Building good relations

-Posted by Isaac

The day after Christmas we woke up to a cold fog and frozen magic. Had Queen Elsa visited the bee farm?

For the kids, the long beautiful crystals were intoxicating, adding fuel to the excitement and debauchery of the day before. For me, it wasn’t quite as enchanting. I woke up with a stomach virus.

Too much eggnog? I don’t know. But this week of all weeks, it turned out to be not such a bad thing. Impeccable timing on that bug. Basically it got me out of a day of the Christmas run around— I missed a party and a few meals. I slept by the stove. I read a book. I listened to about eight hours of Dan Carlin’s WWI Hardcore History. It was the best day-after-Christmas ever!

By the 27th, I thought I was ready jump back in. I determined I would put on a happy face, step lightly, put my best foot forward, and once again give it my best shot. It was an all important week— a week of building good relations.

And it went as expected: lots of family commotion. A perpetual and relentless kid drama, just a touch of adult drama. A lot of sugar, a little beer. I only stuck my foot in my mouth about five times, and had only one argument. Not bad. So far.

Yesterday I got into it with my brother. (The one argument.) (So far.) It was over the formation of stalactites.

Of all the stupid things to fight about.

We took a family trip to the Ohio Caverns. For about half the tour Justin and I had a heated and somewhat bitter debate over the differential rate of calcite growth and whether there was really any hard science to back up the age estimates of the cave formations. We thoroughly embarrassed our fellow cave explorers, a group of about thirty. We even embarrassed our tour guide, who, as it turned out, was just a hired kid repeating a dumb script.

How do I know it was embarrassing? Jayne told me later. And I guess I sort of knew it at the time too. So much for good relations.

And she also told me something I’ve heard several times over several Christmases: “You need to back down and just let it go.”

She’s right. I know she’s right. I just can’t seem to quit falling into it…so many potential arguments with so many family members… and so little time. There’s really only one good week a year with which to argue. This is it.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not enjoy it. I’m not a fighter. There’s just something about Christmas week. It creates an explosive atmosphere— all the people, the screaming kids, the lack of routine… tensions are already high. It’s like the land mine is set with a hair trigger, ready to blow up on the first idiot to put his foot where he knows he shouldn’t. And here I come stumbling in… with my science, and my politics, and my opinions, and my big feet…

Tomorrow is the last obstacle of the week— the big Barnes extended family Christmas. And you can bet I’m going to watch my step. I need to take some WWI advice from Dan Carlin. Just bunker down and endure. It’s trench warfare, these Christmas parties. And tomorrow I’m not getting my head shot off. Nor my foot blown off. I’ll stay in my trench. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Smile nice. Just endure. I’ll take no shots, I’ll let old wounds heal.

But the week hasn’t all been dodging bullets and dressing wounds. Sure, Christmas break has some downsides, but one great thing I’m discovering is that my kids are old enough to work. Really work. Not legally, but who’s checking? They’re out of school and we have plenty of projects. They still think this stuff is fun.

Between the Christmas parties and get-togethers, between building good relations, we did find time for some waxing. Rolling a light layer of beeswax on foundation gives the bees a head start on building comb.

And when the weather turned too nice to ignore, we got out in the sun.

This winter we’re putting a wood fence around the barnyard. Not that there’s anything wrong with the flimsy goat fence I pieced together last spring. They only get out once or twice a week.

First step: dig the post holes.

Looking at these pictures, I’m reminded that there are more pressing things I should be attending to. Like putting up metal siding on the barn. The goats have had an all-you-can-eat buffet for weeks.

Oh well. Merry Christmas, goats. I guess the siding can wait.

I love the rhythm of digging post holes. On a warm day in the winter, I can’t imagine anything better. And I try to convey this joy to the kids. Watching 12,000 years of soil come up, feeling the loamy wet earth, seeing the worms, squishing the clay. It’s all wonderful, and you get to do it over and over again. All day, if you’re lucky.

Maybe even all winter? You can see we made some progress this week. Even with all the commotion and calamity of Christmas.

And it was so much fun. When the worms and mud lost their excitement, when my lessons about soil growth lost their allure, the kids still found plenty to do. For instance, there was spud bar gravel drawing and backward forklift sitting…

…and about a thousand other things.

So all in all, it’s been a good week. A good finish to 2018.

The kids are still asleep right now and Jayne just left for the Worthington Market- the last market of 2018. I’ve got one quiet hour to galvanize my thoughts and prepare for a day of good relations. Right? Focus! Just a couple more days to say the right things and do the right things. And then we can send the year off in good standing. Let’s hope.

