From the Hive…

Beekeepers have harvested their fall honey and hopefully had luck ordering bottles to fill with their local liquid ‘gold’. I’ve made efforts to ensure colony survival through winter by wrapping my hives with black tar paper, to provide an extra wind break and a bit of solar warmth; while also adding a shim under the telescoping cover to pitch snowmelt and rain to the back of each hive. I’ve slightly raised the rear side of each hive to ensure any moisture on the solid bottom board of a hive drains forward, out the lower hive entrance. A few weeks ago I placed about 3 pounds of sweet fondant on the top frames of each of my hives, which the bees will ideally come across to sustain them if emergency food reserves are needed for the last push through a potential cold snap in early spring. The bees have sealed their hive cracks and crevices with propolis for the winter and I continually shift my attention from the bees to their honey and how best to share the sacred sweetness.

Many beekeepers haven’t been on the holiday market or seasonal craft fair scene since the beginning of the pandemic. Honey demand soared in spring 2020 with honeystand sales and retail orders boosting health and immunity. As farmers markets, shops, and restaurants met mandates and customers grew cautious, many closed temporarily or slowly went out of business. Invitations to offer honey tastings and direct sales tapered off. Now, with shipping containers sailing at a slow pace, gas prices rising, and online delivery speed unpredictable, there is more cause than ever to consider buying local as we enter the gift-giving season! Shop small! Support your local beekeeper! And, help honey producers bounce back along with the small businesses that support them!

Small Business Saturday is perfectly timed for November 27, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a day before the start of Hanukkah, just over a week before Bodhi Day, and a month before Winter Solstice and Christmas. Skipping the hassle of scrolling Amazon and shopping big box stores can bring you unique and memorable experiences, with local honey sweetening the deal! With hives tucked in for the winter, beekeepers and their retail locations are stocked with bottled honey, ready for sale and sharing. Happbee gift-giving!

Originally published to https://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/2021/11/26/from-the-hive-sweeten-your-shopping-this-season/

I’ve tasted many types of honey, seasonal and varietal from multiple locations, but I have never settled on a favorite as they all seem sacred and respectfully one of a kind to me. Think of a recent chance you had to taste honey. Maybe it was plain by the spoonful, smothered on a warm biscuit, or swirled into a mug of hot tea. Was it transparent white or an opaque amber? Did you purchase it from a local beekeeper or store? What was in the bouquet of flavors? How easy is it for you to discern your tasting experience?

I held a honey tasting recently and feedback received for my Worker’s Ransom single-hive honey samples was complimentary — “sweet!” “smooth!” “oh, very floral”. I challenged tasters to deliver deeper descriptors for the flavor, aroma, and texture of the honey from each spoonful. Rather than expressing “plain” “normal”, or “tastes like honey to me”, words like, “caramel, citrus, buttery, fruity, rich, and smooth” were echoed by tasters. Each honey was distinguishable not only by flavor but by texture, color, and scent!

A very direct shopper pursued a specific honey, asking, “Do you sell regular honey? I just want normal honey.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by “regular” or “normal” so I took the opportunity to explain the process I use to collect and bottle my bee’s raw honey. She first tasted an early season, color-of-lemonade honey that, by it’s menthol, minty pungence, clearly originated from early season Linden or Basswood tree nectar. She finished the honey series with one produced by bees foraging on early spring apple and pear blossoms. After tasting each honey, she affirmed with surprise, “You’re right! Those are better than regular honey!” I chuckled, emphasizing that our honey is a unique, seasonal snapshot, bottled by the hive, never blended between boxes or locations.

As you shop for and select a local honey, take a taste from the beekeeper sharing it with you. Even local honey can have varied characteristics defined by when, where and from what it was created by the honey bees. It is a special experience to share our honey, knowing that it will never be described to be regular.

“Bee Happy!” “Beelieve!” “Bee Humble!” “Bee Good!”

These bee phrases seem to be catchy buzzwords nowadays as more clothing and household items, like mugs, flour canisters, doormats, jewelry, and towels are imprinted in calligraphy script. It’s as if subtle daily reminders are needed of how simple and pleasant life can “bee” (sorry, had to do it!) if we could all just “let it bee” so. Beyond the play on words, these coined expressions also echo in my mind as a beekeeper entering the pollinator season!

