Bee Blog

It has been a while since I have posted anything here or on Facebook. This is my normal downtime to create new products and fix/make hives for the upcoming honey season. In early December I had shoulder surgery and I am restricted to almost no activities. This is hard as I have farm chores to take care of our chickens and cow. If I do not post, please do not worry. We have full intentions of selling honey and wax products in 2026, I am just on the mend.

Wow! Let’s discuss 2025. What a great year! We had a local couple reach out inquiring if they could support a hive in our apiary. Absolutely, it’s a great partnership and we have new friends in our community. We added comb honey, starting using tallow and created some new balms. We will continue to focus on “healthy in you and healthy on you” as we make all natural and organic products. Thanks to our family, friends and customers we were able to donate $385 to Izaak Walton League of McCook Lake. That is more than double 2024’s donation. We love how many customers are reaching out directly after purchasing our products. We are completely sold out of our local raw honey for 2025. We have a few jars of creamed and cinnamon creamed honey left. Fingers crossed for some early spring honey this year.

Winter bee update. I am pleasantly surprised at how many colonies are still alive after the new year. I expected some losses as I caught some late swarms and tried 1 late split. I was hoping to combine 4 colonies into 2. Unfortunately, my shoulder was working against me and I just couldn’t lift the hives. I had 1 abscond early December and lost 2 of the late swarms. I also tried over wintering a 4 over 4 type NUC hoping the bees would create a big cluster together. They were flying all over at Christmas and then nothing a week later. I expect more losses as I see the weather is getting colder as is normal for January. I got my colonies pushed together and insulated for the upcoming winter. I also added my normal candy boards for additional resources. I am cautiously optimistic for a spring update.

Ok, so what is up for 2026? I am going to mention beeswax wraps. These are used in place of saran wrap lowering our use of plastics in the environment. I think I have enough wax left to experiment a little. I also hope to create some more natural healing balms similar to the broad leaf healing balm. Someone was gifted a home apothecary book at Christmas. And lastly, if we have another successful honey harvest, we hope to offer our honey at some local businesses. We continue getting requests, from both customers and local businesses. Our problem is not having enough product to support this currently.

All of this would not be possible without your support. I want to thank and remind everyone the importance of buying and supporting local businesses in your communities. Now is a good time for me to challenge you to plant something this year. Buy a shrub, a tree or some pollinator seeds. If you don’t have property, volunteer at a local CSA or contact your county extension. Even a pot or two on a deck or balcony supports our pollinators. Me personally, I spread about 15 lbs of annual and perennial flower seeds in our ditch/gully out front of our property line after the first snow. I have always wanted to try the winter seeding process. These are supposed to germinate faster than spring planting. I guess we will see. So stay warm, add some honey to your hot beverage and if you go outside, don’t forget your all-natural lip balm. Best wishes for a wonderful 2026.

I just realized I never posted my September update discussing my honey extracting process after the summer honey flow. We even had a special guest assisting us in our demonstration. Dang it. Fall was a busy time as we were treating our colonies, then feeding our colonies and preparing them for the long winter. Plus, there was a lot of work preparing the homestead for winter. We replaced all our 3 season windows (both floors), insulated the chicken coops, cleared out a small pasture next to the barn and made a nice stall for the cow this winter. I have lost count how many trees we cut down this year.

New Product Update – originally, I was using essential oils to scent my balms and soaps. I have been researching the healing properties essential oils offer. Who knew? After some initial research I found herbs with healing powers, and this is what our ancestors used for decades. I started thinking…beeswax comes from my colonies, the tallow is from our beef butchered last year and I am already using mint and lemon balm I grow in my soaps. Wish I had the comfrey growing in our old orchard in WI. Instead, I found a broadleaf plant growing wild in my back yard – plantain.

It is time we start changing our healthy goals to include “on our body”, not just in our body. Yes, eating healthy is important but so is limiting the chemicals we put on our bodies.

Here is an herb – or weed that grows in our backyards. It is a broadleaf plantain (Plantago major). This herb can help heal wounds and skin irritations. I figure, why not add it to a tallow balm? I definitely get a couple bee stings every year.

My next step was washing the leaves and placing them on my dehydrator trays. I was able to collect about an ounce. That was a 1 gallon ice cream bucket almost full of plantain leaves.

