The Pleasures of Eating

-posted by Jayne

What is new on the farm?  We've been tending to our chickens; there's the new batch of laying hens, still in their "teenage years" as I like to think of it.

And then there are the broilers...

Not so cute.  White Mountain Broilers - bred to eat and grow large breasts... and not very smart.  We started with 35 and are now down to 22.  Possums, fox, weasels, mink... who knows what else, have gotten into the pen and steadily decreased our number.  Pretty sad, and my own fault for not doing a better job at securing the fences.  But these birds are pretty easy targets.  They grow very rapidly, producing large breasts which make them sort of front and top heavy.  This makes it hard for them to walk up and down the little ramp leading in and out of the chicken coop.  Even a slow, lumbering possum can snatch up one of these chickens in a matter of minutes.  As much as I love raising good quality meat for our familiy, I am tempted to give up on raising broilers.  I'm not very good at shooting possum (yuck), and it isn't really fair of me to ask Isaac to do this for me everytime one gets into the chicken house.  Okay, I admit, I've never tried to shoot a possum, so I don't know if I'm good at it or not.  But I don't want to try.  If I could only convince Isaac to build me a chicken tractor...

Some of you readers may be wondering how and why we raise our own meat birds.  I'm often asked, "Isn't it so hard to raise something you will eventually slaughter and eat?"  My answer has always been that I'd rather eat an animal that was humanely raised and had a good life, than one that lived in confinement and was treated poorly, not to mention washed in a bleach bath during butchering.  We do our best to eat responsibly.  I love the Wendell Berry essay "The Pleasures of Eating" where he explains how eating is an agricultural act, and that how we eat determines how the world is used.  He says on the topic of eating animals one has raised, "Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude.  A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes."  

It is important to me that my kids fully know and understand where their food comes from, and how it is grown/raised.  I imagine many of you reading this feel the same way about your food, since you are reading a blog from a small family farm.  You want to know a little more about how and why a family would choose to make a living raising honey bees, and how that honey was produced.  We are glad there are others out there like us who see the important connection between the land, the food we eat, and the importance of how the animals and plants are raised.  If you have a few minutes, you should visit the link above and take the time to read Wendell Berry's essay.  Not only will you be inspired to do even more to take part in your own food production, but you will also learn a little more about the philosophy that guides our own beliefs; who we are and why we do what we do.  

I leave you with a few more sentences from Berry's essay:


Eating with the fullest pleasure — pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance — is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.

Blooms and Bait Hives

-Posted by Isaac

The bees are back!

 Four late nights got them all out of the apples and back home to make some spring honey. I increased the size of the 'good' locations this year, putting upwards of twenty hives in some.

Here's "Johnny's Yard", about three miles away.   

A few of the bee yards which were surrounded by nothing but corn fields, I took out altogether. No more 'honey rent' for those folks. Sorry.

Here's "Ann's Yard." 

These girls get the royal treatment: an old hog barn.

A good location is one with plenty of forage. Meaning somewhere away from the hundreds of acres of row crops, preferably set-aside land where the bees can find a diverse diet of whatever is blooming. When I brought them out of the orchards 10 days ago, the russian olive was in full bloom. 

Most people around here hate this bush because it's so invasive. I love it for obvious reasons: bee food. After the small bit of nectar the bees can gather on dandelions and apples, this is the first real honey flow. Plus you can smell it a mile away. Walk through a pasture filled with it, and it's like you're walking through cotton candy.

Next came my favorite- the black locust trees.

Not a great picture of this grove, but you can see the large white blooms on these somewhat young trees. I've planted some 700 black locust over the last five years. Why? Future honey, of course! This nectar makes the most delicate and beautiful honey. A distinct floral taste.

Shortly after the black locust bloomed, the bush honeysuckle came on strong.

People share the same dislike for this as they do the russian olive. Very invasive plant covering our forest floors. But again, I can find it in my heart to love it at least a couple weeks a year.

With the bees back home and supered up, I found a little time to try something new this year-- bait hives. These are old busted out-of-commission boxes with a couple old frames and a lemongrass 'swarm lure'.

After a good solid afternoon I had 23 swarm catchers ready to go. This is a little like fishing for bees.

