At least there's still ice cream

-Posted by Isaac

“If we’re going to commit suicide as a nation, I guess I’d prefer nuclear war. What we’re doing now is really taxing my patience.”

That was an Isaac Barnes quote from the bee yard. Well, from a shelter house near the bee yard. I had the kids with me, and we took a little lunch break. As an exemplary parent, I found my way to Facebook while they fought over the pop.

It was a buddy’s post that brought out the comment. The meme showed the raw escalating Covid numbers in juxtaposition with some recent Trump quotes where he was trying to somehow give the whole debacle a rosy shine.

I guess I was feeling somewhat fatalistic.

Come to think of it, the morning had fatalism coming at all angles. First it was Bridger.

My future rock star. Listening to the radio he says, “Dad, is this 93.3 The Bus?! They play the best music. I love this song!”

(AC/DC’s ‘Highway To Hell’ had just come on.) Oh boy.

After that shaky little laugh, Mason gave me more of a hearty laugh. We were riding along, passing the usual proud multitude of TRUMP 2020 banners. He says, “Keep America great? …Dad, aren’t we still in a pandemic?”

Now that was funny.

(Well son, I think we are. I guess it all depends on where you get your news.)

Thank God for the bees.

They keep me hustling. Even when I pay attention to the news, I can’t afford to dwell on it.

The very day we finished up with the dark tulip poplar from the eastern yards,

(14 buckets this year. Not great, but good enough to carry us through!)

I was already running late to get a second mite treatment on the hives.

So I went right back to it.

The first treatment came while the spring honey was being pulled. Due to the way the brood cycle and the mite cycle line up, it’s good to treat again within two weeks.

Plus, it was high time to get those hives supered up for the summer flow.

The Bee Man watched it all happen this year.

Not a minute too soon. The soybeans are starting to bloom. I noticed a trickle of nectar coming in during the early part of the week.

By Thursday it was a gusher.

This intense heat helps. I don’t know why. With the honeysuckle, you can fill boxes and boxes with 70 degree temps. It takes at least mid-eighties to make gobs of summer honey.

And gobs it is. So far, so good. We’re only at the beginning.

Will those storm clouds hold off for a few more weeks?

And the bigger, broader question— Will those Covid storm clouds hold off for a few more months? It’s not looking good. When’s this vaccine coming, anyway? January?

Not looking good.

Thankfully, for now, we’ve got bigger and more pressing worries than the impending societal meltdown.

Happy Fourth!

-posted by Jayne.

It’s been a beautiful July 4th so far, and the day can only get better, as I am done working. We had a farmer’s market in Worthington today (apparently some folks missed the memo, as it was one of our slowest we’ve had in years.) Nonetheless it was a beautiful, hot day and we celebrated America by buying corn, watermelon, cucumbers, and green beans. And honey!

This week, I received a message from an old college friend, Katie, who leads a Daisy girl scout troop of 6 year olds in Columbus. She mentioned they were reading a story about a bee garden and one of the activities was to visit a local garden or farmers market and ask them how they use resources wisely. She asked if I was willing to make a quick little video about bees and a way we “use our resources wisely.”

So I came up with this- the story about how we use beeswax cappings to create value added products from the hive, and uploaded the video to YouTube.

I realized after I watched the video that I had left out one important step. We actually pour the beeswax through a mesh screen filter in the first filtering process. It’s an important step I shouldn’t have left out if I was speaking at a beekeeping conference. I don’t think the 6 year old Daisy girl scouts will mind though.

I’ve also discovered a great recipe resource at www.beesource.com, a forum for beekeepers. They have an entire section designated for recipes, and this week I tried a delicious honey mustard dressing. If your summer garden is beginning to overflow with vegetables, and you need something a little tangy and sweet to dress them up- I highly recommend this recipe.

Homemade Honey Mustard Dressing

If you have any other honey recipes you’d like to share in the comments below- please do! We’d love to try them out. Have a great week.

Perspective

-Posted by Isaac

I think it’s been the best spring honey year we’ve ever had.

Just incredible.

And I do believe I called that back in March.

For twenty days now, the caked-out supers have come off the hives. One by one, the thick honey laden frames are run through the system.

