Heroes of capitalism

-Posted by Isaac

I happened to see this in TIME magazine the other day, and it was really demoralizing.

No, not the blurb about New Zealand already overcoming their pandemic. No, not our own president’s “sarcasm” about disinfectants. And no, not even the part about insect decline. I already knew about that, it’s just that I didn’t know it was that far along. I had a billion dollar idea this week, and the demoralizing part is that my idea may never come to fruition, simply for the fact that it seems to be happening anyway… without my involvement.

I’m sorry, I have jumped way ahead and no doubt confused you already. So let me back up.

We’ll start with apple pollination.

This is my Bat Signal Tree. All year long, most mornings, sometime between 5 and 7am I run by this apple tree. In April I pay attention. As soon as I see the first buds, I can just about set my watch to it— the apple orchards will be calling within the next three days. It’s my Bat Signal.

And sure enough, the calls came.

The Lynd Fruit Farm and Sunny Hill Orchards. Needing the bees ASAP.

Right now!

What’s funny, is that the Bat Signal was a little off this year. By about a week. It was several more days from the time I anticipated moving bees to the time I actually did. Hmmm…

Plus, the redbuds were still in bloom.

That’s never happened. (At least not in my memory.) Usually we’re way beyond the redbuds when the apples come in.

Here’s my non-botanist, unscientific, beekeeper ordering of the spring bloom in central Ohio:

Maples / Crocus / Deadnettle / Willows / Redbuds / Dandelions / Peach / Pears / Apples / Cherries / Dogwoods / Ash / Autumn Olive / Honeysuckle / Black Locust / Tulip poplar / Honey locust / Oaks

I’m sure I’ll take some flack when the experts read this and correct me, but even the experts have to admit… this has been a weird year.

Autumn Olive and redbuds blooming at the same time? What gives?

Well, what gives is that it’s been so cold. We had two weeks in April where the day’s high temp didn’t even reach the normal average for that specific date. Cold!

The bees, and all other insects couldn’t make it out to do their jobs. When a flower doesn’t get pollinated, it stays around awhile. And waits. That’s why the redbuds are still around. You’ve probably noticed this.

I was yammering about all this with Laura Urban on Wednesday. She was taking a big load of nucs off my hands.

That’s when the idea hit me. My billion dollar idea.

But I kept it simmering for a few more days. On Friday I loaded a fellow Scioto Valley Beekeepers club member with his own batch of nucs. Much to my chagrin, David is a blog reader. So instead of blooms and bees, David with a wry smile decided to launch into other areas of conversation: pandemic, societal ills, socialism, capitalism…

I had to reassure him, “No man, as much as people want to peg me as some kind of socialist, unamerican, leftist wack job… I’m not, believe me.”

We were out in the nuc yard.

Look, small business. Right here. My own little capitalist kingdom. Trust me, I’m a flag waving fat cat through and through. And it’s working out pretty well. “I just use that blog to raise your capitalist ire. It’s fun to point out all the flaws and hypocrisies.”

And boy, there sure seems to be a lot of them.

Just look around.

Or if you can afford it… boat around.

Flaws…

#winning

…and hypocrisies.

Enough material for months and months of blog posts.

Especially during the pandemic months.

No David, I’m nowhere close to being a socialist. Capitalism is fine and dandy. I was born 1. white 2. healthy 3. male 4. middle class 5. two parent family 6. landed family 7. in a functioning community 8. with a protestant work ethic

It would be really hard to screw that up.

So to prove to you guys once again, my red blooded capitalist bent, here’s my billion dollar idea: We douse the world in chemicals.

Specifically, insecticides.

But we’d have to do it right. I mean soak the place. None of this half-assed, as-needed stuff the farmers spray on soybeans. No willy-nilly insect-specific seed treatment that the Bayer Corp. uses for corn. That’s a good start. But what we need is a 100% kill. We need to carpet bomb the forests. We need to drench the fields. Kind of like flood irrigation… but using Dursban instead of water. It would become sort of a chemical Manhattan Project.

And what does this gain? Well let me tell you— Just a few bullet points:

• We put people back to work. Big Chem could start hiring… and never really quit. Also, hospitals and Big Pharma would benefit indirectly.

