'Thusiasm with Nils Root

-Posted by Jayne

We were proud and honored to be featured on 'Thusiasm, a video blog series about people who love their jobs!  Check out the short video created by Nils Root:

Last weekend I job-shadowed Isaac Barnes who's a former middle school science teacher turned full-time beekeeper. When you listen to Isaac talk about his work as a beekeeper you'll notice.. well first you'll notice he sounds like Matthew McConaughey's long lost brother.

April intensity

-Posted by Isaac

What a blur! This month has been quite the ride. Day and night, bees, queens, apples and buckwheat. I'm going brief you... Give you a frightening little glimpse into the intense, high stakes, fast lane pressure cooker of springtime commercial beekeeping. (Wink)

And for your convenience, I'll break it down into three categories. Hold on tight!

Beekeeping:

We started with 50 Georgia beauties on April 1st, and have been burning through the queens each successive week in rapid fire. Making splits, making nucs. 

This year we had the best dandelion nectar flow I've ever seen.

Which made it convenient for splits put on new foundation...

...but not as convenient for the poor beekeepers trying to keep ahead of the swarming: Trying to get that foundation out to the hives in a timely manner.

Of course, of course... some got ahead of us.

And continue to do so.

Follow me! I know the way!

Pollination:

At the same time all the splitting and bee work was happening, the apples were coming on strong.

I wanted to be ready when the pollination calls came, so we had a few hives in the yard.

The calls came, and we jumped into our annual nocturnal duties.

Pollination work is night work. Windows down, loud music, regular caffeine, bottles of hard amphetamines. It's fun!

I never miss hearing my favorite pollination song two or three times.

You hear him howlin' round the kitchen door...

...Better not let him in!

When the bloom starts, you really hope for good weather. There's a limited time to get the bees to the orchards.

And we tried not to dilly dally. 

Just like Jimmy Johns, "FREAKIN' FAST DELIVERY."

I really wanted to capture a charming photo of the orchards in full bloom. The beautiful fluffy white blossoms from a bee's eye view. But this is about as close as we came:

Sorry...

There's more! There's more! There's more than beekeeping to this crazy month. And there's more than pollination. There's more!

Farming:

We like to make buckwheat honey. In order to do that, you need buckwheat. Other years we have hauled the bees to the buckwheat. This year my farming brother decided that the price of corn is so low, he could part with a few acres. We're renting a field for buckwheat honey production, and I figured that if we got the seed in by April 20th, we may get three blooms out of the deal. We'll see...

Luckily I had an expert farmer along to help.

It took a full day right in the middle of our intense splitting of hives...

...but hopefully the big gamble on an early buckwheat crop will be worth it.

The seeds are sown. Only time will tell.          Any more cliches? I'm game.    

Life is good. Like a box of chocolates.

Honey-Lime Glazed Salmon

Tonight Isaac is moving a good many of our hives into the orchards at Sunny Hill, near Carol, Ohio.  To get him ready for this undertaking, I wanted to prepare a delicious yet healthy meal to help him fuel up for the big night ahead. Thumbing through my "New Family Cookbook" from America's Test Kitchen, I decided to try out their Honey-Lime Glazed Salmon (no photo, sorry!) and I thought I would post the recipe here.  I love to make salmon when I haven't spent a lot of time meal planning- because it defrosts quickly and you can usually find the right ingredients to pull together an impressive dish.  This one fit the bill.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Then, make the Honey-Lime Glaze:

• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp grated lime zest plus 2 TB lime juice
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/8 tsp cayenne

Whisk this together in a small saucepan over medium high heat until thickened.  Remove from heat.

Next, a coating for the Salmon:

• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cornstarch
• 1/8 tsp pepper

And of course, you need - approximately 2 lb. salmon and approximately 1 tsp vegetable oil.

Coat the salmon with the brown sugar and cornstarch mix, then brown it in the skillet, approximately 1 minute on each side..  Then flip the fillets, spoon the glaze over them, and transfer the skillet to the oven.  Bake for approximately 10 minutes.  I like to use my meat thermometer and make sure it registers to 145 degrees F.  

I hope you try this recipe out sometime.. it was delicious. 

Here is a look at our yard before he loaded the bees onto the trucks.  He likes to gather the pollination hives in one yard before he takes them to the orchards.  This makes loading up quick and easy.  The kids and I will be happy to have the amount of hives in the yard down to a more reasonable number.  

Splittin', Gettin', No Time for Sittin'

-Posted by Isaac

We're splitting hives and taking names.

And here comes the busy season...

If you're unfamiliar with what the term "splitting" is all about, basically we take a strong hive and divide it into two or three smaller hives. And thanks to that very warm March, they're all strong! (Well, almost all.)

At the moment, April 9th, it feels like January. But March was much nicer to the bees. The pollen came flooding in...

...and the bees brooded up nicely.

Maybe a little too strong.

Where we haven't made it around fast enough to remove the winter spacer, the bees have made a mess of drone brood and burr comb. Seth takes care of it.

In a yard of say, 20 hives, maybe 16 need split. So we're staying pretty busy, trying to beat the swarming. If you don't split a hive, the bees will naturally do it for you. Which is fine for the bees. But for us, we beekeepers lose out on that game. Half our bees are gone with the wind. We like to keep our girls at home in their tidy boxes.

