Going Through Hell to get to Heaven

The more posts I write, the more I learn the most popular posts are about my bees. I’m fine with that because I love my bees. They spent another summer teaching me how to coexist with them and how we can help each other. As our communication improves so does their health and honey production. How did the summer go? You’ll remember I had to start from scratch this spring with 4 packages of bees that I bought as 2 pairs a week apart from two different companies. My luck with the bee packages did not go as planned. I got two “dud” queens and within two weeks they were both missing from the hive, maybe killed by her own subjects. Thankfully in May I captured my first swarm. Capturing my first swarm was a beekeeper's dream come true. My friend and neighbor Steve was telling me there was this big clump of wasps on their tree near their horses and his wife was concerned for their horses. Well I knew something was wrong because wasps all die in the winter but the queen, who has to emerge in the spring and start building a nest. So in the Spring there just aren’t big clumps of wasps. I asked if he'd show it to me and sure enough, it was a swarm of honeybees looking for a new home. To me the swarm was $150 just hanging in a tree waiting for me to give them a lovely hive to live in. I captured them and they happily accepted their new hive as their new home and then a week or so later I merged the frisbee hive with them who no longer had a queen. This hive did very well over the summer. The hive I call the Newbees also had a dud queen and they too were later joined into the hive that I captured. My most incredible hive was the Frisbees who produced two supers of honey that I could harvest. That’s 20 frames of honey. The Air BnBees produced about 12 frames and the Gumbees about 5 frames. In total my three hives produced 95 lbs. of honey or just a bit over 8 gallons. What am I going to do with all that honey? Sell it of course. Interested? You can purchase my honey at the bottom of the blog. I’m going into winter with three hives I feel really good about. In the Spring between buying bees and splitting hives I hope to have 8 hives running next summer. That is too many to have on just our property so I’ve secured a couple of locations to put hives. That of course will mean more capital investment into my bees, much of which I hope will come from honey sales. This was a fun year. I tried a number of new things. I learned how to move hives and how not too. I merged more hives and felt much more confident in the things I did. Of course the more new things I tried, I also got stung more. Some of that was because I thought I had on enough protection and then I did something stupid that made the bees agitated.. It’s funny, ”how many times have you been stung?” is a question I often get asked. Even funnier I can tell you how often I got stung. My first year, zero, my second year, 3 times, this year so far I’m pretty sure it’s been 7 times. Yes it hurts, but not as bad as I remembered and it goes away for me quickly. Unlike yellow jacket stings that just seem to burn and burn, most stings on my hands just hurt for 10 minutes and then go away. We had a very long fall, I could have had another honey harvest had I known we weren’t going to get a freeze in September or October. But it did allow my bees to store a lot of honey for the winter. So as long as mother nature cooperates, I’ll hopefully have 3 hives in the Spring. Here's that link:

Hello Everyone. As my third year of beekeeping is coming to a close, I finally have enough honey that I can offer it for sale. I ended the season with three hives that all appear to be healthy and ready to make it through the winter. Our honey harvest came in at just over 8 gallons or 95 pounds of honey. My 2025 goal is to expand to 8 hives which means I'm going to be doubling the amount of hive equipment I have and that is going to be a reasonably significant expense. I am selling my standard unfiltered raw honey in two sizes this year, 12 oz. and 10 oz. That measurement is by weight. For a volume comparison 12 oz. of honey is about 8 liquid ounces. Honey weighs about 1.5 ounces per liquid ounce. I am also excited to announce I am selling whipped cinnamon honey this year. This is made with pure raw honey, ground cinnamon and cinnamon oil. Then it is whipped to a consistency that reminds me of marshmallow cream. It's great to spread on muffins and toast or melted and poured over pancakes and waffles. It's absolutely delicious. And it has all the health benefits of my regular raw honey. 2024 prices pictures will change or you can slide them manually using the arrows on the side

