off as a gross oversight or miscommunication, but as a beekeeper with growing suspicions, I now have some real doubts. Remember 2012? Major bee kills statewide during corn planting.

This continues to happen!

A whole state's worth of dead bee samples coming in and the news given back to beekeepers that spring was that the bees were dying of starvation! Later that year in the fall beekeepers got word that the many samples had been run and nothing was found. Again, ODA, do your job!
Well, this was a real head scratcher. No link between corn planting and dead bees? Bees dying of starvation? (In big piles in front of the hives?) Interestingly Bayer CropScience, the vanguard of bee health, took the same stance... the bees were starving. What a freakin' joke!

Things like this begin to make you wonder. Will I too be crushed beneath this wheel?

I mentioned that neonic use has been banned in Europe. Why is this? In another post I got ranting that the moratorium was probably not done on a whim. You don't just turn your back on billions. This was revenue, progress, technology and jobs... and they put a stop to it. Wouldn't there have to be some hard scientific evidence to make a decision this big? Truth is, I don't know... did they simply ban the chemicals because beekeepers were mad?

There has, of course, been a lot of testing with neonics. For one, the companies that produce the stuff, namely Bayer CropScience, have put the insecticides though years of "rigorous" field studies and find that "when used according to label specifications" the chemicals are harmless to bees. (Lethal to the target insect but harmless to others.  Hahaha.)
Clothianidin has been used extensively on corn since the early 2000's. Oddly enough, something called CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) also happened in the early 2000's. CCD is the unexplained and massive die off of honeybees that cannot be attributed to varroa mite, nosema, foulbrood or any other common and widely known bee affliction. The beekeeping industry took a nosedive.
There has since been a slow if not stagnant recovery. CCD is still largely unexplained, but commercial beekeepers persist nonetheless.
There is much more splitting of hives these days. Re-queening. Feeding syrup. Feeding protein. Treating. Treating again. And again. General hive maintenance.... more than has ever been required in the past. You can still keep bees alive, it's just much harder!

The most rigorous, cruel and damning neonic field studies were of course the involuntary experiments conducted on commercial beekeeping operations. Here were people who had spent generations taking care of bees and suddenly they couldn't keep their hives alive. Many were screaming about the new pesticides. Many were pointing fingers directly at Bayer, Monsanto, Syngenta and the EPA... with little action taken. They're still pointing, bees are still dying. The EPA is still "working on it."

Taking the advice of three different commercial guys (In New York, Pennsylvania and Iowa) I'm feeding a lot of protein this summer.

This is not a normal practice for summer hive maintenance, but these guys say they've had more success when "diluting" the incoming poisons. ("Poisons"...meaning corn pollen)
The bees seem to eat it right up but I have not observed any of it being stored in cells.
The clover and corn pollen however, is easily found.
The bees are still looking good. Nice solid brood patterns, plenty of honey on the hives... I truthfully don't see adverse effects on hive health due to corn pollen.

So am I worried about nothing?

I've got the Power!