Bee Kind!
Yesterday evening, during the short break between the end of the workday and sunset, I sped off to tend to my seven remaining beehives. There wasn’t enough time for full inspections but I was minimally able to consider their status and needs. My first immediate determination was that I will need to return to the hives this weekend for more care and attention. One of the challenges of having hives on multiple properties is that a hive check actually means two visits for me—one trip to assess needs and another to meet needs. In addition to discovering one more hive lost (that’s 40% survival this winter now), I took a tally of ways I could help my live hives thrive.

I took note of which live hives were low in weight and where I could possibly move frames of honey from dead hives to support live hives; which hives had strong enough populations that may be able to be split to create two colonies; which hive boxes had thieving ant colonies needing repelling mint sprigs or cinnamon sticks added to their inner covers; and which boxes and frame combinations were in good enough condition to support new colonies, like the swarms of early spring.

Bee Curious!
I often receive inquisitive phone calls about the removal of honeybee swarms from the cozy crevasses of light posts, tree branches, garden sheds, or farm equipment. Onlookers admire the swarm of bees, but are puzzled yet amazed by how docile they are. Swarming is a natural phenomenon in which a honeybee colony eases overcrowding or discomfort by dividing itself into two and, partially or completely, leaving the hive. Prior to swarm departure, a new queen bee is made by the existing colony in preparation for roughly half of that colony to leave with the old queen and relocate. Because they are traveling with only what they have in their stomachs, and have no actual hive to defend, swarms are typically easier to handle.

Bee Brave!
If successful at capturing a swarm from their resting spot, which often entails me balancing a box of bees upon my shoulder, one-armed down a ladder in my full bee suit, I place it into one of my vacant hive boxes and hope that they find it acceptable to stay. Besides collecting swarms to recover colony numbers after winter loss, beekeepers can also split their strongest colonies, and/ or contemplate purchasing bees, which I decided to do this year, in hopes of easing winter setbacks.

As I visit my hives, I am reminded of their vulnerabilities, challenges, perseverance, and outstanding potential. With every hive check, I am prompted by the bees to remain humble, to believe in their capabilities and potential, and to grasp all the kindness, bravery, and happiness beekeeping bestows upon me.

Originally published at https://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/2021/04/15/from-the-hive-entering-the-pollinator-season/

“The flower doesn’t dream of the bee, it blossoms and the bee comes” —Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

I’ve been drawn to this quote for many years and I think it is most appropriate to share it now as we recognize the spring equinox. More trees and flowers blossom each day are demonstrating that spring has finally sprung! The joy and fulfillment is in the process of receiving spring! It is in the blooming of the garden that we welcome the bees …. and they come!

In that I am a beekeeper, I am also a gardener. What I love about both dedications is that I am constantly learning and experimenting through trial and error. It makes sense that I love these two complementary hobbies because I get such satisfaction by “blossoming” and waiting for what is to come! Pretty much since the winter equinox, I have been planning my garden and anticipating the timing of nectar flow and pollen availability within my property and neighborhood. With that, I have also been trying to plan my apiary and hive placements. Where will the bees find the most satisfying blossoms? Where will the bees dream of the flowers?

Keep in mind, I do not sow seeds just for the honeybees, but for all pollinators—bees, beetles, flies, birds, bats, moths, etc. As for bees, there are over 415 species in New York State. Most of them are “diggers” or ground-nesting, solitary bees and approximately 20% are eusocial bees, such as the introduced honeybee and the bumblebee.

For these bees, as well as other pollinators, a changing climate, habitat fragmentation, pests, parasites, and pathogens, and pesticide exposure threaten their ability to thrive and complete what we rely on them for—pollination. It’s ironic how “pollinator” has become such a BUZZword. But, all joking aside, inhibiting the simple transfer of pollen between male and female parts of a flower (the act of pollination) is a detriment to the production (quality and quantity) of food, fiber, oils, medicines, and other products and ultimately our quality of life. Think of our pollinators as the essential workers of our habitats and ecosystems.

