The Valentine's Shift

-Posted by Isaac

Happy Valentine's! Are you love birds ready for another captivating yet comical, cultivating yet sensual glimpse into the dim lit back rooms of the bee farm? Are you? Huh? Are you!!

That's what I thought!       (To borrow a phrase from our illustrious President Camacho.)

Well turn off the lights, close the doors, kick back with your valentine, grab your bottle of cheap wine, your expensive chocolates, your protection if necessary, and prepare to be aroused!

Cheap wine bottle(s) !!!     Dr. Love prescribed two.

But speaking of our illustrious president...  (Sorry to kill the mood so soon, but I've got a question) ...Speaking of our illustrious president, what's all this I keep hearing about the Trump Travel Band? Have you heard them? Are they any good? They seem all the rage on NPR. What's that? Yeah, on NPR. You know, NPR? Hello? Where the highly educated elite gather our daily news. Never heard of them? What?! Oh, never mind. It's way above you commoners anyway. Right over your heads. You tire me.

Back to the bee porn for you.

Man oh man, are they lookin' gooood!

Whooo hooo! Damn fine!

Now there's a nice piece of Apis!

This time of year we work our way into what I have termed the "Valentine's Shift." 

Write that down. "The Valentine's Shift." It's a phrase I coined, let me see... approximately five minutes ago.  It means we begin to turn our energies from winter projects to the more important spring tasks and preparations. Namely, bees. 

Back at the end of December I told you about all the truckloads of fill being dumped on the west side of the honey house-- winter project. Now we have a structure sitting on that fill and coming right along.

It's still not the most effective thing. Especially the roof. I got soaked in a rainstorm the other day.

Who the hell built this leaky thing?

But it is coming together. Eventually these winter projects seem to run their course. Between now and St. Paddy's Day, we close the book on winter and start thinking about that rush of spring pollen right about the corner. Just like St. Paddy's is synonymous with clovers and green beer, around here, spring is synonymous with bees. We've really got to focus and start thinking about all that green beer! Excuse me, I mean all those bees! Focus!

Not Irish.     So don't kiss me.

I'm referring to the Valentine's Shift. It has already begun.

In the photo above, I'm holding a nuc box. A baby beehive. Or, sorry, it will soon be a baby beehive when we put bees in there. This happens about the middle of April to be exact. But a nuc doesn't stay a baby for long. About the middle of June you've got yourself a big fat honey making hive. If you're interested in beekeeping and want buy a baby beehive (or a few hundred), we've got them! But you're in the wrong place, silly. Go to the home page and click on "Nucs For Sale." 

 We're putting together 400 of these things.

The table saw has been getting quite a workout during the Valentine's Shift. Between the new lean-to going up and the 400 nuc boxes, the thing has been screaming almost daily. Bridger loves it. He hauls literally truckloads of sawdust!

Some kids run toward the sound of an ice cream truck. Not this little sonofa blogger. He's got his own, let's say "rustic" acquired tastes. Oooh... What's that I hear? The noisy dangerous thing that throws dust!! Gotta go! See ya Mom...

But I digress. Let's shift back the other direction shall we?

After all, it is Valentine's Day, dontcha know?

Dontcha know? It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.

Bet you didn't think we could fancy up like this? Well, you obviously don't know your beekeepers in mid February.

My Valentine and I found ourselves at a "Luxury Party." Fraternizing with the elites. 

It was a sampling of sister Becky's glamorous friends. As you already know, wealthy produce farmers hang with a different crowd. NPR types. A comfortable fit for me. I spent the evening discussing international politics. Jayne however, had difficulties controlling herself and several times tried to pounce on me. Luckily the horderves could at times provide a distraction.

We partook of exquisite delicacies privy only to the elites.

So that's why the beekeepers were invited...

And for once we enjoyed adult conversation over adult beverages. No kids allowed!

It went late into the night.

"Yes Honey, these are in fact bedroom eyes. I'm sleepy as hell."

A fun little pre-valentines Valentine's date.

So I'm going to leave you lovers with a romantic old Jeff Lynne tune. Mainly because I like it. But I also think it's a good one to serenade you into your Valentine's soirees. I mean, maybe it can't compare with the Trump Travel Band, but it will have to suffice.

So take it easy. Take it slow. Make it last. This isn't some seedy red light picture show. This is the Valentine's Shift. We've got to take this good love all the way to St. Paddy's.

Do you really want to take it that far?

DO YA?

Rare promo clip of this song from A New World Record album 1976

I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TRYING TO SAY

WOMAN

The Big Game

-Posted by Isaac

(Photo credit to the hard working commercial beekeepers in the almonds.)

Every year about this time, the drama begins to unfold.

It's time for the big game.

The stakes are high. There's a lot on the line. 

And that's why we leave it to the professionals.

It's smash mouth. It's hard hitting. It's intense. And they love it.

They play in all kinds of weather.

The rain, the sleet, the snow.

They have perfected their craft. They make it look easy under the worst conditions.

Most often, game time is set for evening.

And they'll play right on through the night.

Under the lights.

A broken bone is not uncommon. Protective head gear has improved in recent years, but they still see a concussion now and then.

But these guys (and gals) are professionals. They can handle it.

To play at this level, you've got to be bigger,

Faster,

Stronger. 

And you've got to know your stuff. This is no place for amateurs.