Most hunters don’t like the messages sent by the movie Bambi. If you remember the movie, the hunters burn down the forest, hunt at night, and are otherwise horrible people. Most hunters I know love the wilderness and fight to protect it. They don’t hunt at night. It’s illegal for one thing and extremely dangerous. But the message sent in Bambi that is the most incorrect is that deer are just defenseless animals. I would argue that to anyone. Now if my dog Rudy could talk, he would too. Saturday morning dawned sunny and beautiful. It was a lovely morning as I sat in the kitchen looking out the window at the changing colors of the leaves, sipping my warm coffee and making plans for the future week. Shortly after, MLW got up and started a little laundry when our dog Rudy started to bark. I asked MLW what Rudy was barking at and she said oh we have a yard full of deer again. With as dry as it has been and the fact that I have been watering the lawn the deer have been very attracted to the green grass in our front yard. I had just fertilized the lawn the night before so I was about to scare the deer off of the lawn because I didn't want any of them to get sick. Before I could do anything Rudy did what he always does, which is run out his back door and goes out and barks at the deer. Normally the deer would all run away but as we are presently in the beginning of the deer rut, the does are acting much more aggressive. MLW and I have noticed the aggressive does before. We've had issues with them normally in the spring but sometimes in the fall when they get extremely protective of their yearlings or themselves. In the past couple of weeks I've had one doe that has been quite aggressive as we have been on our walk and I normally just do not make eye contact with the does and continue to walk but the fact that she does not retreat is by all means intimidating. On Saturday morning when Rudy went to scare the deer off the lawn, one of the does was not about to have it. Instead of running with the rest of the deer she stood her ground and then attacked Rudy. if you wonder how a female deer attacks what it views as a predator you need only go to youtube where there are many videos. They do it by either kicking or stomping on the animal. I was not able to see the attack. I simply heard my dog barking and then suddenly yelping from extreme pain. I ran out of the house in my pajamas looking for Rudy. Unfortunately I found him by following a blood trail that led from the front of my house across the back deck and into the kitchen itself. I found Rudy in the kitchen bleeding quite heavily. He had a v-shaped almost 90° laceration over his rib cage, each line of the v that hung open and I could see the muscles and fat below it. he also had a puncture wound and his leg that was doing most of the bleeding as well as various cuts and scratches. We immediately took him out to the deck and wrapped him in a towel while we took turns changing clothes as fast as we possibly could. He was then put in the car and taken to the emergency veterinarian hospital in Castle Rock. At the hospital they examined Rudy and found that the cut on his chest wasn't simply just a cut, it was a puncture wound where it appears that the deer's hoof actually went into the muscle space between his skin and his ribs. Only by the grace of God did he not break a rib or puncture his lung sack. After being evaluated for about an hour we got to see Rudy who had been put on a painkiller which while taking the pain away made him very disoriented and anxious. He was left at the hospital to get cleaned up and ready for surgery. It was about 7:00 p.m. when it was time to pick up Rudy. We picked him up and he looked as if he was ready for Halloween with numerous stitches holding his skin back together on his chest. The puncture wound on his leg had a bandage on it that was stapled to his leg and will need professional cleaning for the next few days. Because of the damage up in between his ribs and his skin he has a drain placed in the damaged area to allow the excess fluids to be expelled. With much of his chest shaved, both front legs shaved and other spots you can see the extent of the bruising to his poor little body. His chest gets more and more purple everyday and he is extremely sore. The vet told us that he was the third deer versus dog attack they had treated in the last 10 days. They also said he was extremely lucky, a sentiment we can appreciate but I'm not sure he feels very lucky with how uncomfortable he is. His daily long walks with MLW are done for the next two weeks until he has complete healing of his sutures. He was stitched both internally and externally due to the injuries. I was quite amazed at how they treated his puncture wound in his leg. They could not stitch it so they left it open but put Manuka honey in it. If you look up Manuka honey it comes from New Zealand and has an amazing amount of antibacterial qualities stronger than any other honey. One of the reasons it needs to be redressed by either the hospital that put it on or his veterinarian. This is because the old honey must be cleaned out. How funny a coincidence that once again I'm talking about bees and or honey on my blog. Going back to Bambi, I do always like to point out that while we often use Bambi for a female name, the deer Bambi grew up to be a male. After seeing what an antlerless deer can do to another animal, I have a new respect for deer especially around dogs. They are beautiful creatures that have amazing survival skills and are anything but defenseless. While I understand the deer was simply responding to her survival instincts; the love of my dog and the pain he’s in along with the amount of the vet bills so far and the ones to come. I suppose it’s human nature that when I go afield this year to harvest a deer, it’s probably going to be a bit more personal.