In early spring, there are far more than flowers blooming. Bees are buzzing toward shrubs, trees, vines, and flowers! This is the time for small flowering fruit trees, like the American plum and native crab apples, and wild strawberries, skunk cabbage, crocus, and serviceberry to open their petals and reveal their pollen loaded flower parts. My raspberries, goji berries, and aronia won’t be too much farther behind. Honeybees are eager to find pollen in the spring as pollen is the protein source to the hive in rearing young bees.

As daytime temps regulate to 55-60 degrees, the bees will seek out more tree sources of nectar and pollen, like flowering dogwood, eastern redbud, elm, maples, hawthorn, and willow. Through my observance of No-Mow May, life literally unfolds into full-blown spring when the dandelions’ timing and distribution provide a lifeline of pollen to the bees. Soon, as the cusp of summer approaches, more plants soon flash their colors as dandelions hold on to spring. Clover, sumac, hairy and purple vetch, and multiple berries can be found in field hedgerows, ditches, right of ways and median strips. In my garden, it is early summer when I begin to see the pink and purple lupine, columbine, and iris in my gardens.

As the hottest months of the summer approach, the gardens and lawn may look colorful and lush, but the flowers in bloom may not be accessible to honeybees, or a passing rain may wash away nectar from flowers making it scarce and more challenging to forage. We experience low levels of available nectar and pollen, not only in the winter, but also in the dry, late summer months bridging spring to fall. This dearth, as beekeepers refer to it, is the time of year the pollinators need a bit of help from you! Through garden planning and property management techniques, you can help your garden and bees, and inadvertently yourself.

To help carry the bees through this period of dearth, and even past goldenrod season, I try to plant late-blooming plants that will ease their travel time to, and simplify their search for, nectar and pollen, like bee balm, dahlias, zinnias, lavender, nasturtium, borage, and anise hyssop. Through the heatwave of late summer, I always keep a bee waterer topped with clean water (pictured) and, after May, I designate a lite-mow zone on my small property to offer continuous foraging through the entire pollinator season. This zone gets mowed on my mower’s highest setting every two weeks or so, which saves me time and money (more beekeeping and gardening!), and it allows many wildflowers, like clover, henbit and yellow hawkweed, to flower in my lawn. The taller grass has a kept look due to my generously spaced mowing practices but is greener, holds more color, and is thriving better than my more regularly, shorter trimmed zones.

As spring unfolds, flowers WILL blossom and the bees WILL come! I encourage those with a strong case of “spring fever” to consider planning your garden’s bloom times to last through the entire pollinator season, and maybe even place a bee waterer out so that they can at least take a rest and drink on their foraging excursions through your neighborhood. Grasp and take in as much accomplishment and elation in the process of spring flowers blossoming and bees coming to each one!

Throughout the winter, beekeepers know how to stay busy! Work that must be done includes preparing for spring by painting boxes, prepping spring feed, ordering bee colonies, purchasing seeds for their pollinator gardens, and attending beekeeping meetings to share all the teaching and lessons that might be helpful for the coming beekeeping season. One other major thing I am doing as I look out my window to single-digit temperatures, falling snow, and the howling wind is … hoping and praying, even manifesting, that my hives are still alive.

I don’t think I am the only beekeeper doing this. Amidst the coldest of days, whatever their spiritual orientation, beekeepers start to downright pray; manifest positive vibes into the universe; and cast pure hope out into the world that their hives are surviving winter.

For me, my first chance of hope is set on Punxsutawney Phil. It’s not like I put all my eggs in the Farmer’s Almanac’s basket, but I was rooting for Phil to have persistent obliviousness on February 2. If he had only been blind to his own shadow, we would be welcoming an early spring and that would have been a saving grace to my hives. Unfortunately, it is now predicted that winter will be staying with us for at least another six weeks, until around March 16.

We are just two weeks into that extension of winter and I am at the point of sending prayers for my hives to survive to those patron saints that are most busy in their afterlife at this time of year—Saint Valentine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Gobnait, Saint Bartholomew, and Saint Gregory—the patron saints of bees and beekeepers. Some patron saints are associated with the opening of flowers, summoning bees to nectar, curing ailments with honey and wax, and even successful mead making, but Valentine’s Day seems to be an ideal time for calling on St. Valentine, with his spiritual responsibility to not only watch over the lives of lovers but to also ensure the sweetness of honey and protection of the beekeeper.