• Without insects, we beautify the place. No more pollination means… brilliant redbuds in June! Spectacular dogwoods in July!

• We solve our immigration woes. Nobody wants to come to a place reeking of chemicals.

• We keep the pro-lifers and pro-choicers happy. There simply wouldn’t be pregnancies.

• Most importantly, no more bat related pandemics. We have eliminated their food source!

There it is. My billion dollar idea. I was thinking I could run all this by President Trump. Given my previous experience with people and science and insects, I’d quickly be appointed Chemical Czar— in charge of basic operations and logistics. It could potentially become a trillion dollar project, of which I’d skim a little off the top.

Just a little.

Saving the country while lining my pockets. No doubt I would end up snagging my very own Presidential Freedom Award.

Just like other heroes of capitalism.

So this is why I was so disappointed to see that blurb in TIME. It looks like we’re well on our way… and I haven’t even done anything. But maybe there’s still time, I don’t know? Still time to capitalize.

Unfortunately it’s going to be an uphill battle. Starting at home. See, I’m married to this socialist who thinks we ought to share the wealth once in a while.

I’ll explain the error of her ways after dinner.

People Pleasing

-Posted by Isaac

Despite my very best efforts to anger people with this blog, it appears I’m still failing.

Sales continue to skyrocket. Jayne, Katie and Hannah bounce through online orders in the honey house.

And I struggle to keep up with the grocery store honey.

Even the bees are overwhelmed with the rush.

The pollen flows in torrents, and we can’t begin to keep up with these exploding hives.

We’re busy!

The online sales, the groceries and the nucs… it’s like a bee business blitzkrieg. We’re overwhelmed. And all during a pandemic. The political hate coming at me from a few blog readers doesn’t seem to stem the tide one bit. You guys are still buying stuff like everybody agrees with me 100%. I have failed.

But what was it we all learned as children? If at first you don’t succeed…

Let’s try this route: I don’t like you.

Well… not you. You’re cool. We could hang out. It’s the general you I’m talking about. The 99% plus the irksome one percent.

The last time I posted something about nucs, I got 10 or 12 emails, people wanting to buy! buy! buy! I kindly and responsibly responded. No, you can’t have one. We wholesale these things.

But why??

Why? As I said above, I don’t like you.

We retailed nucs a few years ago and I learned my lesson. It took years off my life. Not that there wasn’t more than a few enjoyable moments. Not that I didn’t meet many many wonderful people. It wasn’t the general experience. It was the one in one hundred that got me. Those are the people you remember. We don’t retail nucs because I can’t take the 1%.

Who are these people?—the few and the proud. And the loud. Are they the same people you see on Facebook?

You know, the one who posts an outrageous meme which strings along 53 comments. Half of which are the author’s using ALL CAPS!! Could it be the same people who go to a beekeeping blog to seek political confrontation? I wonder. What if we had a venn diagram?

Or maybe I just need to toughen up. The truth is, I want to be liked by everyone, and the world just isn’t built like that. Come to think of it, maybe this is the reason I had such a short lived teaching career. If only we had a pandemic during my years in front of the classroom… maybe I would’ve lasted. It could’ve been more of a wholesale approach to science education.

As it is, we’re going the easy route on the nucs.

Wholesale.

Once they’re gone, they’re gone. In July when they swarm due to lack of space— not my problem. In December when they die due to lack of treatment— not my problem.

My only problem is getting them made. It takes time. And lately, time is scarce. Today however, I had a crew.

They were a big help.

Three of them went fishing.

One of them started in a beekeeping flurry, but found that napping in the dandelions was an easier way to pass the time.

Hey, beekeeping can be hard work.

But it’s nowhere near as hard as people pleasing.

The workers are going home

-Posted by Isaac

So how’s the pandemic going for you?

That’s great!

I’m, like you, trying to wrap my head around this thing. And I can’t. It seems like a best-of-times, worst-of-times type of thing.

To tell you the truth, we’re sort of enjoying ourselves. Homeschooling at Honeyrun Farm:

Science-

And more science—

And more—

Out on the range…

…and into the woods

…and out on the water

…and back to the woods

…finding and foraging

…and planting

…and growing.