Actually, I've fooled around with this a little in the past, but I didn't know what I was doing.  Dan Williams, our bee club president gave a talk about catching swarms at the last meeting. I gained several useful pointers. The size of box and internal cavity is important, and so is the height of placement. Oh, and a little something called "queen juice." This is a jar of rubbing alcohol and the bits and pieces of old dead queens. You put a little of the 'juice' on the bait hive frames and as the alcohol evaporates, the scent of queen pheromone remains. What a great idea.

 Success! This morning, only two days after putting the bait hives out, I was able to check about ten of them. Four had swarms! Four! And not only that, every trap had plenty of bee interest... foragers pecking around the entrance hole, hopefully telling everyone about the sweet new pad with vacancy signs flashing.

 I wouldn't have believed it. Either this is the biggest swarming week of the year, or Dan Williams is simply a genius. I'm inclined to think it's a little of both.

Find Us at a Farmer's Market

Where to find us at market in the coming weeks:

Saturday April 28 Worthington Winter Market - 10 am -1 pm, 777 N .High St.

Saturday May 5, The North Market 8 am-12 pm. 59 Spruce St

Saturday May 12, The North Market 8 am-12 pm. 59 Spruce St and Worthington Summer Market 9-12

Saturday May 19, Worthington Summer Market 9-12 and The Columbus Craftacular, 10-6

Saturday May 26  The North Market 8 am-12 pm. 59 Spruce St and Worthington Summer Market 9-12

We've had lots of inquiries as to when we'll be at market in the next few weeks... so here is the answer!  Come see us and check out some new products:  Lavender Infused Honey Sticks, Miniature Soap Samples and Soap Sample Gift Packages, and Beeswax Tea Lights, too.  All items will be in the Etsy store soon.

Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts

 Last October I had the pleasure of assisting Tricia Wheeler, editor from Edible Columbus, with a cooking class.  She created the most wonderful recipe for Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts, and I wanted to share it here.  This dish has become a favorite at our house.  The last time I made this recipe and took the picture below I didn't have extra-fine breadcrumbs... so you may want to look for that style because it creates a more fine textured coating.  Either way, it is still delicious!

Honey Marinated Chicken Breasts
Serves 6

6 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1/3 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup white wine
1 tablespoon honey
2 cups fine breadcrumbs
1 cup finely grated extra-sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Flatten each chicken breast half with a meat pounder. (You want them to be somewhat thin so they cook quickly.)  For the marinade, put the mustard, wine and honey in a large ziplock bag. Add the chicken breasts, seal the bag and marinate in fridge for an hour. In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix the breadcrumbs and grated cheese. Dip the marinated chicken breasts in the mixture, coating all sides. Place the chicken breasts in a greased baking pan (I like to cover it with tinfoil) and cook in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes.  I use a digital thermometer to make sure they are cooked through, but you can tell they are done if the juices run clear.  Be sure to check them so you don't overcook them.  You want it juicy and moist, not dry and overdone.

The great thing about this recipe is the chicken is heated for a short time at high heat, so they don't dry out, but retain a flavorful, juicy taste.  It also means less time sitting in front of the oven watching it cook!

Things I Never Knew Existed (Before We Started Beekeeping)

-posted by Jayne

I was wondering around the farm the other day when I stumbled upon this:

I thought to myself. "Funny. A few years ago I wouldn't have had a clue what this is. Now, I have bowls of them lying around our place." Then I realized I had a whole list of random things that adorn our farm, and most people who saw them would be clueless as to their uses. Then I thought, "I bet some of our blog readers would be interested in some of the random things that beekeepers know about." So here you have it. My list of "Things I never knew existed before we started beekeeping." And I still have a lot to learn. But I thought I would start by sharing a few...

1. So I'll start with the above image. It's an empty queen cage. (The bowl above was full of queen cages). Sometimes, when a hive is really strong, we will split it in two. We leave the old queen with some of the workers, and then we take the extra nurse bees and brood and combine them with the new queen. The queen arrives to us with some worker bee attendants who take care of her until she is transitioned to her new hive. The bees actually have to "eat" their way to her through a little candy plug in the side of these boxes. If she is introduced too fast, the worker bees can reject and "ball" her, basically suffocating her. So we do it slowly, and cross our fingers that they will accept her as their new queen.

