An object in motion stays in motion

-Posted by Isaac

Wow, what a busy couple of weeks on the bee farm! A lot of motion. Newton's first law comes to mind. A lot of bouncing from one thing to the next to the next. Day and night.

For one, about 120 pollination hives have been moved to their out yards. With the hope of a honey crop to come. For four or five days, the girls were loaded in the evening, traveling in the early morning, and usually set down before the sunrise.

Good morning bees!

A few are still at work in the pollination business. 

These 20 hives are working in the produce fields below Bainbridge.

Not long ago I was complaining about the cold front nixing our spring honey crop. The bees couldn't make it out to work. But it appears I may have been a little too bitter too early. The blooms hung on and we caught the end of two really good nectar flows. The honeysuckle:

And the black locust:

It's not near the crop we had last year, but at least it's not a zero. 

I should know better than to complain. Hey, spring weather is fickle.

In fact some hives are doing awesome. The timing on the April split and the location had the most to do with it, but certain yards were actually requiring more supers. I took the kids on one of these trips and little Eden procured my phone, becoming the bee paparazzi.

With the return of the heat and nectar flow came the return of swarming.

Lots of swarms! Day and night.

The bee club was all abuzz last Thursday evening. So many swarms this year! Free bees for the taking. And each comes with it's own thrilling story of beekeeper heroics.

Dan Williams shows us how it's done.

Remember all those nucs from a few weeks back?

Most of them have left. Gone off to some bright future somewhere. I have yet to receive a post card, but I assume no news is good news.

About 60 have been transferred to bigger equipment, soon to move to their own bright and hopefully productive future in an out yard.

And finally, we got around to the buckwheat.

More moving, more busyness. This time involving tractors. And where there are tractors, my little farmer is sure to be found.

This year's buckwheat is going in the field around our house. Which makes things a hell of a lot easier than last year. For one, I don't have to move any hives. Also, getting equipment here on our small roads didn't give me a heart attack. Last year it was a precarious, car dodging six mile drive. It's much easier to be a road hog for one short mile.

Everything went very smooth. The weather held, the seed got spread, the seed got covered. And now we're having a beautiful light rain. 

Sometimes things work out.

No, we're not above a farming selfie now and then.

The Queen Mother

-Posted by Isaac

Happy Mother's Day!

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

-Posted by Isaac

So it's Saturday morning, Jayne left for market an hour ago, and I'm here waiting on nuc customers to show up. Maizy has "Kid's Bop" on the kitchen Pandora, so I hide here in the office with my Bob Dylan. First song to pop up, an oldie but a goodie. One that our little band loved to cover way back in that other life that I can hardly remember. 

'Clouds so swift, the rain won't lift...'

Yes, that about sums it up. 

What a horrendous week. Hilarious almost. Ironically, my last post was titled 'A Beautiful Thing.' The day I posted that, the rains had moved in, and eight days later they're still here.

Hilarious on account of what also happened: our spring bloom. Every year in this little nest of central Ohio heaven, we have about 10 days of intense spring bloom. The black locust and bush honeysuckle fire off at the same time. Like peaches and cream if you're a honey bee.

And if you're a beekeeper you just sit back and smile. You pat yourself on the back for all the hard work of prepping strong colonies. And you think about all the honey extracting to come. 

Not this year. We're nearing the end of our 10 days and I don't think the bees have even made it out. Not only rain. Cold! Last night the temp bottomed out at 35 degrees. And wind! The one day it wasn't raining and actually warm enough to forage, the winds were clipping along at about 30 mph. It sucks. I mean it sucks.

Not that I'm one to complain. (hehe)

The farmers have had it worse.

It's planting season, nothing's getting planted.  What did get planted is getting drowned. If not drowned, it's getting frozen.

It sucks.

Not that I'm one to complain.

Oh good... here comes another Dylan... 'Come in she said, I'll give ya shelter from the storm.' 

Today my shelter is music. A little folk music always brightens the gloom. It's true! Try it! 

I'll leave you on a happier note.

I fell into a new bee location this week. A random guy on a Worthington market food tour last summer said, "Come on out, see what we've got." 

So this week I did. And it's awesome! (Picture above.) Almost 300 acres of non-row cropped forage. It looks like somewhere in the Dakotas. And it's only a 25 minute drive. We'll have 20 hives out there next week. What a stroke of good luck.

Well I'd better get out there. It's hard work selling these nucs! (Kidding. This sure beats working the market...)  

Customers will be here soon. And so will the warm weather.

Hopefully.

Yesterday my dad mentioned that it hit 90 degrees in Montana this week. That stings. In fact, I thought he may have been stretching the truth a little just to rub it in. So I looked it up.