We’ve got the natural sciences covered.

But social studies, not so much. Myself, I’m stuck on PANDEMIC 101. While we hide ourselves, sorta schooling, sorta working, the history of this moment grinds on. Day by day.

Remember a month ago? The virus starts spreading on home turf and we see memes and messages everywhere: We’re all in this together.

I’m not seeing this so much anymore. All of us still want to beat this thing and get back to normal, but part of us want “normal” to be right now. And they’re loud about it.

We’re picking teams again. And me being the sympathizer, the fence-sitter, I’m seeing it from both sides. It’s hard. Which team do I choose? Social Studies is definitely tougher than Science.

Usually I can find my bearings by stepping back and looking at things from a distance.

And when you look at it that way, it starts to make sense.

Sometimes a friend on Facebook will help you out. A beekeeping buddy of mine has had segments with this handsome guy on his news feed. This is the first I’ve taken the time to watch.

That settled the question even further. The handsome guy sort of consolidated my wondering thoughts. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what happens when a fantasy (“back to normal”) crashes headlong into a hard truth (the virus spreads and kills.)

And then there’s always old friends. Here’s an old construction buddy:

He’s still doing construction these 25 years later, but now he’s the big shot foreman on big projects. He’s not going back until there’s a vaccine… official “reopening” or not. And I can’t imagine he’s the only one who feels this way.

Kind of hard to keep that economy chugging without the chuggers.

So that clenched it for me. I’m choosing my team. Whew! That had me worried. Social Studies will eat you alive. If they could only present the stuff as sort of a math function.

VIRUS=SPREAD=DEATH=FEAR=SHUTDOWN=PROTESTS=REOPENING=VIRUS=SPREAD=DEATH=FEAR=SHUTDOWN=PROTESTS=REOPENING=VIRUS…..…to societal meltdown or vaccine. Whichever comes first.

That little text conversation got me thinking of a Weezer song about workers getting screwed by the system— Jonas. And wouldn’t you know it, just a few minutes later the very song came up on my Pandora music feed.

I had to laugh. The dozer will not clear a path… the driver swears he learned his math…

THE WORKERS ARE GOING HOME!

Let’s just hope they never decide to protest.

Make me an angel

-Posted by Isaac

But that was a long time, and no matter how I try

The years just flow by like a broken down dam

We lost a songwriting legend this week.

I think it was Jayne who got me started on John Prine, a mix CD when we were first dating. We were soon playing his songs in the bars and open mics. This was in Colorado and Montana. He came to Missoula when we were out there, and being penny pinchers, we decided that we just couldn’t afford it. Years later, he headlined the Red Ants Pants festival in Sulphur Springs MT, but we missed him again. Finally, thankfully, we joined our good friends Mike and Angie and caught him here in Columbus. At the sold-out Ohio Theater. What a treat!

John Prine can move you. His songs tell stories, they make you think. Lake Marie. And a few will make you cry. Summer’s End. Hello in there. Or, at least I cry. I’m a softie. I swear, every time. Here’s one that does it to me:

I’ll let you listen and we can cry together,

…thinking about the time passing. And of course, thinking about bees.

This week we made nucs. (Angels?) A lot of them. And I’ll show you the process.

The prepping starts weeks in advance— building boxes and frames, fitting entrance plugs, snapping in foundation, etc…

Now we have a nice shop… makes it look all professional :)

You take the boxes out to the bees, usually needing a four-wheel drive this time of year. This group was at home, so they were easy.

Got to have your queens in early April.

If the splitting is going to take a while, more than a few days, you might as well bank those queens.

And start in.

A nuc is 2-3 frames of brood (ideally capped brood), a frame of honey and a frame of foundation or drawn comb.

You can either spend time finding the queen, or use queen excluders (the silvery screen in the background above). Either way, you need to know which box she’s in, and where she’s not.

This is the first year I’ve seen a lot of queen cups in early April. (Because of the almond pollen flow in February.)

You’ve got to cut the cups. The bees shouldn’t be thinking about making their own queen when you’re giving them an expensive bred queen.