While awaiting answered prayers, I begin to manifest with the Law of Attraction, using the approach that if I think my hives are, and will remain, alive, they will be. If I believe 100% that my hives are alive and well, the universe will make it so. If all of my thoughts, vibrations, and emotions are focused on my hive’s strength and endurance to survive, I will attract that state of well-being to my hives. That seems like a lot of “ifs” but when aligned with my prayers and hope, there could be a chance!

In light of all my calls out to St. Valentine, my hopes for Phil, and visualizations of live hives this month, I draw upon a story of love, honey, and a bee sting that shows how winter beekeeping parallels the love for anything. In Roman mythology, Cupid, the god of love and desire, stole honeycomb from a beehive and brought it to his mother Venus, dripping in honey and complaining of the defensive swarm of bees that gave him stings all over his chubby body. Venus’s reply, written by the Greek poet Theocritus, was “Are you not just like the bee—so little yet able to inflict such painful wounds?” Later Cupid was said to dip his “love arrows” in honey, and speak with a “honey-sweet” tongue to sweeten the deal of being love-struck.

The moral of the story—you can’t have the love, honey, or the sweet side of beekeeping, without the danger of being “stung”, the pain of hive loss, or unanswered prayers. You can’t have the beauty and life of spring without the darkness and death of winter.

Even when the deal is “sweetened”, the prayers, hopes, and vibes ensure mindset, successes, and the sweet life of beekeeping, but always there will be losses or a “sting” to bear that necessitates being viewed through the lens of blessings and thanks in Spring.

Originally published at https://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/2021/02/16/from-the-hive-late-winter-manifesting/

Of my fifteen hives, only one is located at my house, so the wonderings of how my remaining hives are doing are constantly ringing in my ears and on my mind especially through winter evenings. My home hive is nestled in a nook of my house to protect it from the bustling wind and weathering of frigid nights. Facing east to catch the cast of the morning sun, I wrap my hives in black tar paper to attract the warm solar rays of the winter sky. It’s out my bedroom window that I peek through the blinds each morning to see if, or how much, it snowed. My glance always rests on my hive, sending good wishes, hope, and prayers that my bees are still alive and thriving. It is within the hive boxes that the colony holds that same hope and endurance into Spring.

Within the hive, preparations for winter were made by the queen in part by laying her winter bees, also known as diutinus bees. They are raised to live longer, months rather than weeks, and to work harder toward survival through the cold days and nights of the season. As winter approaches and temperatures seep into the 50s, honeybees cluster, forming into a ball-like huddle, around their queen to ensure she and her brood are cared for and warm. 

Consuming honey within the hive for energy, the cluster tightens as the air temperature drops and expands as the air temperature rises, adjusting air flow and conditions within the hive to maintain the brood at 92-95 degrees Fahrenheit within the cluster. That warmth, which is generated by the bees quivering their wings and muscles, may lower to 68 degrees Fahrenheit if the cluster is not maintaining brood. As they tire, the bees at the center of the cluster rotate with the bees at the outer edge. During warmer periods, the entire cluster shifts to new areas of the hive box that contain additional food stores. All of these winter efforts are why beekeepers do not typically describe their hives as hibernating through winter. They are alive, active, and working throughout the season. For each of my hives, I continuously pray that the cluster has enough bees remaining to keep the queen warm enough and that the cluster can migrate to stored honey in time before temperatures drop and the cluster huddles tight again. 

If you follow my Facebook or Instagram thread, I recently shared videos of two winter beekeeping experiences I have had this year. On more mild winter days, bees will exit the hive, typically from the upper hive entrance because it is the warmest route to take out, for a cleansing flight. Bees do not typically defecate within the hive, so they make a quick pit stop and quickly loop back to join her sisters. Although, there are times when she may tire quickly or get too cold to return to the hive. Yesterday,I revived a cold, exhausted, worker bee that I found motionless on my front porch. I warmed her up in my kitchen and fed her a drop of honey and water to later bring her back to the hive to join her cluster. Maybe this level of compassion is extreme, but to me, saving one bee is as important as to saving one hive. 