Wax goes in one direction.

Honey goes the other.

The mountain of buckets grows…

and grows…

When we pull the summer and fall honey, it goes into drums. I guess we should’ve thought of that for the spring honey this year. There’s a lot of it.

And not only that, it’s the most beautiful honey you’ve ever seen.

Feel free to come down and try some. Priced at wholesale in the farmstand!

The last I checked in with you, I was muddling along, having only pulled two yards.

Now I’ve only got two to go. We’ll be finished in a few days. Even with all the (welcome) distractions.

The birthday pigs had their first meal of stale popcorn.

Then figured out any and all ways to escape.

I was in a bee yard the other day and Jayne texted me the above photo. With one word: Pigs.

So far, they’ve escaped at least four times. And I thought that pen was bulletproof. The darn things are just so much smarter than bullets.

Same with the honey equipment. I thought our stuff was built to last.

Maybe it’s the extra honey weight from an awesome season… I don’t know, but we’re sure repairing a lot of frames and boxes.

Mishaps happen.

The summer vacation (which started in March) has been abnormally full of free time. We’re on pandemic scheduling. No camps, no festivals, fewer road trips… our kids are suddenly finding out what it was like for me as a kid.

The world is a big place. Knock yourself out.

I’ve taken them with me several times. While I work the bees, they hike around, build forts, find things to do.

Sometimes it works out.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

A sting or two can make any great day turn ugly.

It also makes riding with dad a health hazard. So for the most part, I’m alone in the yards. If I work fast, I can keep up with Lafe in the extracting room. Sometimes it works out.

Other times I like to sit around and take it in. For no obvious reason.

I switched from podcasts to mostly music this week. Introspective music. I think it spurred my thinking.

About a week ago Jayne and I, Wittenberg alums, received a sad email about some changes the college was forced to make. Among other bad news was the shock that they’re canning the geology program. My major.

I didn’t take it very well. For about a day. Why would they do away with the best, most important, most valuable program in the whole university? Then, slowly, my anger and disappointment gave way to gratitude. Then a wave of memories. The people, places, professors… the field camps… what we learned. Or failed to learn. I’m so thankful. I found myself in such a quirky, highly intelligent, unique group— enlightened dirtbags. In retrospect, so influential. More than any other batch of friends or jobs or interests, the time with those people, the undergrad geology years, changed my perspective.

For the better. I never did use my degree, but I use it every day.

I’m pretty sure I’ve touched on thinking like a geologist in some of these posts.

Sure wish I could go back. Just one more camping trip or hike up a mountain. I need more enlightened dirtbags around. Echos of burnt red Chugwater Sandstone, clear cold water, boots and rock hammers and compasses, the deep blue Wyoming sky. Why did we ever leave that?

Are they using their geology as much as I use mine?

True story— I think this happened near Phoenix. A day after the horrific plane crash killing all passengers and crew, a reporter asked different religious leaders for words of condolence and counsel. Was there a reason for this tragedy? Having received the wise words and expected explanations, the reporter contacted a Buddhist monk and asked the same question. The monk reflected a moment and said, “Reason? The reason for death is… life.”

So Wittenberg dropped the geology program.

Sometimes things don’t work out.

And sometimes they do.

New Location, Same old Market

-Posted by Jayne

The Worthington Farmer’s Market has settled into a new location for the 2020 Summer season, due to COVID restrictions. The new walk-up market features a one-way route, with limited amounts of shoppers entering to allow for social distancing. Park at 500 W. Wilson Bridge Road, and follow the signs to the entrance. You will find our booth about half way down on the left, in the “honey and maple syrup” section. You are still welcome to pre-order for pickup, but we’ll also make sure to bring plenty of our regular items for you to purchase if you forget to pre-order.

Market Hours:

8am-9am: Reserved for high-risk and vulnerable shoppers (senior citizens, immune-compromised, etc.) Masks are REQUIRED when shopping during this first hour.

9am-12pm: All shoppers are welcome and strongly encouraged to wear a facial covering in support of the health of vendors, volunteers, staff and other customers.

