California bound (with a few hiccups)

-Posted by Isaac

Just look at that Christmas honey.

It’s been an eventful week on the bee farm. Last Saturday the Honeyrun Open House was a big hit.

And we’re back at it again this Saturday. In fact, right now I’m avoiding things by doing this blog post. If I go out there, someone will make me socialize. Or work. Or worse yet, explain the benefits of local honey for the millionth time.

I think I’d rather tell you about all the bee excitement.

Last Sunday afternoon it was time to get the girls ready for their road trip.

I’m very thankful for the harrow loaned by Becky and Justin. It made all the difference. You can see in the above picture, the harrow made a nice counterbalance when lifting three stacked bee pallets.

Each stack, I’m guessing, weighs around 1500 lbs.

Got all the hives stacked nicely on a dry, 40 degree Sunday.

Then on Monday the rains came. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the temperature bounced up to a balmy 55 degrees. Not ideal.

We were tested. When the rains weren’t pounding down making us miserable, the bees were out flying, enjoying the heat. For a span of about four hours, it was a soggy mess of loading and smoking bees. Stings to be had by all.

But slowly things came together.

And I do mean slow. I remember fifteen years ago, my boss in Montana would take about an hour to load a semi truck. Pretty slick.

We were every bit of three hours before the first strap was even unrolled. The driver took a nap during most of it.

But hey, it was my first time!

My slowness gave Dad (pictured above) plenty of opportunity to ask questions and make assessments. If you know my father at all, you’ll know what I mean. When the driver woke up, he became the new victim.

I’m sure it was a relief when I finally finished loading, and he could distract himself with netting the load instead of answering questions.

Two big green nets made a Christmassy backdrop for Eden’s photoshoot.

By this point, four hours in, I was starting to feel relieved. All he had to do was pull out on the road and get going.

Easy, right?

Nope. Not easy at all. The rain had turned the field into a muddy soup, and our tiny road with steep ditches made it impossible to make a simple turn. By about the third try at a wide turn, his tires were spinning.

Stuck!

My little tractor didn’t even budge that 80,000 lb load. Not an inch. What to do, what to do?

All I can say is, I’m glad my brother is a grain farmer. And I’m glad I haven’t made him too mad over the years. And I’m glad he was home when the plea for help came. And I’m especially glad it was warm enough that day to fire up his big bad dual-wheeled 160 HP Case International. Brother Justin to the rescue!

The next hour involved lots of mud, big chains, big engines and big wheels. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take a picture. But in my defense, I was stressed out and covered with mud.

Eventually, just before dark, we were able to get that big load on it’s way to California.

It was enough excitement to take me through the week.

I think I’m ready to go out and talk about local honey now.

If you happened to miss the Open House, but really wanted something, don’t worry. We’re always slow in getting things put away. Jayne’s wonderful creations will be out on the tables for probably another week.

Stop on in!

Honeyrun Farm Holiday Open House

-posted by Jayne

I was reading over Isaac’s past few blogs and realized he forgot to mention something big happening on the farm. It’s our annual Holiday Open House! Come on out to the farm and see what we’ve been up to. We’ll have free hot cider and cookies, you can snoop around our honey house and ask us questions, sample all the new honey varieties as well as the old favorites, and if you’d like… you can purchase some of our wares too. (Ah, there’s the catch… it was all a ploy to get you to buy something after all). 😆

Saturday December 7th, 9-6

Sunday December 8th, 1-6

Saturday December 14th, 9-6

If you need Facebook to remind you, or to give you directions, there’s a link to the Open House Event page Here: https://www.facebook.com/events/809916572760432/

Come on in and snoop around!

Beeswax Ornaments - $14.00 online, will be $10.00 at the open house

We’ve been working hard stocking up on Candles. Come take a look!

All our soaps, salves, lip balms, etc. will be fully stocked for you to peruse.

Every year we have a few disgruntled folks who didn’t get the word in time and missed the open house weekend. So we added an extra Saturday next weekend, in case you’re all booked up this weekend.
We hope you can make it.