Amateurs love to preach. They love to yammer, "One third of everything we eat is pollinated by blah blah blah....   Raw honey is good for blah blah.... and bees fly fifty trillion miles to make one ounce of blah blah blah... Einstein once said that if all the bees blah blah blah...."

The professionals quietly preform miracles and collect their paycheck.

This is February folks!

As stated, they know their stuff.

Sometimes they even give us a halftime show.

(Choreographed.)

It's an amazing thing. And it's happening right now. Two million hives pollinating the California almonds...

So that I can chew on some nuts during the game, watch Lady Gaga, and say, "You know, one third of everything we eat is pollinated by blah blah blah..."

How to produce speciality honey and lose money doing it.

-Posted by Isaac

This is kind of a filler blog post. We finally got our website fixed up for nuc sales, and I was searching for some cool bee pictures to load. In looking for pics that would fit on a nuc page, I stumbled across several shots from this year's trials and tribulations involving buckwheat honey. So we'll just talk about that.

As you know, honey can take many colors, flavors and forms.

With speciality honey, you can let the bees produce a varietal (tulip poplar, buckwheat), or you can add something to the honey itself (lavender, lemon verbena infused).  It's something different. Something interesting. A value added product, and it may just be a hit!

Five or six years ago, we decided to take the leap into producing buckwheat honey. A few people had asked about it and we were sort of curious too. It would definitely be something different-- rich, black, robust honey with almost the consistency of molasses. Plus, maybe, just maybe, people would be willing to pay a little more..

In order to produce buckwheat honey, you need buckwheat and you need bees. Lots of each! We've tried several routes in bringing the two together. We've hauled forty hives to Amish country, three hours north. We've rented twenty acres from my grain farming brother. We've used set-aside land from my produce farming sister.

And the results have been pretty good. Meaning, we've been able to produce enough buckwheat honey to keep it in stock. And make a little money in the process. It's not cheap renting ground and equipment, buying seed, moving bees, etc...

This year with the buckwheat, things took a turn for the worst.

It all started ok. I had my little farmer along to help.

We originally thought we were going to rent three small fields right where we live. Totaling 20 acres. It was going to be a breeze. The equipment was all right down the road at my brother's, and we wouldn't have to move a single hive. I'd just sit back and let the honey roll in.

But that idea got nixed right before planting season. Family politics? I don't know?

Instead, my brother said we could rent a small wet field five miles away. More expensive rent, no less. Boooooo!

But we decided to give it a go anyway. I figured that if I planted by the end of April, we'd still get three blooms out the the deal and make enough honey. So on a bright sunny April 30th, Bridger and I went to work.

20 strong hives coming out of apple pollination were my intended buckwheat producers. Problem was, that field was so wet, I was forced to place the bees at the back of a guy's yard on the adjacent property. "Don't you worry." he assured me. "My grandpa had bees. I know all about them."

Well as it turned out, he may have been a bee lover, but his wife most certainly was not! After two stings and three phone calls, I was forced to consider alternatives. Besides, the neighbors were having a little trouble digesting the idea. ("I'm deathly allergic! DEATHLY!") So I moved the hives. Hey, I'm a nice guy.

It's no easy task to move 20 hives (Especially when you're not getting paid to do it.) We had to place those bees at a new location miles away, and bring in 20 more. It took most of the night. By this time it was mid-May and the field was dry enough to place hives out in the middle, far from annoying people.

And oh yeah, I dropped one of those pallets when the forklift hit an unseen hole in the dark. From about five feet in the air, four hives came crashing down. The result: a lot of mad bees and quite a few stings for poor Lafe and poor me. Around 1 am. Oh the fun!

Then on top of that, wouldn't you know it, we had a frost! May 20th. The latest frost ever. (In the farmers' memory.) It zapped our beautiful buckwheat!

So much for the first bloom. We had to start over.

Another round of driving all that equipment five miles, the disk, the seeder, the drag. And half way through this second time of tilling, the tractor blew up!

Well, maybe it wasn't a true blow up... but it was a fire. A hydraulic line had burst up under the hood and sprayed the hot manifold. The result was a fire big enough to burn up a lot of stuff pretty quickly. Although I was quick to react (once being a volunteer firefighter) the half can of Pepsi I threw on... just didn't do...

Maybe I should have peed on it.

Regardless, the result was two weeks of down time and more money out the door. By this point the project was feeling somewhat futile.

In the meantime, we planted and dragged the half of the field that did get tilled.

You just never know what you're going to do on the bee farm.

This led to an unintentional succession planting. I guess it worked out for the best. It made for an extended bloom.

By August, the bees were finally doing what was supposed to happen in May: making buckwheat honey.

Because we were busy pulling summer honey in August, collecting pollen in September, and pulling fall honey in October, I just let the buckwheat supers sit on the hives. This may or may not have been a good idea. The buckwheat bee yard was the last one I pulled. It turns out, they did end up packing those supers...

...but the honey wasn't quite as dark as buckwheat should be. The bees had mixed in quite a bit of fall goldenrod.

But after all the headaches and stings and expenses ($6000 to date), we're going to call it buckwheat. BY GOD, IT'S BUCKWHEAT!

Just over 700 pounds of the good stuff. Did it pay off? Will it break even? Well, you can do the math...

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.