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.