Sugar Baby

-Posted by Isaac

I just happened to be walking through the honey house the other day, and noticed the work of my talented daughter.

Miss November. I wonder if she even knows? That photo was taken in June, 2018. I think she’s completely forgotten that she won a spot on the club calendar.

November is a big month for birthdays around here. Several on the Barnes side, five or six I think. And at least a few on the Krieger side. Including Grandma’s. This year she turned 90.

Last week I told you about our little surprise crashing of the Court House Manor. (video at the end) And on Saturday we had a proper party with the whole family. I guess it also doubled as the Krieger Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow we have the actual Thanksgiving, and we have another birthday.

Two birthdays, if fact. We double up on Nov. 28th. Bridger turns eight and I turn 44.

Every 11 years our birthdays fall on Thanksgiving day. This will mark the first time we get to celebrate it together. It’s hard think back and remember the specifics of any random birthday, but it’s easy to mark the special day I turned 36 and was given my mountain man.

My greatest birthday gift.

What are the chances?

I guess I have heard what the chances are… I’ve heard a number, anyway. They say the odds of you existing as you specifically, and not someone else, are somewhere in the neighborhood of one in 400 quadrillion. That’s based on any specific egg meeting up with any given sperm.

So there you go.

Odds of our birthdays falling on the same day— 1 : 365

Odds of our shared existence— 1 : 800,000,000,000,000,000

And I’m just talking about me and Bridger. What about the rest of you? Our shared existence? Is it even possible to comprehend?

It’s a hard thing to capture.

I found a website that talks about this a little further. The odds of existence. They came to an even bigger number. It’s a 10 raised to the 2.7 millionth power! They based it off any specific egg meeting up with any given sperm from any human pair over the centuries and millennia… then traced it back even further to all the pre-human randomness over the millions and hundreds of millions of years since life began on this planet.

Chances: one in 10 raised to the 2,685,000th power.

And I think, well now… if you want to get into the weeds…

What about all the time before life existed? All the mixing and churning that when on… all those atoms, the atoms that make us up, were still out there going this way and that… when our planet was forming, when our sun was just a baby. And what about all the time before that? Before our atoms even existed? When the stars were exploding, creating, destroying, mixing, blending, shuffling, fusing the elements.

Somehow it all came together. But I’m now thinking that their measly 10 to the 2.7 millionth power is way low.

Shall we be thankful?

It’s been about ten years. We’re rusty. I asked Mason to get a picture, and instead he sat behind Grandma and took a whole video.

I guess it was good he did. Now you can see the utter chaos— Our little stars exploding, creating, destroying, mixing, blending, shuffling, fusing the elements.

The best line in Sugar Baby is a question: “Who’ll rock the cradle when you’re gone?”

And an answer: “I’ll rock the cradle when you’re gone.”

Getting ready

-Posted by Isaac

I’m torn this week. The bigger deal is Grandma Krieger turning 90 and the surprise party we threw in the old folks home. Complete with bad live music. That’s what’s fresh on my mind, but I told you last week I’d fill you in on what we’re doing with the bees.

So for now, we’ll stick with that— Our girls are going to the almonds! California bound in two weeks. No more nasty Ohio weather for most of them. About 70% will be put on a truck, hauled 2400 miles, then spend the next three months in the sun. Almond pollen in February.

In fact, they were originally scheduled to be leaving this week, but I backed the trucker up because I didn’t think we could get everything done in time. Turns out, we were fine. Oh well.

So let me fill you in on the prep.

In late October after the fall honey came off, I started gathering.

Every morning I’d head out before daylight, pick up a yard or two and get the bees back home before it got too warm.

At first it seemed like a big task with 42 out yards, but looking back, it went pretty smooth and quick.

After two weeks, we had accumulated around 600 hives.

This gave Lafe and his supervisor plenty to do.