2. Propolis. See the dark brown grimy stuff between the two frames of honey? It's propolis! I am just beginning to learn about all the wonderful aspects of propolis. What is it, you ask? Propolis is a type of resin that is actually produced by the sap of trees among other things. Bees, being amazingly hygienic creatures, will collect the sap and use it to seal up gaps in the hive. Propolis is one of the main reasons beekeepers need to use a "hive tool" to pry open hives when they want to work with them. Another neat thing bees will do with propolis is use it to encase a dead mouse. That's right, you read that correctly. In the winter, mice sometimes enter the hive looking for a tasty treat, or a place to spend the winter. A strong hive can sting it to death, and encase it in propolis, which keeps bacteria out of the hive. Pretty amazing, huh? This summer I plan to collect propolis and use it to make salves. More on that later, though.

2. Outer covers. These are not that exciting, but I did find a stack of them in the barn (behind Lucky and her dog food bowl). Outer covers sit on top of a traditional Langstroth hive (the kind most beekeepers use). There is an inner cover, too, that sits between the outer cover, and the supers. Now, on to Supers...

3. Supers. Why are they called supers? I'm sorry to say I really don't know. But a super is essentially a box that holds frames of honeycomb and honey. When there is a nectar flow, you can add more supers. In the winter, you take the supers off and leave the bottom hive body, which holds the queen and some workers. When a super gets full of honey, we take it off and extract it, and then return it to the hive for the bees to continue working and re-filling with honey. We always make sure to leave enough honey for the bees to survive in the winter. We feed sugar only when a hive gets low on honey, and if we fear it won't survive without supplemental feeding.

4. Entrance Reducer: This white metal piece that sits in the front entrance of our beehive is used to keep those pesky mice out of the hives in the winter. You can slide the little bar from left to right to allow more or less entrance holes to the hive. Sometimes bees do something called "robbing out" other hives (essentially stealing each other's honey). We can limit this by limiting the size of the entrance to the hives. We don't have these on every hive, but one of my Dad's Amish friends makes them and has given us a good deal on them, so we try them out on a few hives.

5. Pollen trap. This photo was taken last summer when we were out collecting pollen. Before we became beekeepers, I didn't really understand the whole flower-nectar-pollen connection. Basically, the bees drink the nectar to make honey, and they gather pollen as a protein source for the hives. It is especially significant for the baby bees, who eat it as a "bee bread." It is a healthy supplement for us, too, since it is packed with vitamins and minerals and essential amino acids. We harvest it through the use of a pollen trap (Isaac is holding the tray here), which knocks the pollen off their legs as they enter the hive. We can turn the trap on and off from time to time, to leave enough pollen for the bees to thrive.6. Slum Gum. I saved the best for last. This picture is of a yucky substance affectionately known as "Slum Gum". This is a beekeepers term for the residue left over after cleaning beeswax, after the honey has been extracted. Appetizing, I know. Don't worry... remember about how I explained that the bees were very hygienic? Slum Gum is not mixed in with the honey at any point... it is left from propolis that has been scraped off the beehive, along with bits of wax, pupal lining from brood comb, etc etc etc... We stick these in our wood burning stove to help get the fire burning, and let me tell you... it gets very HOT. The first time we did it I seriously thought our house was going to burn down. Don't worry, the house is still standing, and we still use these to heat our home. We just learned to use smaller amounts at one time.

So, that's it for today. I know I missed a lot (queen excluders, feeders, extractors... that's for another post, another day). I hope you all learned some new (and slightly weird) things about what you might find day to day when you live on a bee farm!

Fun, Crazy, Busy

-Posted by Isaac

We returned home to Ohio about five days ago and Jayne's tulips were in full bloom. What a surprise for April 1st!

Let me take you through the fun, crazy, busy Honeyrun happenings over the last three weeks:
Maizy reminds us, if times get tough, we can always eat the flowers.

So the apple orchard guys called ahead of schedule this year. About five weeks ahead! In previous years the number of hives needed wasn't such an issue, but due to the likelihood of cold setting in, I think they wanted some pollination insurance... about 150 hives total between Sunny Hill and Lynd Fruit Farm. That meant almost all the Honeyrun hives and a lot of work for me... with a deadline.

I hustled out to work a few yards and got the hives strapped up to move.

Then I decided that the best way to go about this was to establish a holding yard and move the 18 out-yards to this location (my parents' place) by night and work the hives by day.

Why my parents place? Hey, there's like 10 million bees out there! Are you kidding... I'm not getting stung.

This worked out pretty well. I had all the equipment and bees in one place. Convenient to balance hives, replace frames, fix boxes, whatever...