Maybe it’s not as hard for you, this off balance week between Christmas and New Years. Maybe you always say the right thing, dodging each and every bullet. Congrats. I envy you.

Or maybe you’ve simply figured out something that I still can’t seem to grasp: listen to your wife.

Santa's Workshop

-Posted by Isaac

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Forgive me.

I would never really insult you, our wonderful blog readers, seekers of truth and light. At least not at Christmas. I saw this card at Wholly Craft yesterday and had to laugh. But just in case you are a filthy animal, they sell many many bars of gorgeous Honeyrun Farm soap. Handcrafted for all your hygiene needs.

Wholly Craft was one of many stops yesterday on my weekly Columbus deliveries. And to my utter delight, my dad said he wanted to come along.

It was a good day for company. We hit twelve stops, big and small, and had a record day on the gallons. Over thirty went out to the various restaurants, breweries, and smoothie shops. So thanks for not only buying local, thanks also for encouraging the places you patronize to use local honey. More and more businesses are starting to get on the bus. The localism wave, I mean. It really does make a difference in your own community. Thank you! But you already knew that, didn’t you? I’m just preaching to the choir on this blog.

It was fun to see Dad look over the different businesses and think about the economics of it all. Every time we’d get back in the van, he had a barrage of questions. The few of you who may be lucky enough to know my father can testify that he’s pretty good with numbers. And you also know that he loves to probe into your personal finances. Not in a nosey way. More of a curious and jokey way.

But two can play at that. Knowing Dad, and anticipating the questions that were sure to come, I couldn’t help but inflate my figures just a little. I could see the pride slowly start to radiate from him as the day wore on. Sitting next to his millionaire son, helping with deliveries. What a thrill! By the time I’d treated him to a Whole Foods ‘business’ lunch, I could see the ‘atta-boy’ just beaming in his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Dad. I got this…”

It was a proud and quiet ride home. (In the beat up old van with duct tape holding the front bumper together.)

What else can we talk about? How about Santa’s workshop.

Starting about mid November, this ugly little shop serves a big and beautiful purpose.

Every morning, about daylight, I get the wood stove fired up. At 8am the elves arrive and start in on their various tasks.

All in the hopes of bringing springtime joy to the good little boys and girls of Honeyrun Farm. (Mainly girls)

Above on the right, you can see the wall of dead-out boxes that we’ve scraped and prepped. These will be spread far and wide, filled with life by the end of April. It’s looking like we’ll have just over one hundred hive bodies to fill. This is, if the winter isn’t too rough on us.

Below is the mountain of nucs we have yet to assemble.

Thankfully Christmas isn’t our deadline. April is still a long way off.

Nonetheless, with the nice weather this week, Santa’s workshop stayed busy into the night. Long hours were spent dipping lids (paraffin for waterproofing and warp prevention). And when the dipping started to get tedious, you could look into building frames and assembling boxes.

500 nuc boxes mean 2500 frames. The work can get a bit repetitious in the winter.

But you know, sometimes repetition is exactly what you need. You’re getting something done, you don’t have to think hard, you just let your mind wander. It’s a relaxing daily respite in this warm little workshop. Almost a vacation. Away from the Christmas stress, away from the tension and strain and annoyances I have so thoroughly ranted about in years past.

I know, it all changes next week. No longer will I be able to hide in my workshop building toys for good little girls.

Reality deals a heavy blow.

Yes, it’s about to get real.

And yes, Eden, there is a Santa Claus…

First round of winter

-Posted by Isaac

Ok, enough about Jayne already. Let’s get back to the bees.

I’m killing three birds these days. 1. Winter spacers go on the hives. 2. Supers are stacked in the yards. 3. Honey rent is delivered to land owners.

The work doesn’t end when the cold weather comes, it only changes. I’m alone most of the day, and I guess you could say the work gets more introspective. Thinking about this, brooding about that. I’ve got my thoughts, my podcasts, my truck radio. NPR when I want some news, the AM ‘angry white man’ stations when I want to feel angry. And white.

I’m sure I could speed things up if I brought someone along, but in some ways, that would ruin the whole thing. These short cold days provide a sort of meditation.

Sometimes Facebook provides the entertainment. I always like to check up on the commercial beekeepers page. (Talk about angry white men!) Or I’ll sometimes find something truly remarkable. Here’s something ancient and modern and ugly and beautiful all at once:

Sunset on Mars- Meditate on this a while.

Whoa… deep.

Ok, let me talk about these three birds in more detail. If it’s going to be a dry day, the first thing that happens is the truck is loaded with supers. I can get about 120 stacked on the flatbed following an early morning run and before the kids get on the bus. There’s a handy hour in there if things are going right.

After the kids are off to school, I load up with the yard rent for the landowners I’ll be visiting.

