Spring Break

-Posted by Isaac

If you have awakened from hibernation and care to peak your head out, you'll find that our Ohio spring has arrived about 60 days early this year.

The bees seem to be loving it. They're eating us out of house and home! 

The kiddies, the goats, the kitties, also loving it.

A kid'll eat ivy too. Wouldn't you?

Of course the obvious answer to this wonderful winter heat is climate change. Carbon levels shooting through the roof. (This just in: 2016, hottest year on record. Three consecutive record breakers! '14, '15, '16. Boom! Boom! Boom!) Keep it up, man! Hells yes, you need a lift kit on that F450! (And some bigger tires won't hurt nuffin.)

But that's just the obvious answer. I for one would like to give a little credit to our new President Camacho. Sworn in just today! See, I told you he was going to fix everything!

Won't hurt nuffin, Muffin.

So this week we had ourselves a little spring break. Three of us anyway. Myself, Mom and eight year old Mason. The younger (and louder) half stayed with Grandma.

We went west. To the Grand Canyon.

There, we found winter. Long lost winter.

Jayne and I had talked it over before Christmas, and we thought it would make a great gift for our young energetic hiker. And we were right!

The views were spectacular!

Eventually things cleared up. The lower we got, the hotter it got.

At the bottom we stopped. Two nights of camping. 55 degrees. Not too shabby.

I tried to explain some geology, some stratigraphy, some deep time... to my eight year old.

"Dad, just let me take a picture."

Don't get too excited!

All geology gurus know what I'm showing here at the bottom of the canyon. Above my hand- 570 million year old rock. Below my hand- 1.8 billion year old rock. The Great Unconformity. Wow! Just sit back and ponder this awhile!

We did.

They had signs to explain the significance of this.

Written in "geology."

After two days of oohing and aahing, and maybe learning a thing or two, it was nine miles back up to the top.

Where we again found winter. Long lost winter.

But we didn't stay in the snow very long. On Wednesday we made it back to heat wave Ohio. What a wonderful little trip.

On Thursday, delivering more honey to the Dublin Whole Foods, I found out they've taken an ironically peculiar angle to pushing our product.

Because nothing goes better than hot tea mixed with honey on these frigid January days!

Fighting the Weather

-Posted by Isaac

Well, it was nice to see the bees out and about today.

Considering where we were a week ago. I went up north last Friday to buy a bunch of nuc boxes, and within ten minutes of loading I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

Yes, we're selling nucs this year! (Stay tuned.)

I think it was a balmy -15 degree wind chill that day.

Just a few days later, temp of 55, we filled our January quota for the Hocking Hills. 

In the rain.

But it was still cool.

We had just a tad of rain this week.

Kidding. Not that much. Sorry to scare you. This is an image from California where they really are drowning this week. Many beekeepers are starting to wonder whether the great almond pollination is even going to happen. They have less than a month to dry out.

What we dealt with is wind.

Nasty, hard, fast, long wind. You can see it tore the greenhouse to shreds. I asked Lafe to work on the clean up, and he decided that the goat pen was more important. Whatever works, right?

That same gusty wind in the bee yards turned out to be a problem. About 10 lids got flipped off and one stack of supers came crashing down.

I spent today going from yard to yard, checking up, cleaning up. By afternoon the last dozen yards were checked in a solid downpour. It made things interesting. I found out that the Pilot can handle itself nicely in mud.

Maybe we're ready for California.

So Far So Good

-Posted by Isaac

How's that resolution coming?

Not so well? Well maybe you need to feed it! This awesome display greets you as you walk in the Whole Foods entrance at Easton. Lemons and honey? Strange sales pitch, but I think it has something to do with detoxing into the New Year. Maybe?? Whatever they're pitching, it's obvious that Whole Foods has the same resolution as us-- to sell as much local honey as possible.

Well, I'm now full swing into my winter resolution of perfect beekeeping. And so far, so good. We're at a whopping 0% loss, having now popped over 500 lids.

Not joking! Zero dead hives! (But I am joking about 0% loss being a resolution. That's about as likely as the NFL calling.)

This week I made it around to most of the yards. Checking up, feeding when needed. Most hives look like the above picture. No bees visible, a nibbled patty, all quiet, and all is well.

A few are hungry monsters.

And some are in between. Needing fed on top, but still plenty of honey on the sides. 

Most of these in-betweeners were still pretty heavy, having several inches of honey between the cluster and the sugar patty. Why the bees are sitting so high, I don't know. Considering the frigid temps.

But then, bees laugh at cold. Maybe wind and draftiness and moisture will get them, but cold, that's nothing. Even single digits. Just think about it. Wouldn't you stay warm if you had 10,000 bodies crammed around you?

I love bee work in the winter. (Especially with no dead-outs!) It's calm, it's quiet, it's relaxing. You just take your time, you enjoy the stillness. You may even recite some Robert Frost, if you know any. Hehe. Whose woods these are I think I know...

And the work is quick. All you're really doing is checking up. Popping a lid, maybe throwing a patty on. You can cover hundreds of hives in a day. Especially with your weekend help.

Of course sometimes there are interruptions. Every job entails some form of unwanted interference. Even beekeeping. Here we have a freeloader.

Maybe it's my E.O.G. flaring up again, but this generation really makes my blood boil! When I see the nonchalance of these entitled slackers coming right up and and asking for a handout, like sugar patties grow on trees...

This is what's wrong with the country!

What a bum!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

-Posted by Isaac

Happy New Year folks! I hope your 2017 is the best of times and only the best.