MLW and I learned an important lesson this past year. In the doldrums of winter be careful when you plan your summer, you just might find yourself chasing your tail. I’m not about to say it was not a fun summer, but as I get older, hurrying to get somewhere to relax, doesn’t really work anymore, especially when your home life is already packed with both employed and personal work As I look back at our summer we started with the Cowboy trail, then the camping trip to South Fork. In July we visited relatives in Iowa, rode the Chippewa Valley trails in Wisconsin before spending our week on the lake. Then we returned home to join my siblings for a quick family reunion in Sante Fe. August had more camping including 5 days at Dillon reservoir with our friends and family, plus a week in the San Francisco bay area for my work.. Then the 35th annual World beer party, camping again at Pueblo, CO and the Walter’s Octoberfest and finally here comes fall as we slow down a bit, but look forward to a couple of hunting trips. While all that was going on we also had the house re-sided. That included a week to put on the new siding and several weeks thereafter to get the punch list items done and all the other stuff you have to do when a project is done on your house. So whew! The number of nights on the deck where we had our “wine therapy” as mentioned before in a blog were limited. When I look back at what I’d change, I’d say the work pressure on MLW. Because I really enjoyed the trips and the time with friends. What I didn’t enjoy was watching MLW stress out while making sure she was on a call, had her computer hooked up as we drove and she worked . Now in fairness, there are times we work from the camper, but I guess what it really comes down to is time away isn’t time away if you’re still working. What would I have done differently in this past year? I would have been more cognizant to stay an extra day. Even if that means one of us would be working on their computer as we drove down the road. A 4-5 hour drive on a Friday to spend Saturday somewhere and to turn around and come back on Sunday is too much, spend the extra day and leave extra early on Monday if you have to. To maximize our time, we have to remember to discuss what each of us wants to do when you get there before we get there. That means if one of us just wants to sit in a chair with a pretty view, sipping coffee until noon, we need to communicate that. If your fellow traveler then says oh I want to do XYZ, then determine if that activity or that time with the person is what you need. If you really need that book and coffee time, bid them a happy adventure and ask for pictures on their return. Don’t forget that if they're doing something like fishing in a stream, your pretty view could be of the stream and your coffee could come from a thermos as you relax in your favorite folding chair. We are now starting to determine what we’re going to do in 2025. As we navigate our vacation calendars, our work calendars, the expectations of our employers, and even the demands of our friends and family, we’ll plan another year of activities. But how we feel about those activities and how they fit into our lives will depend on how we maximize the experience and minimize the disruption to our daily rhythm. Then we just need to remember this is a first world problem and we’re blessed to have to consider all these things.

When I started beekeeping 3 years ago my sister “Speedy” asked “ aren’t you afraid you’re going to get stung?” Truth was I had worried a bit about that but by the time she asked I was already getting comfortable working with my bees. Also as you wear your bee suit, the chances are highly decreased that you’ll get stung. But stings do happen and usually when my plans go wrong. Like the time we were moving a hive at night and it came open. Ouch, ouch ouch! This morning I was treating my hives for mites when I struggled to get the piece of wood that restricts the opening out of the hive. That’s all it took, a bunch of bees came out and were not very hospitable and one found my socks, and ouch right on the ankle. So far I don’t react much to stings and within 20 minutes they don’t hurt and any swelling is down. But that leads me to the point of this blog, some things are worth the sting. I obviously think my honey is worth the sting as are many things in life. Marriage comes to mind. Both MLW and I had our stings when we were single, but after 36 years of marriage, the stings were worth the happiness we have. Kids are the same way. They break your heart many times when they are young and then again when they are older, but if you do it right, the love and the adults you help create too are worth the sting. It’s not just relationships. It could be learning a new skill, playing a new sport, making a new friend. All of those require us to be a bit uncomfortable, but the question will be was it worth that “sting.” Sometimes you’re just left with the sting. Both other times like harvesting honey, you enjoy the sweetness of a good friend, the love of a good spouse or the great feeling of accomplishment, and you’ll look back and realize just like my ankle that no longer hurts; it was worth the sting.