The earlier video wasn’t as much of a “feel good” experience, as the second, but still an all too familiar reality of winter beekeeping—what beekeepers refer to as deadouts. Painful to observe and discover, honeybee colonies die throughout winter for various reasons and explanations, such as queen strength, colony health, weather, starvation, ventilation, and the state of the hive going into winter. My hive checks over winter are typical to verify hive status and to feed my bees if needed. With low temps, it isn’t in the best interest of the bees to open up a hive for inspection, for it would break their resinous propolis weatherseal and expose the cluster to the cold. Because of this, verifying that the hive is alive isn’t always easy, so some beekeepers use a stethoscope or a thermal camera to see or hear signs of life. Putting an ear up to the hive to listen for the hum of the cluster or looking down into the hive through the inner cover hole can often reveal enough signs of life to bring instant relief to the beekeeper! Silence is the saddest part, and so unfolds the beekeeper’s grieving process.

I know former beekeepers that gave up keeping hives because the stress and sleepless winter nights worrying about their hives was too much to bear and led to anxiety and depression. I don’t deny I’ve had those same feelings as the wind is howling, rain falls rather than snow, and there is nothing more I can really do as a beekeeper until temperatures warm. As daylight extends our days into spring, my winter worries and grief are comforted by the sight of honey bees gathering outside of the sun-warmed hive entrance. From my bedroom window I begin to see young bees taking their first orientation flights and foragers, anxious to stretch their wings, hoarding maple, pussy willow, and dandelion nectar and pollen. Hope is restored! And the apiary, and beekeeper, recovers!

Originally published online at https://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/2021/01/21/from-the-hive-weathering-winter-beekeeping/

I love to travel and when I get a chance to I always bring back a few key things that represent the place that I visited–music, coffee, tea, and of course, honey. I feel as though when I enjoy these local items on my return, I am re-experiencing the place in its entirety. When you consume honey, you are tasting the blossoms of the season and the place in which it was made. When you taste Worker’s Ransom honey, you are tasting the Finger Lakes!

If you are a wine connoisseur, as many of us are in the Finger Lakes, you may be familiar with the French word terroir, meaning “of the earth.” I sometimes relate this term to honey, since, as with grapes to wine, the conditions in which the honey is made and produced give the honey its unique characteristics. One of the most amazing things about honeybees is that their honey carries the essence of the flowers from which they forage. For example, if the bees predominantly visit blueberry blossoms in spring, the honey will carry hints of the blueberry flavor and aroma, making it a varietal, or sometimes referred to as a monofloral or unifloral honey. The blueberry nectar will also affect the honey’s color, texture, sweetness and how quickly the honey may crystalize. Knowing that this natural system exists, beekeepers can manage their hives based on what is in bloom, paired with other factors such as hive location, weather, and season. 

It is somewhat common to find Finger Lakes varietal honey, such as alfalfa, white clover, basswood, black locust, various berries, and wildflower. Its management approach to beekeeping has a level of intensity and attention because the beekeeper decides to manage their hives based on what flowers are blooming within proximity of their hives. The uppermost shallow, wooden boxes of a hive, also known as honey supers, contain primarily honey, rather than brood, pollen, and honey like the lower deeper boxes. Honey supers are added atop hives just prior to bloom time and removed just after the blossoms expire. 

Knowing that the bees likely foraged those blossoms during that peak bloom period, the beekeeper presumes that most of the honey produced within the honey supers will be honey made from nectar of those blossoms.The beekeeper will typically remove all of their honey supers, packed with the varietal honey, from all of their hives and combine it as they extract the honey, and then bottle it for sale.

Worker’s Ransom honey is not varietal honey, but rather single-hive honey. A bit different from varietal, the honey within each of my honey supers is still a sweet snapshot of what the bees were foraging at the time it was produced, but the resulting honey is made from the nectar of a greater diversity of seasonal plants within miles of the hive at the time the bees foraged. The most significant management decision I make to uphold the terroir is that I never mix honey harvested from different hives or honey from different honey supers taken from the same hive. Each bottle of Worker’s Ransom honey is from a single honey super atop a single hive.