We’ve got 42 bee yards on other people’s land, and this time of year all the land owners receive $90 of product or money. A small Christmas ‘thank you.’

After collecting supers and honey rent, it’s off to the yards. With 120 supers on the truck, I can knock off three or four yards before I have to return for more.

I’ve been storing supers in the yards for a few years now. It makes sense. Opens up the barn for winter work, and even more important, saves a trip in the spring when I really need those supers on the hives. Some yards get a small stack (above).

And some get a big stack.

As you’ve probably already figured, it depends on how many hives are in the yard.

But it also depends on the spring forage. If there is a lot of honeysuckle and autumn olive in the area, I’ll throw another super on a strong hive.

Here’s a yard of invisible bees.

Six yards look like this. These girls are sitting at home right now, waiting to go into the apples in April. I’ve learned that apple pollinators can be really strong (when things go right) after they come out of the orchards in May. As in, you’d better have enough supers.

Here we have the cell phone yard.

Every year these girls show me that the “Cell phones are killing the bees!” theory is most likely bogus. This is an awesome yard. Especially in the spring. Could it be that the cell tower is enhancing the foraging? Hmmm…

So after the honey rent is delivered and the supers stacked, bird number three involves actually popping lids and looking at the bees.

Cold days are the best.

The bees put out moisture as they slowly metabolize their honey stores. You can sort of see this with that ring of frost on the lid pictured above. To prevent the condensation from dripping on the cluster all winter, there needs to be some ventilation. A spacer takes care of this.

The reason that cold days are the best is because I can put the spacer on and check the girls quickly. No smoke, no veil needed. It takes seconds.

I’m also checking food stores. On a cold day in December when the bees are in a tight cluster, looking down, you shouldn’t even see them. They should be under three, four, five inches of honey.

Those that aren’t, the lighter hives where everyone is up high, will be fed a sugar patty in January. They get marked with the brick up. This year, I’m guessing that only about 10% have a brick in the “feed me!” position.

Ideally you have a box of honey on top and a big cluster on bottom. Yesterday it was warm enough to split a few and really check.

(Still working on the protein patty from October.)

Most are looking great. Especially the hives with younger queens.

So that’s my routine of late. It’s enjoyable. It’s peaceable. I’ll do three or four yards in the morning and maybe another couple in the afternoon.

I have to be careful though. If I happen to go in the honey house between trips, they may try to put me to work. It breaks my meditation. On a normal day in December, I’ll find Jayne, Katie, Kristen and Hannah all busy… running around frantically filling Christmas orders. On most afternoons, my second trip involves a drive to the post office. The bee truck doubles as Santa’s sleigh.

Feeling Irrelevant on Open House Weekend

-Posted by Isaac

First and foremost, we had a good day didn’t we?

Clear blue cloudless skies, bright sun, temps in the fifties. Sunday was like a dream. It was so awesome to see the girls out and about. Dare I say happy? If we could only get one of those days every week, I think I could hang on. I think I could bear the rest with no complaining. Is one day too much to ask? Apparently so. It’s looking like thirty degree gray crap for the next seven.

So we’ve been doing a Christmas Open House for a few years now. It’s grown and grown. This year they came from all over, north and south. You came from all over. Thank you!

We ran out of parking. And at one point, even getting to and from the honey house proved tricky.

A day before our gorgeous dreamy Sunday, Saturday brought buckets of cold, cloudy wet crap. Just a dash of water. But it didn’t seem to slow the Christmas shoppers.

In anticipation, we got the place cleaned up and cheered up.

Heated up and brightened up.

Just inside, there was a multitude of free homemade cookies and Christmassy drinks.

And if you wanted to hang around the cookie table, you could get yourself a quick honey bee education. Nothing like sugar to spur an education.

Further on, the big extracting room became a full on store.

Just about every workable space was filled with something.

I do have one nagging fear with this Christmas shop- one of these years, either a great honey year, or someday when we have few hundred more hives, we’re going to run right up against extracting season. Meaning, we’re going to need this space for its original purpose.

What do we do then, dear wife?

And I have another fear. A fear that slowly grows as the years go by. And this year, browsing around this makeshift shop, that fear became even more evident.

I’m becoming irrelevant.

Let me explain as we look around the shop.

My dear wife doesn’t need me.

Me or my bees.

Just look at all the great stuff she’s dreamed up.

Without me.

Without lifting a single super in the summer…

…or feeding a single hive in the winter.

This business was once about the bees paying the bills. Every surplus cent, it seemed, went right back into buying more equipment, which turned into more hives, which in turn gave us more honey. I was happy to bask in the glory of being the (much needed) beekeeper.