Our Crew on Saturday morning as we stopped on the trestle outside of Valentine Nebraska

I grew up in the 1970's. I could say the 60's but I'd argue you develop in the early years and you grow up when you have experiences to remember. One of many things I remember is that my Dad had an after work ritual which basically was to come home, change out of his suit and sit down at the kitchen table, pour himself a drink and play solitaire or a card game with anyone who was there. Often he'd pour one for my Mom who would make dinner and they would talk over their cocktail. If it was just he and I, he'd make me a cherry coke and we'd play a game. Societal norms have changed and the evening cocktail is starting to come back into fashion. But that ritual truly has some great benefits. For me, it was a chance to talk with my Dad. Being somewhat distracted by the game and the relaxing effects of the cocktail for my Dad made it easier to just talk. As a Scout leader I was taught strategies to get a scout to open up and talk. Many of those strategies revolved around distraction. Giving a young man a piece of rope and he'd start tying knots, and keeping his hands busy it as often easier for the young man to talk. Much the same was true for my Dad and me. I've heard it said by many men that the only way they could talk with their dads during adolescence was about sports, Dad and I had cribbage. As MLW and I became empty nesters, and having Smooch in Grand Junction, right next to the Palisade wineries, we started buying wine, which leads of course to drinking wine. As the nights got nice here we'd find ourselves on the back deck, music playing, having dinner and enjoying a bottle of wine. We often stay on the deck long after dinner enjoying the night and our conversation. If you go into any kitschy gift shop you'll find a myriad of sayings about wine. You've seen them on tea towels and small signs, things like: There's a word for wine and dinner: WINNER! But once we get past the funny sayings, in moderation there's a lot to be said for the relaxation and conversation that can come with a glass of wine. There's also benefits to talking outside at night or in dimly lit room. Those advantages are your more likely to open up, to listen to ideas that in the light and bustle of the the day, you'd quickly dismiss. Many years ago I read an article in Readers Digest that was written by a single mother of 2. One night she'd had enough of her young kids and she told the to get on their coats, they were going for a walk. The kids protested: but it's dark. The mom did not give in, they went for a walk in the dark. In the dark the family dynamic changed. The kids stopped whining, the walk seemed like they were breaking the rules. Instead of being individuals they seemed to become a team against the scary darkness. Even more the Mom found out her kids would open up much more on these walks. The walks became part of a routine and the Mom and her kids had found a new way to relate. Siting in the deck, enjoying some wine and talking does many things for our marriage. It gives us both a chance to talk and dream. To discuss worries about our "kids." To catch up about our friends and to reconnect. It often give us the chance to start to discuss tougher topics. Just like the family I discussed, between the wine and the night, our defensive walls are dropped a bit and that opens the conversations that are necessary to continue to stay together. So wine therapy really can be a "thing" and not just an excuse to polish off a bottle. However I'll still laugh at the kitschy and clever signs.