In other news- I turned 40 this week, and upon return from a girls getaway weekend with some friends, I was gifted 4 beautiful Yorkshire pigs. I’ve been hinting to Isaac for the past few years that I wanted to raise pigs and I suppose turning 40 was a big enough occasion to warrant the work required to build a new sturdy pen. We’ve already had a great time watching them root up our backyard, and the daily chase to get them back in the pen when they find a way to escape (which has happened twice in the last 2 days!)

And the most important news of the week- we have freshly harvested Spring honey for sale! You can find it at the Worthington Farmer’s Market, at our farmstand here on Randle Road, as well as in the grocery stores that carry our honey. Find the complete list here.

Fits and starts

-Posted by Isaac

Are you tired of the social commentary? Me, in my perfect white world, me with my idiotic solutions to social problems. I’m tired of it. And I think Jayne is too. Or maybe a little embarrassed? Quite possibly.

Whatever it was, there were rumblings of her doing the blog this week and letting me off the hook. I guess she had a cool video of Bridger helping with the honey extraction.

And, go figure, it didn’t happen.

I can’t even pester her about it. This morning she ran off to the mountains of Virginia with her girlfriends. I’m stuck with all this (and the kids) for three days.

And you’re stuck with me.

The good news is, I’ll spare you the social commentary. I’m asserting my ultimate white privilege— ignoring the world’s problems.

So we rely on the old fallback. I’ll inundate you with what’s in my phone, and try to scaffold a story together.

What I thought would be the big story— We started pulling and extracting honey this week. It’s been beautiful. It’s been awesome. There’s sure nothing like that first bright floral taste of brilliant white, spring honey.

But the real story, according to what’s in my phone, is everything else that’s happened in lieu of the honey extraction.

Like that cat. Our prodigy. Our phenom. We have four or five half-wild cats running around, and this one has been putting on a show. Every evening he or she will walk the fence all the way around. It’s probably over a quarter mile of balancing. We watch amazed. No wonder I can’t get any bee work done. I’m not gonna miss the cat show.

And then there was the hay.

Make hay when the sun shines, they say. And that’s what we did. It put a halt to the bees for a few days.

Was it worth it? Well, if you’re talking money-wise, not by a long shot.

But at least our little ladies are happy.

And with the hay cut, it made for a few starry nights down by the creek. We called this “Hay Camp.”

Even got around to planting some sunflowers.

Hopefully they’ll outgrow the next cutting.

Did you know Pickaway County has a coronavirus forcefield? Our county fair is still on!

So Cliff needs walked every day. That’s been a distraction.

Another distraction— I’m still selling nucs.

A few more, hopefully the last few, took off this week for parts unknown.

But my other nucs, my babies, are all grown up. They’re heading for the out yards.

Aren’t they beautiful?

I’ve been moving bees on these gorgeous early June mornings. Every morning I think, my God, am I not the luckiest bastard alive?

During the day, I would get around to checking and feeding those babies.

Dodging storms on a few afternoons.

The heat brought the rain. And it also brought multiple trips to Frosties.

Our one-stop bait shop / ice cream retreat. I see Maizy was the only one taking Covid 19 seriously.

Soon came the catalpa bloom.

Right on time—first week of June. Which makes the nonexistent black locust bloom even more mysterious.

Somewhere in there I had to take a quick trip to Amish country.

Where the strapping young lads loaded me with next year’s boxes. The Amish don’t furlough employees (sons and daughters) on account of some little pandemic.

Because of the pandemic, our trip to the Hocking Hills was a bit different.

The parks were closed, so we found alternative hikes.

And I found alternative roads to run.

Isaac Barnes—Please summarize your life in four words:

Back home again, still more distractions.

Twice a year, we’ve got to send a barrel and buckets away to get turned into honey sticks.

You wouldn’t believe the hang-ups that can be caused by a pandemic. It turned a two-day process into a week. And that’s just getting them out of here.

So eventually, maybe this coming week?, we’ll find our way to the bees. Two yards are pulled. (43 to go!) I think I can knock off an average of three a day if I could only free myself from all these fits and starts.

Maybe next week Jayne (or I) will tell you all about this year’s Spring Harvest.

It’s beautiful stuff, I’m telling you.

…But then again, there is that cat to think about…