Weekend Update

It's going to be such a great weekend. Saturday we are going to be at Start High School in Toledo Ohio for their craft show and on Sunday we will be with the Ladies of the Old West End for their annual Tour de Noel (which we have been a part of for the last 4 years!). Dana will be at the Toledo Farm Market downtown at Erie Street on Saturday from 9:00-1:00. So we have our bases covered and if you need anything you should be able to find us somewhere!
I'm sending the holiday candles along with some beautiful light honey downtown with Dana. I really should have marked the buckets as I took them in but at least this way I am pleasantly surprised.
Monday I'm heading to my Mamasita's and will get to spend a short but I'm sure jam packed four days home. Return home on Friday and will be at Market on Saturday and will be at the Toledo Craftmans' Guild show at Lourdes College on Saturday!
I'm so busy that even I feel like I'm in a whirlwind!

Warm weather in Michigan.

The weather the last few days here has been amazing. If I wasn't so busy with getting inside stuff done for the upcoming craft shows I would have loved to have spent more time outside.
Today though it looks like I'll get some time in the bee yard.
While taking pictures of all the flowers and flowering kale

I have still outside this late in the season I stopped by a few of the hives to check on them and when I went to lift them up I noticed they were a bit light. What I mean by that is they should all weigh over 100 lbs. each so that they can get through the winter with more than enough honey. When Jim came home last night he told me where the boxes of honey we didn't extract were so I'll head to the barn and load a few up to put on some of the hives. I'm so glad we decided to hold onto more honey for the bees than we did last year. When the weather is this nice the girls like to head out and fly and look for food and when there isn't any well they end up using what is stored up in the hives. That means there is less food to get them through the winter. Get it now?

So between getting things together for the

LUCAS COUNTY REC CENTER Sat 10a-5p and Sun 11a-4p admission is $4.00 children 12 & under free (You name it they will have it...)

and feeding the bees I'm gonna have a pretty busy day. . .

Hope to see those of you in the area down at the Rec Center!

Craft shows coming down the pike. . .

This Saturday my daughter Dana will be at the market making sure that anyone there looking for our products will be able to buy them, while I'm going to be in Sylvania at the High School from I think 10-4. I've been busy making sure we have enough of our products for both markets and just put together the table for the craft show.
What do you think?

Pumpkin Fest at the Market

I passed my Test!!!!

Remember the test I was so stressed about? The one I had to miss a Wed. market to take. Well, I actually passed. I was sure I wouldn't and I didn't do half bad. I scored a 100% on the legal part of the test. I still don't understand what a beekeeper who doesn't deal with meat had to take a test all about hazardous food issues. Honey isn't a dangerous food.

We finished our extracting and our bees did a fabulous job. I should have more than enough to get me through my markets. We found another box of cut comb so I'll be able to bring that to market too!

Celebrating National Honey Day was a blast. Dana my daughter came down to be my
"Big Bee"

She looked darling while I look like I was just sucking on lemons. . . .It was a long day and seeing the kids smile made it perfect. My husband Jim jumped in and helped out by bringing the observation hive and giving out out the prizes for the kids. They loved him and by the time he left he was being called "The Honey Man!":)

Life has been good to us here on the bee farm. Got to squeeze in a visit to my Aunt and Uncles and visit with some cousins, that was great!
This weekend we are at Kapnick Orchards in Tecumseh Michigan for their Apple Umpkin Festival, don't worry we will still be at the market too! Dana is going to work at the market while I think I'm going to be at Kapnick's. Hopefully we will see you at one of the two locations.
Meanwhile, have a great week!

Visitors to the Bee Yard

Photo's to follow. . .
We had a really great Saturday night after market. Lori (Homestead Soaps) and her three children came out to visit. Jerry and Lilly put on bee suits and spent time with the bees. Jim gave them a really good guided tour and it was hard for me to tell who was having a better time, the kids or Jim. After a short dinner break the kids got to see how honey was extracted and took some home with them. It was late when they left and Lori said it didn't take much to get the kids into bed. It was the first time I'd been able to see Jim show off the girls in the Bee Yard and he did such a nice job. I was so impressed with how he explained things to the kids and he was really interested in making sure they understood what was going on out there. When I was listening to him it made me smile from ear to ear.
Then tonight I was coming in from cleaning up the candle area when we heard someone pull up out side, it was Jane and Jim coming to see the girls too. I asked Jim if he wouldn't mind taking them out to the yard and before I knew it he was headed out looking for Jackets and getting his smoker lit. I think he really enjoys this whole end of the bee business. If I seem a bit surprised it's because Jim has usually been the quiet shy one of the two of us and it's almost like "A Star is Born!" I took some pictures of all of them and in the process got stung, and within a few more minutes I got stung two more times. That's when I decided enough is enough and I headed back to the garage to shut things off while they ended their tour of the bee yard.
Jane had brought us some bread and we invited them in and showed them the house. They had never been here before and after they saw the house they visited with us a little bit before they left.
It was nice to have company but it was nice to settle down and watch the race on tv too! Kasey Kahne won and totally came out of nowhere this week. It was good to see him win, but Tony Stewart it's time to get back in the game!
Have a good night, if I get a chance I'll put up some pictures tomorrow evening of our "little visitors."

Life in the Bee Yard!

Well we have had a few ups and we have had a few downs this week. Right now my truck is out of commission, the four wheel drive wants to start whenever it wants to start. Not a good thing when you are driving down the highway. Instead of getting all stressed, I'm thinking it's God's way of telling me I've got other stuff to take care of. So I'm focusing today on getting the extractor area taken care of. Jim made the most awesome stand for me. He's been busy working on nuc boxes (Small hives, only 4 or 5 frames each). After our great visit to Uncle Ted and Aunt Mars house, Jim got inspired to try to overwinter like Uncle Ted has been able to do. So we will try and see if it works out. We are trying to increase our hive size without buying new bees every year.

I also came across a great video which I've put as a link to the right of the daily updates. "Do the Honey Bee!"



If this doesn't make you laugh I don't know what would!!!!

Can't you see a whole bunch of us at the farm market doing this?

What part would you play?