Spring weather in Colorado is crap-shoot. It could be beautiful or it could be a snowy/rainy/windy mess. So when I was planning on buying my bee packages, that I am getting from two suppliers, I put the pick ups on to separate weekends. I am so glad I did. When you order a package of bees, something I've written about before, there's no waiting, nor moving your pick up time because the bees come on one or two weekends in the spring in a truck from California. Just days before, big hives, have had their bees shaken into a small screened in box until there is about 3 lbs. of bees in them. Then a new mated queen, in a queen cage, is put in the cage and it's closed off with a can of sugar syrup with a few holes in it to feed the bees during transport. Then a driving team drives them straight to the drop off point, in this case one of the stops was Colorado Springs where I ordered the packages a couple of months ago. After a beautiful week, on Friday night a wet cold front moved in and as it does here in the Spring, the rain quickly became a wet sloppy snow. Be pick up was to start at 6 am but an early email was sent to all bee buyers that our bees would arrive more like 10 am. So on Saturday the 27th of April, I relaxed at home as I watched the snow come down heavily. Then at 10 am I drove to Colorado Springs about 45 miles away. It was still snowing when I arrived and the temperature was 33 degrees. As I found a place to park and I saw people walking by with their packages of bees. When I got to the store, I was put in a line with over 50 0ther people that snaked through the store until you talked to a clerk who verified my order and gave me a card to go outside to the bees. Outside they pulled two packages off the stack, thumped the bees down so they would expose the queen in her cage, I verified the queen was alive and the I had my two packages to take back to the car. I wrapped them in an old towel and walked the block back to my car. And then I drove the 20,000 bees back to home. It was way too cold to put the bees in their hive. 45 degrees is the lowest you can put bees in a hive and it helps if the temperature is going up. So the two packages of bees went down into our basement at 60 degrees and I sprayed the bees with sugar water to ensure the ones that could not get to the feeder got fed. I also put a piece of tape over the small hole in the cage where the bees found a way out. Bees are funny there are always a few stragglers that cling to the outside of the package and they just ride along until you put the bees in a hive. Luckily Sunday it warmed to 45 degrees quickly and went into the 50s and the girls only had to spend one night in the basement. The first two restarted hives were the Gumbees and the Frizbees. Saturday the 4th of May dawned cloudy and windy with a promise of Sun mid morning. These bees came from Wardle Feed in Wheat Ridge. Wardle sent an email asking that the first half of the alphabet pick up your bees between 6 am and 7:30 and the second between 7:30 and 9 am. I was driving up with my friend Steve Zahnow so we got there a little after 7. They handled their bees a bit different. Much less "agricultural" than Rocky Mountain Bee Supply. They sent lots of emails the previous week when they too handed out bees in the snow. Unlike Rocky Mtn's one email explainaing the truck was late. At Wardle they don't thump your bees, they just check them before you come and you drive up and they put your packages in your car. So about 7:15 we were driving back to Steve's with about 30,000 bees in the car. It was still windy and cold. After dropping off his package of bees we went to my house for his first in person bee lesson. I am mentoring Steve so he can learn to keep bees too. Finally after an hour the clouds broke up and the day warmed quickly. Steve helped me set up my next two hives. I tried something different this time and I think it will be my new way of installing bees. The former way of installing bees is that you open the package, pull out the queen cage, remove two of the frames and dump in the bees. Most of them drop in the hive but many take flight. Then they try to find their way back into the hive. I had seen on YouTube that many bee keepers remove half of the frames, then they remove the queen cage, set it between two frames and place the entire package of bees in the hive and put the lid on the hive. It's so easy and puts less stress on the bees. They just walk out of the cage and back toward the queen. A few hours later you open the hive, pull out the cage that is now empty, shake the few bees on the out side of the cage into the hive and replace the 5 frames. Definitely the way I'll be doing packages in the future. Last week I found eggs in the Frizbees so their queen is laying. That means new bees in 21 days, from the time they were laid. I hope the queen of the Gumbees is also laying, she wasn't quite laying eggs yet, it takes a few days for a newly mated queen to be ready to lay. The hives we started this weekend were the NewBees and our newest hive the Airbnbees. I release their queens on today, Tuesday. So year three of my beekeeping adventure is on it's way. It's so nice to have bees again!

When it comes to one line wisdom sayings I have my list. Such as: Never argue with an idiot, people cant tell the difference. I later learned that saying was a short version of Mark Twains quote: "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." My Dad used to say, never sleep with a woman who is crazier than you. But the one that really stuck with me and has had numerous applications in my life is from the rock band 39 Special. Hold on loosely, but don't let go. When I was Scoutmaster of Troop 260 our Spring fund raising was done by aerating lawns. For two weekends in April we'd run aerators on lawns all over town. It was exhausting work but very profitable for the Troop. I was always amazed by the other dads who I knew were stronger and younger than me, that were exhausted after only a couple of lawns. As I watched them it was because they tried to muscle the machine, rather than guide the machine. If you're not familiar with an aerator it's a heavy machine that has a drum on it with 4 inch hollow spikes that your run across a lawn and pull out plugs of grass and soil to allow water and nutrients through the layer of thatch and roots that are in all lawns. As it runs the spikes go into the ground and they obviously grip and they can pull you along. I would say to them, when you aerate you have to think about 38 Special. They'd look at me funny and I'd continue, you have to: hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly you're gonna lose control. Working with the aerator you can guide it while it goes across a lawn and it's very easy. You need to consider where you want to end up before you start and if you guide the machine it will go, but try to muscle it and it will win every time. So both my boys know this song as the "aeration song." The song is actually about managing a relationship and again it's wisdom is timeless. You can use this with your spouse your kids, your relatives, your friends, your direct reports at work, heck it even works with your dog! But the message is you can't control many things, especially other people. You can influence them, just not control them, even if you sign their paycheck. When it comes to being married it's a great lesson again. However you can also mis-use the words. As far as holding on loosely, sometimes in a marriage the only thing you have to hold onto is each other. Especially when going through life's trials. If the two of you aren't turning inward for support first, well you might ask yourself why. But like all things there are times you have to hold on loosely so the other person can get information from other sources. So you may just have to let them get the advice while you are still available to them. Often the words of a true friend can be heard and accepted while being a bit more honest. Kind of like when you wear something that may not look the best on you, your friend may be able to be more honest or direct than your spouse without hurting your feelings. As I write this MLW and I are coming up on 36 years of marriage. If asked how we've stayed married that long, I'll often say a few things. First don't sweat the small stuff. Forget the arguments, forget the comments that were intended to be funny but weren't. If something hurts your feelings, before you let it fester, find a time to say, when you said ... it made me feel.... Talk it through and then forget it. In other words don't look for fight. Find friends with strong marriages and spend time with them and learn from them. The inverse is true too. If you find yourself doing things with a couple who is toxic, stop doing things with them. MLW and I tend to make jokes out of some of our biggest fights. It's a great way for us laugh about silly things we fought about that were so intense at the time but were really pretty silly. Here's an example: About 20 years ago we were driving through Missouri coming back from a family reunion. We were driving the truck and pulling the camper and MLW was at the wheel. I looked up and saw that traffic had stopped for someone in our lane turning left. I try not to be a backseat driver but I saw the upcoming hazard and just said "brake" MLW who did not see the hazard, looked at me and said what? I said with more urgency in my voice, "Brake", but MLW was still not getting the message, so I yelled and pointed for her to see the now quickly approaching accident "BRAKE!" She slammed on the brakes the trailer swerved we left a few skid marks and we did not have an accident. However with all the adrenaline in our bodies, and argument quick ensued: Why didn't you hit the brake?! I thought you were saying "Blake!" Why the hell would I say Blake!?!?! I don't know that's what I was trying to figure out! It continued with a few terse words, then driving in silence for 20 minutes, then as she does, MLW said at some point "traffics slowing down I suppose I should Blake". Now some twenty years later if either of us see an approaching hazard, we'll likely say, you might be ready to Blake... We both smile and whomever is driving slows down. Why does this work in our marriage? We both owned a stupid argument. Then we turned it into something that is ours. It's our experience, it's become our language. It means little to anyone else, but to us, it's basically saying "I love you" and the same time warning the other they might need to slow down. That's holding on loosely, but you are letting go of the anger, but not of our love for each other. Because if we had clung too tightly to the emotions of that silly argument, we would have lost control. So whether you think of aerating, dating, relationships, or just trying to eat a big messy sub sandwich, when you hear that song playing on the radio. I urge you to listen to those wise words and incorporate that thinking into your life. Because many times in life, if you'll just loosen your grip a bit, you'll find you'll enjoy most any experience much more.