It sure made for an exhausting time though. Hours of sleep were slim and none during those four or five days. Slapping myself awake while driving a trailer full of hives one dark early morning, I remember thinking how stupid this is... the dumb things we do to service our greed... (Apple pollination is pretty decent money. And good for the bees to boot!)

One thing that kept me pretty enthused and distracted from the fact that I was being such a deadbeat dad was this:
I've never seen hives this strong in March! Some of these are about ready to swarm...

Big full brood nests, populous bees, healthy and strong. The orchard guys are really getting their money's worth this year.

A few hives were even making a little honey.

I know that sometimes my use of technical beekeeper jargon is hard to understand. A holding yard is a place where beehives are held...

Ha ha. My feeble attempt at wit and sarcasm.

It took two nights in a row to get them all loaded up and hauled to the orchards. The first night I was alone, the second my strong and hard working cousin Adam helped. Thanks Adam! We got home at 3 a.m.

All this moving and working of bees took place in sort of a rush because...

We had a scheduled vacation coming up!

Priorities, priorities...

Cool shades, Mason.

"Dude.... break my rhythm, why don'tcha Dad..."

Too much sun for baby Bridger

Taste it, Mason! Get your daily sodium.

Five days on the beach, one at the New River Gorge and we came back to find the first 30 queens waiting for making splits. Thanks Dave Heilman! (and sister Becky for the delivery)

Thirty lively Italian hybrids in cages. Ready for duty.

Long live the queen!

That's right. Both of them.

Back to the orchards. This time in the daylight.

Monday was a beautiful 70 degree day for splitting hives. The top box gets the new queen above a double screen... to keep the old queen at bay.

Wish we had about 60 more. These hives are so strong...

The hives are spaced throughout the orchards on wagons.

Lots of work to do. Get busy girls!

Spring Comes to Honeyrun Farm

-posted by Jayne

Isaac was wrong in his last post. March IS beautiful in Ohio! Flowering trees are in abundance right now, as are the forsythia, daffodils, even a few tulips have already bloomed. The bees are loving our willow trees- every time I step out our backdoor I hear a buzzing in the sky that sounds like a swarm. It is such a beautiful sound! Willow are a great source of pollen during these early Spring days.

Isaac teaches Maizy about the birds and the bees and the flowering trees...

We have been harvesting lettuce from our greenhouse, as well as a few carrots, both of which I planted back in November. They hardly grew an inch the whole winter, but in the past two weeks they have really taken off. I can't believe how many salads the kids will eat when they are the ones who harvest the lettuce.

We had an amazing hail storm yesterday... like nothing I have ever seen! We even have little dents all over the hood of our car to prove it. Check out the beautiful fog in the background.
Mason was so excited, when he saw the hail littering the ground he asked, "Is that marshmallows?"

Isaac is spending more and more time on his cell phone these days. Getting calls from orchards that need pollination in the coming week. We didn't expect to move bees for pollination until mid-April, but here we are, mid-March, 5 weeks ahead of schedule. Isaac also has to call the land owners that allow us to use their farmland for our apiaries, to let them know he will be arriving in the middle of the night to pick up the hives and move them to the orchards.
We were lucky to host two of our 'regulars' from the North Market farmer's market, Shawn and Joanna, who wanted to come learn more about our bees. They graciously followed Isaac as he instructed them how to secure down the hives so they don't come apart as he transports them to the orchards. They had quite the bumpy, muddy ride, as most of our bee locations are in meadows and pasture land that isn't conducive to traversing in the early Spring, just after it rains.
They snapped a few photos of the mud-covered trailer. For Valentine's Day, I splurged and got Isaac some beekeeping bumper stickers that I created online. In case you can't read through the mud, the top left one is a Honeyrun Farm sticker with our logo, and the bottom right reads, "I'd Rather Be Smoking the Hive" with a picture of a bee smoker.
This one reads, "Don't Hate, Pollinate." I had my "facebook friends" help me come up with catchy beekeeping slogans.
Isaac spent all morning buying every ratchet-strap in the town of Circleville so he can keep the bees safe and secure while transporting hives. Then he spent all afternoon working the bees, checking for large hives that need split to discourage swarming (he reports they are healthy and strong, and already making honey!), and now he is spending his evening-and-in-to-the-morning hours moving hives to transport them for pollination. This beekeeping life can be a bit crazy and hectic in times like this, but the great thing about it is it ebbs and flows, and next week we can relax and know the bees are doing their job to help ensure a good apple harvest in Central Ohio.