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.