What it's like to be me.

I am selling honey, and I sell it in canning jars to be sustainable. I print labels on mailing labels and then stick them to the jars. Since I haven't sold any honey since last year, I didn't know where the labels were, so I went looking for them.

Brain cell loss somewhere around here.

So I just looked over to the other side of my desk, and there the labels are. I did not remember finding the labels. I picked up the labels and attempted to retrace my steps so as to ascertain where I may have found the labels. I came to the realization that I had searched for the labels and then found them and placed them on my desk. After taking a shower, I again searched for the labels but did not find them. I sat down to check email and such and looked over only to find that I had already found the labels, at which time I retraced my steps to discover that I had searched twice for something that I already found.

I still don't know where I found them.
WiredForStereo

Honey for Sale!

Just harvested honey, I have 37 pints for sale at $6 each, and 16 quarts available at $10 each. Some are already reserved, so get some.

This is all natural organic honey, made in hives never treated with any chemical, pesticide or essential oil. I know of nowhere where you can get this excellent honey for this sweet price. You can get great organic honey in NW Arkansas, but not at this price, and you can get stuff at better than this price, but not organic and all natural. You don't know where that Walmart crap has been, but if you come over to my place, I'll show ya where I got mine! It's out in the backyard! I'll even let the bees sting you that made your honey, if you really want. You could do that!!! Can't do that at Walmart.

Check out my beekeeping blog at this link.

Bringing the best of both worlds!
WiredForStereo

So Honeybees Right?

While I was in Oregon, I built a trailer to bring back my five remaining hives that were still there, as well as a 1978 Troy Bilt rototiller. I am doing the no-till thing lately, so the tiller will be for preparation, not tilling every year. Anyway, the bees.
Back when I lived in Oregon, before I got the chance to go to college, I was planning on becoming a commercial beekeeper. I was also using the very harshest method of organic beekeeping which I call "Let Live and Let Die." It was essentially a survival of the fittest kind of thing. Some of you are confused right now so let me explain. Over the years, beekeepers in the pursuit of a better bee did a number of unnatural things. They enlarged the size of the bee's cells, making the bees themselves larger, and they used chemical treatments to "cure" diseases. So as new problems arose, mites and other diseases, the bees had lost their genetic advantage regarding their ability to fight disease and pests on their own. It was only a matter of time before the cumulative effect of all these maladies would take their toll as we have seen in Colony Collapse Disorder. My plan while costly in terms of time and bees, is to reawaken the survivor genetics in the bees by letting them fight their diseases with no help. The bees that are strongest in terms of genetics survive while the ones dependent on chemicals die. The plan is to multiply from the survivors so that eventually, all my stock are survivors and in no need of chemical treatment.

Anyway, so I decided to do organic beekeeping, first because I think organic is the way everything should be done, and secondly, organic honey fetches a higher price.

When I moved to Arkansas, I had to leave my bees behind, so they have been in Oregon for three and a half years, in which time my Let Live and Let Die philosophy took its course and yielded five hives from the twenty I started with. So, hopefully, I am left with five really good survivor hives, however now that I have moved them to an entirely different climate, they are no longer acclimated to the region they live in and may suffer further difficulties.

At any rate, I now have six hives here, and hope to make some honey. I have all the equipment I need with me to keep six large healthy hives, and I plan to buy a few queens to start some nucleus hives next spring. For now, I need to get these hives up to snuff for winter. Unfortunately, we had a two week drought while I was gone and all the clover died leaving very little for the bees to forage on. It has been raining every third day or so recently so the clover is beginning to come back and will hopefully start blooming again soon.

Those of you that know me personally, keep your eyes open for some upcoming organic honey for sale.
WiredForStereo