While he worked on painting and fixing (Got to have them looking good for the big dance!), I spent a few hours a day checking, feeding and shuffling.

Every hive heading out needs to be heavy (plenty of food) and big (plenty of bees). Since this is my first time, I’m trying to error on the side of caution. In almond pollination, it’s all for naught if the hives don’t make “grade.”

Grade is a minimum of eight frames covered with bees.

My own criteria is a top box full of bees and the bottom box at least half full.

The weaker hives will stay here and I’ll try to nurse them through the winter. At least now they’ll all be at home and I won’t have to fight my way through the mud to the out yards.

After the checking, I gave them one last shot of probiotic.

Snake oil? Who knows… but it makes me feel good. So that counts for something.

Our last big job is cleaning the pallets.

California won’t let you in if they find strange things riding with the bees. I’m not sure what it would take for them to actually reject a load, but I don’t want to push the envelope.

Anyway, for about an hour a day, it’s not a bad job. Every pallet, every hive gets a look. Sometimes I see something that jogs a specific memory.

Here’s one that got chewed on…

….by goats.

That box happened to be in a stack of dead-outs by the goat pen during the winter of 2013-14. We lost 70% of the bees that year. There was talk of me needing to go back to teaching school. I remember finding that group of chewed-on boxes and suddenly feeling way over my head with this beekeeping thing. And also feeling really pissed at the goats.

Now that box is heading to the almonds. I guess we’ve come a long way.

I’m still feeling way over my head with this beekeeping thing. But the goats get a pass this year.

January in November

-Posted by Isaac

Is the harvest over?

Maybe for the grain farmers. Maybe for the bee farmers.

But not for the produce farmers.

Becky and Justin are still going strong.

In fact, if you want to load up on your greens, you can catch Becky at the Worthington market on Saturday. New baby in tow.

Was I right? I wasn’t exaggerating last week, was I? Just three days after having miss Louisa Mae, Becky was back in the fields. And she invited a bunch of friends to join her.

Not a baby shower.

A carrot picking party.

We worked the warm Sunday afternoon away. There was a sense of urgency in the air, because things were about to change.

With the air.

A drastic turn for the worst, in my opinion.

That was the big story this week. About two months too early, record cold on November 12th, 13th and 14th. Nasty wind, sleet and snow. A big fat blast of winter. And it lingered.

No sun.

No fun.

I used to complain my way through stuff like this, but Jayne’s tired of hearing it. Now it’s more of a private hell. I’m shell shocked. It’s so overwhelming. It shouldn’t have such an impact on my mood, but it does somehow. I slow down to about half speed. Sputtering along. Can’t think straight. Depressions, thoughts of past failures, embarrassing memories, excuses and inadequacies come flooding in. It’s a dark place. Took me a full minute the other day to figure out which credit card to use pumping gas. Which I guess would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. If it wasn’t me. I want to hide somewhere in a fetal curl and cry. It feels like an end to everything, and telling myself to suck it up and get going does no good. Who am I? Am I not a grown man? Crying about the weather? And are we really doing this again? Winter? In Ohio?

I don’t know how you people keep going.

I need the sun.

But obviously not everyone shares my gloom.

The kids made the best of it. They were out of school on Monday and Tuesday.

Which was a welcome distraction. Even in my compromised mental state, I was able to putter along. And with Mason being free, I took full advantage of his willingness to help with firewood.

We’ve now put up six loads on the porch, starting just two weeks ago.

I’m proud of him. And I have to laugh when he hangs it over the other kids. “Hey Maizy, do you like reading by the warm fire? Hey Bridger, is it fun to play with your toys in the comfy cozy living room??”

I wonder where he learned that tactic?

The firewood harvest will continue as long as the cold continues. And like it or not, it’s looking like a long winter.

At least yesterday we saw some evening sun.

Maybe this winter won’t be quite so hard on the bees. They’re going on vacation. In fact, it’s exciting to think about. Improves my mood immensely.

Next week I’ll tell you what we’re getting into.