My dad, my farmer father seems to have a hard time understanding what exactly I'm doing all day. (How hard could it be to keep insects in boxes?) Why am I running around, rain or shine, hot or cold, missing meals, missing basketball games?

All I can say is that this splitting time is the beekeeper's equivalent of the farmer's planting season. It's busy and it's important and it takes precedence over March Madness.

My beekeeper friend Dan Williams never fails to have a Facebook comment after the big championship: I heard there was some kind of game going on. Must have missed it.

And much like planting crops, splitting hives requires some forethought. For one, you need the extra equipment to store your splits. Lots of splits means lots of equipment.

This is something that starts way back in the dregs of winter. Building boxes, waxing frames, etc..

The Hot Stove League

And then there's the queen issue.

We have a wonderful spring honey flow in central Ohio about the middle of May. The black locust and the bush honeysuckle make beautiful translucent honey. But if you're splitting hives, and you still want to catch this honey flow (and actually produce a surplus) then you need a laying queen.

And you need that queen in early. Oh, the joy of new queens.

We order our queens back in the fall. I've got 300 some coming between mid April and early May. But it's always a guess as to when exactly you're going to need them. When you have a warm March like we just had, you need those queens earlier. And that just isn't happening. The order dates are set in stone. Thankfully I'm connected. It helps to have friends in high places.

Friends in hive places?

Barry Conrad, who handles central Ohio's package bee needs, was able to get me 50 beautiful queens on April first. Thank you Barry!

So we were able to make 50 early splits. These will soon be heading into the apples. The kids handled the specifics while I sat back with a cigar. Big pollination contracts = Big Money Money Money. Then, if we're lucky, Honey Honey Honey. Faster kids! Faster!

Our Visit to the Savannah Bee Company

-posted by Jayne

For years I have heard about the Savannah Bee Company from friends and customers, as well as read articles about them in prominent beekeeping magazines.  While we were planning our latest family trip to Edisto Beach and Hilton Head Island, we made a plan to head an hour south to spend some time checking out the Savannah Bee Company flagship store.  It was well worth the extra hours of driving.  If I had more time and didn't have a bunch of wet, hungry kids with me, I'd have stayed longer and checked out their second store, also in Savannah.  (They also have a store in Charleston, SC).  Today I bring you a pictorial tour of what you can find at Savannah Bee Company.  

As soon as you walk in, you are greeted by a beautiful display of honey flutes, illuminated by a backlight which clearly shows the differences in color between the varieties of honey.

Honey in a flute, you say?  We have been gifted one of these jars before and it is a little difficult to get it out if you are used to a squeeze bottle.  They do have one other unique option: the honey pump!

Here you see Acacia Honey (very similar to our Spring honey, as Acacia is another word for Black Locust), Lavender Honey, Rosemary Honey, Orange Blossom, and Palmetto Honey.

They also market honey for specific uses- tea, cheese, and grilling.  They help schools start their own observation hives and students sell their honey through fundraising to help maintain those hives.  The "Bee Cause" jar on the far right is an example of the honey sold for this project.

The store features beautiful displays with everything from honey and bee themed clothing to books, body care gift sets, and the clever bee boxes at the bottom contain their honey soap.

Bridger was a little overwhelmed with all the choices.

But after he found "The Hive" children's play area, he was all set.  He told me, "Mom, No Ladies Allowed!  Kids Only!"

The kids area actually was my favorite part, as it allowed me to take my time looking around.

I stumbled up a familiar book- with a familiar author.  Isaac started bragging to the employees that I was the co-author of the book, which I found just a bit embarrassing.  

What I find most impressive about the Savannah Bee Company is their ability to cleverly package their products to make them so desirable.  I was admiring their lip balm set and called out for Isaac to come over to check out the neat packaging.   Another customer heard me mentioned that and commented, "I know, isn't it neat?!  I don't even want all those lip balms, I'm just buying them because they look so cute in that bag!"

Clever packaging for honey straws...

Clever packaging for honey gift sets...

And more gift sets...

They had enticing wall displays, with interactive video monitors.

They had more honey bodycare products than one could even imagine needing; everything from shampoo, conditioner, hand cream, heel balm, salve, liquid hand soap, royal jelly body butter, body wash, bar soap.... I'm sure I forgot something in there.  

I found the gold reserve... with the golden price tag!

So you may be wondering why, when we are a company selling honey and honey body products, am I singing the praises of this other honey company?  Hmmm... good question.  To tell the truth, I went into this store expecting to be a bit turned off by the high prices of their products... thinking I may find a snobbish atmosphere.  We received just the opposite.  The staff was incredibly friendly and patient with my children- who wanted to sample each and every honey as many times a possible.  They answered my questions expertly, without being pushy or overly salesman-like.  I found their products incredibly unique and very different from the products we make here on our farm.  I have a deep admiration for what they have done as a marketing-savy company, able to elevate honey and honey products to the highest standard of appreciation by their customers.  

We left a bit disheveled... with a full bag of goodies (mostly t-shirts and body care products, since we're still too cheap to buy their honey).  The pouring down rain didn't damper our kids' spirits, but it was time to leave Savannah.  Many thanks to the Savannah Bee Company for being so welcoming!