A high queen placement will help keep her warm during these cold nights.

After the nuc is made up, the original hive gets the new replacement frames and some diluted sugar syrup to stimulate comb building.

In this case, I couldn’t just place the nucs in our normal spot next to the goat pen. All the older bees would go back to their original hives. I learned my lesson from last year’s Easter disaster.

Fortunately Becky and Justin at Tilley Farmstead live not far away. They have a nice bee-friendly spot out of the wind. (After I hauled them over and scattered everything, I politely asked permission.)

Permission granted!

Here our little angels will mature for a couple weeks. I’ll eventually make it back around, check the queen’s progress and colony growth, then they’re off to somewhere in the wide world beyond. To parts unknown. In a month each one will be somebody else’s angel.

Honey, that ain't what I'm sayin'.

-Posted by Isaac

What a busy, awesome, exhausting week. I’m so thankful that I somehow lucked into this job. I get to socially isolate myself, working all the while, watching the seasons turn.

And I’m also thankful I have a patient, understanding, wonderful wife. Jayne takes on the lion’s share of homeschooling duties, and at the same time she manages the storm in the honey house. People need honey! They’re hoarding the stuff like it’s a cure for the virus. (I ain’t sayin’ it is… but I ain’t sayin’ it ain’t!) Grocery store orders have doubled, online sales are through the roof. On top of this, we’ve cut and staggered hours with Katie, Hannah and Lafe. It’s the right thing to do to keep everyone here healthy.

All this to say, they days are filled! And I’m the lucky fool who gets to manage the honey bee side of this storm.

This week the world started to pop with life and color. Suddenly I’m not nearly as distracted. (What pandemic??) There are far more pressing things than covid 19.

The willows are kicking in, and the deadnettle spreads in purple carpets across the no-till corn stubble. Yellow and red pollen flow in gushers.

I’m seeing more and more queen cups (Time to swarm!) and I’m not sure I can keep up. What an awesome problem.

Originally I thought I’d split everything here at home, make up a few hundred nucs, then move hives to the out yards at my leisure.

Nope.

I did my level best…

But the hives are just too big. And there are too many of them. And the flow is on!

So we switched directions. It was a dry week, and I decided that the time would be best spent moving bees…

…to their summer homes.

To the waiting deadnettle…

…and the oncoming honeysuckle.

All but the first sixty got moved. And I threw on a super for good measure. Maybe it will alleviate a little swarm pressure, aside from collecting deadnettle honey. We’ll get to the splitting when we can.

In order to split this early, you need queens.

And the first of my regular orders won’t be here until next week. What to do??

Well, JJ helped me out.

In the middle of the storm, the bee craziness, and the honey house craziness, I made a trip to Georgia. It was time to pick up package bees. Maizy called it a vacation. Ha!

It was anything but.

Hotel Ford

32 hours, down and back. A total of six hours sleeping in the truck, trying to avoid people. I didn’t want to take unnecessary risks.

That’s not to say that everyone was on the same wavelength. Although there were plenty of pandemic reminders on the freeways and constant radio news updates, you wouldn’t know it in southern Georgia. I drove through bustling small towns, past full parking lots, watched crowds gather around picnic tables in front of the Dairy Queen. Hmmm… made me think of something a friend posted:

I was gassing up in Jesup, and got laughing about this with the lady across from me. “Wow, it’s really different down here. Everybody up north is hiding in their houses, wearing masks and everything…”

Here’s what she said, verbatim: “Honey, I ain’t worried about all that. I figure if it’s my time to go (shrugging), it’s my time to go.”

I laughed. Maybe not the appropriate response. But she laughed with me. Sometimes I’d like to insert an emoji into conversations.

It gave me something to ponder while I focused on getting those bees home… risk and reward… Just keeping that old truck running was risk enough.

But it made it. Once again. A $500 truck carrying $10,000 of bees.

Praise Ford! (From whom small blessings flow.)

I got back by noon on Wednesday, we spent the rest of the day hiving packages and feeding.

A blur of a trip. But you know what? I got those queens!

JJ was able to part with about 100 extra. Wish it was more.

We’ll be burning through them soon enough. Splitting starts today.