In order to bottle my single-hive, single-super honey, a lot more time and attention is required in the steps taken to keep track of my hives, to harvest the honey, and to extract and bottle it, but I do all this to maintain the integrity of the hyper-local, hyper-seasonal honey. Between each honey super I extract, I clean all of my equipment and transition to all new sieves, buckets, bottles, and most importantly labels. I keep a record of each honey super box as to when it was removed from its hive, extracted, and bottled.

When a customer enjoys a bottle of Worker’s Ransom honey, the honey within their bottle will very likely taste, smell, look and feel different than any other bottle of honey produced because their bottle is a one-of-a-kind, brief record of what the bees of that hive were foraging in that location, and at that time of season.

Over the years, I have kept hives in Geneva, Phelps, Stanley, and Waterloo thanks to my strong community of supportive farmers and land-owning friends willing to host my bees in exchange for pollination. Due to hive losses and evaluation of my honey business efficiencies, each year my hive locations seem to shift and change but always remain within a few miles of Geneva. 

Regardless of where my hives are kept, I maintain my practice of producing single-hive, single-box honey with the hope that anyone that tastes Worker’s Ransom honey will re-experience the Finger Lakes over and over, no matter what distance they travel.

Originally published online at https://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/2020/12/19/from-the-hive-single-hive-sweetness/

Ever been invited to a beehive? If you were invited, would you accept the offer? I absolutely love sharing the experience of beekeeping with others. Since setting up my first hive in 2014, I’ve invited students, friends, colleagues, and fellow beekeepers to visit my hives with me. Most often they are enthusiastically willing, but when I offer to pick them up, drive them to my bee yard, and loan them my extra bee suit, the expression on their face sometimes shifts from a huge, ‘“all-in”’ grin to a suspicious ‘“will I get stung?”’ panicked smirk.

Once suited up, I hand my “apprentice” my smoker to pump and puff. Much like the bees, they are distracted by the billowing smoke. The active, somewhat impossible, task of keeping the smoker going gives them something to achieve while we approach the rear of the beehive. I pop open the inner cover, all awhile, talking them through best practices of a hive inspection and offering explanations for what they might experience once the honeybee colony is revealed. 

As I pry a frame loose and snap the propolis seal, I call attention to each detail of the built comb, capped honey, and the many duties a honeybee has over their lifetime. I start to notice my visitor’s shoulders release. Their jaw softens a bit and their eyebrows raise slightly in awe as thousands of honeybees busily wander between and across the honey-filled frames. There are multiple reasons why a hive may not behave so nonchalant toward visitors, but a healthy hive with a strong queen bee could often care less about the curious humans looming over them.

In amazement, my apprentice proudly holds up a full, 5 lb. frame of honey as the honeybees maintain focus on their tasks. Visiting the hive is exhilarating for the “new-bee” and their questions about the colony, the colors of honey, and seasonal changes within the hive almost form into an interrogation of the beekeeper. What immediately silences them is a lift of their protective veil and a lick of local honey dripping from my hive tool. 

Having personally pursued beekeeping with only a quick, inspiring read of The Beekeepers Lament and absolutely no hands-on experience or exposure to honeybees, I hope that accepting an invitation to a beehive inspires curiosity and deeper intrigue, and may even propel someone into an exploration of the world of honeybees, pollination, honey, beekeeping, and maybe even farming or entrepreneurship.

After setting my intention to become a beekeeper, I took a beginner beekeeping class to wrap my head, and my budget, around what exactly I was getting into—basically adopting livestock. I recommend a comparable class to any aspiring beekeeper before they commit to overseeing their first colony. 

I found an amazing mentor and took that same class every winter for my first 4 years, knowing that there is always something to learn about keeping honeybees, but also that our understanding of the hive is constantly shifting and often based on trial and error, research, and experiential learning. 

I’ve realized that these are all of the same reasons why I love beekeeping so much! I am constantly learning and experimenting in order to try to figure things out. The most gratifying part of being a beekeeper for me isn’t actually the size of my honey haul or the number of bottles sold, but the fact that I can revel in what is still to learn and experience, and that I can keep the invitation open to anyone wanting to visit the hive with me.

Originally published online at https://www.ediblefingerlakes.com/2020/11/21/from-the-hive-workers-ransom/