Thinking about this past year, 2016 shines out as the very best bee year we've ever had. I'm sure we had some hard moments in there, some stumbling blocks, but my reminiscing is often very selective. Remember that awesome summer! Remember all that honey!

A reflective optimist I am. But also a prophetic pessimist.  I mean, things are bound to get worse, right? The good old days are long gone, right? Jayne and I were watching Portlandia last week. We learned that there is actually a term for my dark-viewed infirmity. It's called E.O.G.

Early Onset Grumpiness. At least Jayne thinks that I have this condition. And in truth, I have been called a pessimist once or twice. But speaking for myself, I contend that I'm simply a realist. Not dark, not a grumpy young pessimist... just real. 

It's almost embarrassing. To be human. You know what I mean?

I think about how bright, how optimistic we began our 2016. We  all have our New Year's resolutions. This year Mason and I had a goal. We had a dream. Using my cousin's home gym, we stuck to the plan.

Beekeepers need to stay ripped too!

But then at some point, cold reality set in. We realized that the NFL is never going to call. Not in 2016. Not in 2017. Not ever.

Maybe I can still play for the Browns.

Not a pessimist. Just a realist.

Let me try to illustrate this concept with some pictures from this week. And if I have lost you in negativity and realism, I apologize. Please understand that it's just the disease talking. My E.O.G.

Around the holidays we like to show off our fancy, expensive, high performance vehicles. We wear the latest fashions. We colonize our fine homes.

But we wreck the joint.

And that goes for our environment also. We wreck the joint. I swear, you people think that Mother Nature is your personal joy ride.

But she's bigger than us! And she'll buck you off if you don't watch out.

The temperature is heading up! The seas are a'gonna rise! Quit with your denials. Your delusions. Do you people think this is a Disney movie!? La la..Life is much better, down where it's wetter. La la la...

Is that what you think?? Huh??? Well I've got news for you.

That's not a Dory fish, son. That's a shark.

Let's see. We've covered dashed dreams and scrapped resolutions. We've covered societal and environmental problems. How about the economy?

 It stinks!

Oh sure, our economy is just fine. Our bees are buzzing and booming. 

But when you step back and look at the big picture, the economy as a whole... we're in the pisser!

And it stinks!

Not a pessimist. Just a realist.

Did you think you were simply going to skate into some bright cheery 2017? Believe you're gliding down the highway...

...when in fact you're Slip Sliding Away.

I hate to burst your bubble. I mean someone's got to settle you optimists down. Show you some truth. I simply refuse to don your rose colored glasses.

Or are they beer goggles? All I know is, you happy happy happies turn me into a Groucho.

But on a brighter note, I can say this. At least one respectable thing happened in 2016. Some of you got smart and finally put a competent leader in office. A miracle almost. And he's going to fix everything!

(A clip from my favorite movie. Not for children's ears!)

 A 2016 Idiocracy sendoff! See, in order to find some decent leaders, all it takes is the realistic threat of impending doom.

 Happy New Year! 2017 is going to be awesome.

I give you my word.

Happy Merry Holidays

-Posted by Isaac

Merry Christmas everyone! Or Happy Holidays! Whichever you prefer. I'm so in the dark about the PC nuances and land mines. (Watch out! Oh, don't say that!) Last year, in my innocent stupidity at a farmers market, I wished about ten people "Merry Christmas!" before realizing that almost everyone was responding with "Happy holidays to you!"

This was in Worthington, where I guess you would expect people to be up on the proper Christmas well-wishing. I have since paid more attention to the supposed war on Christmas. You can learn so much from Facebook and talk radio! Haha. Kidding. Looking, listening, speaking, thinking, and looking around some more, I have come to my own conclusion: there is no war on Christmas. Some people are just overly sensitive, but we already knew that. Say whatever you want!

Silly talking heads, Christmas is for kids! It's a big ball of fun and stress and singing and sugar and stories and baby Jesus and gifts and entertainment and family and more stress all crammed into about a week. From my perch, I think the only people who truly enjoy Christmas are children.  

This Christmas we celebrate 13 years in the bees! Jayne gifted me with a hive kit in 2003, forever changing the trajectory of our lives. Forever ruining my aspirations of a lifelong career in "Ski Bum."

We threw an office Christmas party. The staff and their families came to celebrate, but as you can see, a bunch of kids hogged all the good stuff. The punch, the cookies, the cake, the candy. 

I'm just saying... Christmas is for kids.

Kids can make fun from anything. Give them a day off of school and they'll invent it! This week our kids discovered a giant sandbox.

The next project-- We're going to build a lean-to on the west side of the honey house.  The area needed to be raised, so I ordered 80 tons of bank-run fill and spent two fun days skidding around in the Bobcat.

Although it was cold, 80 tons of sandcastle building material is hard to resist.

Eventually the sandcastles got leveled and we needed more entertainment. You have to find something to keep these kids burning all that Christmas sugar.

So we decided to go hiking. We have set a (Mason invented) goal: The Hocking Hills at least once every month. Yesterday filled the December quota.

Deep Thoughts with Isaac: With hiking, with Christmas break, with children, with projects, with life in general...

When you start, the path is uncertain. The Where's, the When's, the Why's, the Whos, the How's will answer themselves in time. A leap of faith is often necessary.

You are sure going to hit some stumbling blocks along the way. Things will get tough.  

But you'll be sure find someone to help you through. (And you can almost bet that that someone is going to be a woman.)

Even when you're off and running again, even when the path is clear, you can still count on that someone to watch your back.

And you really need to get that someone a nice Christmas gift.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays!