Honey!!!

Beekeeping

As I had reported a few weeks ago, the bees did not make it through the winter.  The big question was "Should we take the honey?"  I really struggled with this decision.  I tried to read about what to do, I make phone calls, and asked on top bar forums and got mixed answers (no surprise there...).  I went into the hive and started cleaning things out.

I could tell that the bees were not located close enough to the honey.  That is probably one reason they did not make it.  Live and learn...

The good news is that there is lots of nice brood comb all ready for the new bees.  Once I got in there, I decided that we would take the honey and feed the bees with sugar water to get the new bees started. I kinda figured that the last bees started with absolutely nothing and they were quite prolific.  At least the new bees will not be starting from scratch.  Making beeswax for the comb is labor intensive for the bees and now they have at least 10 bars of brood comb to get them going so they can immediately start concentrating on stashing honey.

In addition, we might be moving the hive soon (hint, hint) and it would be easier to move an empty hive than one full of 30 pounds of honey.  

Here I am getting started with collecting the honey.  When you have a top bar hive, you have to collect the honey by crushing the honeycomb and then straining out the honey.  I am using the yellow buckets on the left for this.  The top is lined with a cloth strainer and it has holes in the bottom to allow the honey to flow through into the bottom bucket.

Here I have separated the bars.  All the bars on the right are being saved for brood comb for the new bees.  The bars on the left will be harvested for honey.

Here is some comb that I melted down to save for beeswax.

Here is the inside of the top bucket.  I used a potato masher to crush up the comb to release the honey.

 We let the honey drain for a week.  Then, put it into jars.

Here is the crushed comb that I melted down for beeswax.  I knew there was going to be a little more honey left in the comb but I ended up getting 3 more pints of honey out of the wax!  

Here is some of the honey we collected.  We got well over a gallon of honey!

Last weekend, Mark and I went to the arboretum at the University of Idaho for a walk.  This heath was blooming and we saw some bees there!

Sustainable Farm Law 101

The past couple of weeks, I attended 2 workshops that were sponsored by Rural Roots.

Rural Roots mission is to support and enhance sustainable agriculture and local food systems in the Inland NW and beyond.  The first presentation was about Sustainable Farm Law 101.  I will be discussing this one today.  The second presentation was about Farm Finances.  I will talk about the Farm Finances presentation in a future blog...

Farm Law

The Sustainable Farm Law presentation was presented by Farm Commons.  

 

Farm Commons believes strong, resilient, sustainable farm businesses are built on a solid legal foundation.  Farm Commons has a good amount of free training's on their website.  Just click on the "Tutorial" tab.

Our first point of discussion was Entities.  The focus of the discussion was on the differences between a sole proprietorship, a limited liability company (LLC) and a corporation.  There is a nice tutorial called "The What, Why and How of Choosing and Organizing a Business Entity for the Farm" on the Farm Commons website.  

Next point of discussion was Land Matters and leasing versus buying farm land.  We discussed what to look for in a lease and to make sure to know any zoning regulations that might limit what you can do on the property.  There is a tutorial about lease issues called "Farmland Leases Built to Last: Content and Legal Context".

Sales and indemnification was the next topic.  This included discussions of selling wholesale versus direct sales and doing a Community Support Agriculture (CSA) model.  Most importantly is negotiating the sales agreement.  Sales Contracts for Farm Produce: Why and How is a tutorial with this information.  

Next topic was workers.  This included discussion of interns, volunteers, employees and contractors.  Another tutorial addresses this issue:  Making Employment Law Work For Your Farm.  Employment law is probably the single most complex legal concern for farmers so it's important to get it right.

Food Safety was the next topic.  Food Safety Liability And Regulations For The Farm is a tutorial that addresses these concerns.  Each state has different regulations about food safety so it is important to know what regulations are for your area.

Lastly, we talked about agritourism.  Having on farm events is a great way to promote your farm but there are lots of legakl issues to consider.  Hosting Safe, Legally Secure Farm Events provides some direction about how to legally host a safe event.  

Another underlying message of the day was the importance of having appropriate insurance to protect your farm.  Insurance for the Farm: Policies and Principles to Efficiently Manage Risk covers common insurance options and how to navigate them to find the right policy for your farm. 

So, if you took the time to watch all these tutorials, you would pretty much have all the information that I got that day.  Each tutorial is about 1 hour 30 minutes long. 

Sunflower seed order!

In the Field

Well, obviously, I am not in the field yet but getting ready for it.  I placed my sunflower seed order today.  I will still be growing at Meadowlark Heritage Farms this summer.  I have 6 - 100 foot rows there.  I am going to only plant single stem varieties this year and I am going to try and grow 3 rows of flowers in each larger row.  So, I am really packing them in because I want to see how "dense" I can plant and still get a good harvest.  I will be planting all direct seed into the soil this year.  Last year, I tried some transplants but I did not see enough of a difference to justify the transplanting (it was a little bit extra work...).

I went to the Johnny Seed website to place my order and found that there have been several new varieties out this year.  So, here are the "new" ones that I am trying this year:

Sunrich Lime - New!  Bright, lemon-yellow petals surround a lime-green disk.

Sunrich Limoncello - New!  Lemon-yellow petals with a ray of bright yellow at the center. The bicolor petals give the blooms an enhanced three-dimensional appearance.

ProCut Plum - Exciting new addition to the ProCut series.  Muted plum-to-cream bicolor blooms combine well with soft or vivid colors.

ProCut Red - It took years of breeding efforts to produce this impressive red ProCut sunflower. Early blooms are produced on long, strong, single stems. 

Sunbright Supreme - Blooms more quickly than Sunbright under short days.  More rounded petals and shorter, more rigid stems with reduced lower leaves make this an excellent variety for bouquet work.

ProCut Peach - Peach-colored petals with a dark disc.

I had no idea there were so many new sunflowers being introduced so this was a pleasant surprise.  I am most excited about the red.  In the past, the only red available was a branching variety which is not so great for cut flowers.  I am also planting 7 other varieties that I have planted in the past that are reliable producers.  I am so excited to be introducing some new sunflowers again this year!

Sad bee news...

Beekeeping

As you can probably guess from the title of this blog, our bees have died.  I know they were alive in December because we saw some dead ones outside the entrance of the hive.  This may sound contradictory but seeing dead bees is actually a good sign because it means that the bees are keeping the hive clean (and throwing out the dead bees).

Last Saturday, Joshua's 4-H beekeeping group had their first meeting.  Our leader, Alison, said she had 12 hives going into winter and that 4 were still alive.  Another family had 4 hives and 1 made it through the winter.  So, it seems that about 25% of hives were successful in our little group.  

The silver lining is that the bees did not get around to eating a lot of the honey so I think we can go in and harvest some out.  It looks like we will be starting over and I have already placed an order for new bees that should come in April.

We are not sure why the bees did not make it.  I don't think we did anything wrong.  It is just how it goes with honeybees.  It has been one of the coldest and snowiest winters.  That may have had some effect.  I just love this picture that Henry took of the beehive with all the snow.  

Business Plan...

Business Plan...

This is going to be a short (or long) post...I guess it depends how you look at it.  I am posting the business plan.  If you take the time to read the Business Plan...I guess that would make it a long post.  

This is our first draft.  I have gotten some feedback from one of my friends but I have not even had time to look at it.  I think we are going to take this year (2017) to perfect the Plan.  

I have sent the plan to the Small Farms U of I Extension personnel but they have not had time to get back to me.

I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago and met someone from SCORE.

SCORE Spokane volunteers are real-world professionals with time- tested knowledge who donate thousands of hours to help small businesses like yours succeed. Counselors are experts in such areas as accounting, finance, marketing, technology, management and business plan preparation.

Services offered by SCORE include: 
Free face-to-face business counseling/mentoring -- by appointment only
E-mail counseling/mentoring
Workshops

He said I could send him the Business Plan and they would assign a Counselor to work with me through all the details of getting a business started and it's all free!  So, I am going to wait and get feedback from the Small Farms Coordinator and then make those changes and send to SCORE.

Here it is:  Business Plan

Constructive criticism is appreciated...happy reading!

Rendering Beeswax...

Beekeeping

Last summer when I was working in the top bar hive, I accidentally dropped a couple of honeycomb when I was trying to "fix" it and get it more straight.  I did not want to be wasteful so we strained out the honey and I attempted to collect the wax.  Let's just say it was VERY messy and not too successful.  I was just too busy to try and clean it up at that time.  I hear of a lot of beekeepers putting their wax in the freezer until they can get around to working with it.  So, that is what I did...

Last weekend, I finally decided to try and clean up that wax.  Also, I had added some more to it so I had that to render too.  Let me say that I was REALLY dreading this (and had been putting it off for weeks!).  It was not fun the first time.  It was a mess and it did not come out as "clean" as I was hoping.  So, I have just been putting this off.  I "googled" rendering beeswax and the first article that popped up looked promising and much easier than the procedure I tried last summer.  Find that tutorial HERE.

 I melted the wax down and then strained it though some cheesecloth into a cardboard milk carton.

 It was that easy and came out so nice and clean!  I was SO excited to find an easier way to harvest our wax!

So, what do you do with beeswax?  I used it to make lip balm and lotion bars for Christmas gifts.  Unfortunately, since I had not taken the time to render my own beeswax before Christmas, I just bought some.  Just add shea butter and coconut oil and you are set!

Here are a couple of recipes/tutorials that I used to make the lotion bar and lip balm...just click on the pictures and it will take you to the website articles...

Birthday!

As you may have seen on Facebook, Mark turned 16 years old this past week!  I did meet my goal of getting the business plan done.  I am going put it up on the blog in a couple of weeks.  I am sending it to the Small Farms Extension people at the U of I this week.

We went bowling for Mark's birthday and he really enjoyed it!

Christmas Gifts...

Christmas Gifts

I wanted to share some of the gifts I had made for Christmas but did not want to do it before Christmas (because I know my mom reads this...)

Bath bombs - I made these for my nieces and nephews.  I will probably make these again but I am going to stick to the smaller molds (like the Santa belt buckle on the bottom).  The bigger ones are pretty fragile and probably broke when put through the mail.

We have a pie cherry tree in our backyard.  I did make some cherry pie filling for ourselves and made the Tart Cherry Coffee Preserves to share with family.  We were told of an Italian Plum tree behind our house so I made up some Plum Barbecue Sauce (which is excellent to use in place of catsup/ketchup in meatloaf).  Also, I made the Italian Plum Conserve that I paired with a box of crackers and a small brie as a gift for friends here locally.  A little recipe was attached with directions on how to heat the brie and then add the conserve on top and serve with the crackers.

 I made this block puzzle for Myla (the baby in this picture).  She is now a year old so hopefully she will enjoy building this picture puzzle.  There is another picture on the back of just the kids.

My brother, Tyler, is working at eating healthy foods.  So, I made him a cookbook with easy, healthy recipes so he had some "go to" recipes. I also included some homemade seasoning mixes.

Here are some "spa" type products I made for the men and ladies.  There are some Herbal Bath Tea Bags, Hand Scrub, Lotion Bars, and Lip Balm.  

Also, I made some homemade Vanilla, Blackberry Liquor, and Green Tomato Salsa (I was so happy about how well this turned out!)

This is what my table looks like when I get ready to put together boxes of Christmas treats for family.  I put everything out and then pick and choose what goes into each family box!