He was... it was only 86.

'Climb that hill, no matter how steep, when we get up to it.'

A Beautiful Thing

-Posted by Isaac

A lot happened this week on the bee farm.

Yes of course much of the work surrounded the bees themselves.

About half of the hives that went into the apples are now supered up and enjoying greener pastures in their out yards. And the honeysuckle just started to bloom! A beautiful thing.

The other half are still here, waiting to be moved. All the apple pollinators were split on the last week of March, and I've found that about half of them need split again. Not a hard split, but a frame or two or three... Just enough to temper that swarming instinct. Yes, another beautiful thing-- strong hives!

But we couldn't spend all our time on bees.

This year we're planting pasture and buckwheat in the field adjacent to the honey house. I was able to disk, seed, and drag the three acre pasture just before the rains came yesterday evening. It was only possible with the help of an ace rock picking crew. The buckwheat will follow next week. Or whenever things dry up.

And another big event happening yesterday-- We got our 4-H goats! Or I should say Mason got his goats. It's his project.

But Maizy has already deemed herself the goat expert and, well, the boss. 

With great power comes great responsibility. 

To celebrate our new arrivals we hit up Underdogs for some ice cream.

Still the boss.

The biggest thing going on this week was the nuc sales.

We were seeing so many go, I felt like we needed a sign.

Confusing the locals...

The photo below is Laura Urban and Apiary Dave. They departed with 80 beauties, hit up Dan Williams in Frankfort for some wholesale comb honey, then drove all the way to the Akron area. I was a little worried because it was such a long trip and the afternoon temps went over 80 degrees. But she texted with the good news that all went well and the bees looked great.

It truly was a beautiful thing.

4/20 Dude, It's Intense!

-Posted by Isaac

When I was in college I was a geology major. For whatever reason today's date was held in high esteem by the students in this particular field. To study geology, it was requisite to not only understand the importance of the date, you were fully expected participate in the day's activities. It was charming.

The charm had worn away when I taught school years later. My freshmen science students would rush in, "Mr. Barnes! Mr. Barnes! It's 4/20! How bout it, Mr. Barnes! Whatcha doin' after school, Mr. Barnes?" Huh! Huh!"

They had all the motions to align with what they were insinuating. 

I didn't laugh. I didn't smile. I played dumb. 4/20? Whatever do you mean?

And years after that, here I am, a beekeeper. Thank God. The only thing getting smoked is the hive. 

Let me take you through the busy busy week leading up to this special date. Last Thursday we had yet another batch of queens arrive.

Soon after welcoming 50 new ladies, I said goodbye to my one lovely lady and four very loud children. They were heading to Myrtle Beach! Without me. I had to work.

Bridger christened the van just before departure.

The very next day, Jayne's tulips bloomed.

They missed it!

But I don't think they cared.

So I busied myself in the days following. 

To the point of exhaustion.

These are nuc boxes shown above. Filled with bees, almost ready for their new owners. I needed a wide angle lens. This shot doesn't even show a third of them. I think we're nearing 300 total.

Sometimes they have issues.

And as in life, if the issue isn't resolved, it escalates.

At least the chickens got a free show.

Where do you find the nucs? Let me show you... this is what I did all week. Out in the bee yards I would lay everything out.

And after about an hour or more, hives were split and supered, the nucs were packed and ready for a queen.

Yard after yard it went like this. I think I missed a few meals.

In fact it got so intense, I lost track of days. Yesterday I got the call to move bees out of the apples. I was far from ready! Usually I can drop them off in prepared out yards. This year there was no preparing. I had to plop them right back where they started-- here at home.

If you count the nucs, we now have around 400 hives on two acres.

Yes! Intense!

If you happen to be deathly allergic, maybe this week isn't the best to visit the farmstand.

So the family came home on Monday night. It was late, but they were still loud. I hadn't realized how much I missed the noise. And I finally got around to splitting the last yard today.

On 4/20. A special day indeed. You can see what the bees were up to. Almost all the hives looked like this.

I'm about a month late in removing that spacer... 

These hives were near Tarlton. Or untamed redneck wilderness, if you live in Columbus and have never been to Tarlton. I was driving home and checking out the real estate. You know, for investment purposes, and I saw some fine acreage with some autumn olive growing out front. That's what the bees have been up to: Making honey! If you've ever tasted autumn olive honey you know it's the best in the world. 

Above is a young autumn olive bush just starting to mouth off. Whole hillsides of this grow around Tarlton. I was able to capture this beauty just before the shotguns came out.

I love Tarlton. 

They celebrate 4/20 in their own special way.