Well things have changed, haven’t they? We now sell far more gift boxes than buckets of honey.

It’s called retail!

It’s called wholesale!

It’s not the same as wholesaling honey. Even when you wholesale gift boxes, it’s pretty much like retail.

Now people even come and put their own gift boxes together. We just provide the box.

How easy is that?

All this to say, we are slowly looking more like Burt’s Bees… and a lot less like Burt the beekeeper. Burt is becoming irrelevant.

Let’s face it, anyone can produce honey. Even comb, even infused.

It takes someone special, some combination of business savvy, foresight, and creativity to turn standard old bee products into what I get to witness in my extracting room every December. And what you get to find online all year.

It’s all Jayne.

So what do you think? Will she keep me around? Even if I insist on messing with bees for a few more years?

Way back in the day, Burt insisted on messing with bees. His partner, Roxanne Quimby wanted to look into lip balms and lotions. Burt was having none of it. He decided to sell his third of the business. $130,000.

Do you know what Burt’s Bees is valued at today? I’ll tell you: Right around One Billion!

Oops.

One billion dollars.

Sometime in his later years Burt Shavitz was asked if he regretted selling out so early. He took a nonchalant attitude. He shrugged…. Ah, Burt’s Bees… been there, done that…

…got the t-shirt.

Just happy to be here

-Posted by Isaac

What a load of crap, this weather.

Tis the season… let the complaining begin. For some reason, this year seems a bit worse than usual. I can tell it’s pretty bad when I actually look forward to my weekly Columbus deliveries. I know, some of you have to look at that awful gray mess of traffic every day, and I feel for you. I really do. I don’t know how you go on.

I guess it just makes our rare sunny day that much sweeter.

With the rain and the cold I’m now volunteering almost daily to take big bags of packages to the post office. Just to be warm and dry for a while. Just to feel some kind of purpose on another non-beekeeping day. I can zone out, I can reminisce, I can plan projects, or better yet, I can listen to a podcast. Of late, Joe Rogan and Bill Burr have been parting the clouds. Sam Harris, if I really want to think. And I’m open to suggestions… it’s looking like a long winter.

So did you have a good Thanksgiving? Judging from last week’s heavy grocery store orders, I think quite a few of you basted that turkey and covered those bread rolls with local honey. And believe you me, you’re better for it— having that bottle of golden nectar within arm’s reach— A sure fire way to impress your holiday guests. Trust me on this, it’s a clear sign of intelligence. A mark of culture. A touch of class. A dash of grace. A note of refinement. A stroke of finesse. A kiss of elegance. And of course a conversation piece, as you already know. Regaling your guests with your seemingly infinite knowledge of the natural world… You are wise beyond your years.

And what about the big game? Did you catch the game?

Yes, we sure did. And this year it definitely lived up to the hype, didn’t it? What a rivalry! What a clash of the titans! At one point, red in the face and screaming, it almost came to blows. They had an intense argument over the technicalities. As the official ref, I had to step in and explain that there’s really no difference between P-I-G and C-O-W. You’re still out in three misses. No reason to fight about it.

What a battle! What a weekend! And on a side note, flipping sports, we saw Ohio State beat Michigan.

Again.

For whatever reason, the kids just don’t see what the big deal is. However, they do like explaining why we can’t use the letter M when talking about Xichigan. They learned this in school. And they thought it was important to retain. I’m glad some things are sticking.

Between rainy days, we find things to do.

And we try to beautify the place wherever we go.

Here we have a beautiful dumpster ornament.

And here, Eden models a beautiful hive ornament.

The past two weeks, when it’s dry enough, my little princess has joined me in collecting hives. We’ve amassed quite a few.

We’ll be taking these girls into the apples next April. I’ve learned that it’s much easier to have them all in one place when that call comes, rather than running around at night, fighting the mud in the spring. Plus, it’s easier to take care of them here at home.

Eden entertains herself with my phone while I pick up pallets.

Sometimes I’m just amazed at what she’s able to capture.

If that ain’t fine art, I don’t know what is.

Between yards, we enjoy the fruits (and nuts) of her genius.

Having spent years in sunny Colorado, I sometimes wonder what I’m doing here. Then when I think back I realize, even surrounded by those beautiful mountains, I probably complained at least as much if not more. It was just about different subjects. Not the weather. I found other things— things of my own making. Loneliness and moneyless and general aimlessness probably topped the list. And when I think hard about it, maybe I should count myself lucky that the Ohio weather sits on top of the complaint list these days. What’s a rainy day now and then? One or two or six in a row? Who cares? At least I have a purpose. At least I have a good job.

And you really can’t beat the good company.