Once the leaves were dry and ground, I added a .5 OZ of vodka to steep overnight. The next day I added the dried leaves to grapeseed oil and placed the jar in a crockpot for about 48 hours. This speeds up the steeping process so I can create a balm in less than a week.

I drain the leaves from the oil. Then I take the steeped oil, add it to melted tallow and beeswax. After removing it from my double boiler, I add some tea tree oil (skin wound healing) that assists diminishing the earthy smell of the plantain/grapeseed oil. Ta Da – an all-natural balm made with 5 total ingredients.

I think this new product will complement our tallow soaps and body creams perfectly. And don’t forget our lip balm – I did not replace the cocoa butter with tallow in our lip balm formula. I don’t want to change it after receiving so many compliments from customers. If its not broke, right?

I will close reminding everyone of our 3 upcoming markets this month with one being today. I am very fearful we will be all out of our raw honey by December 1st. Please stop by a market, before we run out.

First, grafting did not go as well as I had hoped. I was able to produce all my cells, but they were not finished or culled after adding to my finishing colony. Like I said last post, practice makes perfect. I did not try to graft again as I have been very lucky with my splits and swarm catching. Everything happens for a reason.

I was able to extract a little 2025 honey in my new finished basement kitchen. Just in time for the Clay County Fair. We also produced some comb honey for the first time in 10 oz jars. We kept getting asked if we have comb honey available, and now we do.

All the colonies look healthy and are producing well. I am just waiting for them to finish capping all the honey. I am loving these new swarms as they are drawing out new comb like crazy. If I do this correctly again, I should only have to feed a small amount for winter stores – fingers crossed. Check out our Facebook page for upcoming fairs and markets. Hope to see you at one of these fun events.

As the month of June begins, so does my new skill of grafting (finally). I might be being hopeful calling it a skill. Practice will definitely make perfect on this one. I will update you more next month on my success or failures.

Swarm season is definitely in full throttle as I have caught a couple swarms with one being my own. I was too late for a swarm call as the bees must have found a new home by the time I arrived on scene. I hope it was a good one for their sake.

The splits I created last month are showing signs of success. The new queens have started laying and the colonies are full of pollen and nectar. I did have one colony abscond before I was able to check and see if the queen got mated. I try not to get into the colonies to soon as young, virgin queens like to fly off when you pull out the frame. Ask me how I know – patience is a struggle for me and waiting 4 weeks to check a colony is difficult. I did see a lot of bee activity just a few days before, so it was a recent departure.

We have had family, friends and customers ask about both tallow and frankincense in our wax products. As I was replenishing our stock of balms and wax products, I created a few new ones. I made a soap, lip balm, facial cream and body cream – all with tallow as the main ingredient.

The face cream has frankincense and lemongrass essential oils to help with aging, wrinkles and improve skin tone. The body cream has cedarwood and lavender essential oils to help soothe skin, reduce inflammation and irritation or redness.

Mrs. Herder is already trying the new creams. We will make sure these are safe as results will vary by person as seems the case.

We are already starting to book up for the late summer and fall with fairs/markets. I think we are at 7 or 8 for the time being. Hopefully we will see you at one of these and maybe we will have our new products for you to check out.

There has been a lot going on at the homestead. BUT FIRST – you have less than 3 weeks until World Bee Day 2025. Do you have your call to action ready? Maybe it is time to replenish your honey and support a local beekeeper, planting some flowers, shrubs or trees, refrain from mowing the lawn (No Mow May), add a bird bath to your landscape or balcony; or the ultimate – add a hive/colony of bees to your property. Now is the time to plan/prepare!!

The basement hobby/business kitchen is completed. I have already done some baking and final sap boiling from the maple trees. Very soon I hope to make some soap, with one being all beef tallow. I have received a request to make a Frankincense feet balm. I will have to play around with that formula a little and do some family product testing, so no expected launch date yet.

My colonies are looking really good. I hope to pick up 2 new hives in the next couple weeks (sponsored/adopted by DB – thank you!!). My goal is to do some grafting and turn those 2 colonies into 10 Nucleus colonies shortly after I receive them. I will also be splitting my over wintered colonies to avoid any swarming. It is that season and it’s how bees reproduce. See Swarm Removal for more information or if you find a swarm of honeybees.

I will have some upcoming events and fairs for anyone needing a sweet Mother’s Day or Father’s Day present. Otherwise, I am usually home if you want to purchase products directly at our homestead. I am looking forward to another successful honeybee season!!