Buy Iowa Honey Now!

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Welcome, Farmer’s Pal readers!

We make and sell lip balm; beeswax is also available in small quantities.

• JCB Lip Balm. This lip balm has a natural flavor that does not come from an unnatural additive. It is “not too hard, not too soft, but just right.” Made of our own beeswax, sweet almond oil, and our own honey, it sells for $2/tube.  JCB Lip Balm can be purchased through my contact form. I accept PayPal (if you must) and Dwolla (try it! I prefer it!). It is priced at $2/0.15 oz. tube. Mail orders need a minimum of 4 tubes. {JCB stands for Juliecache’s Bees.}
• Beeswax. — Please contact in late April 2013 for wax – We have a small amount of filtered beeswax in chunk/small block form for sale at $2/oz. Color varies from the palest yellow (it’s almost white) to a mid-yellow.
• Honey.  — Use the contact form to order — We sell honey for $7/pint; $6/pint when you supply the jar. (A lid and band are welcome, too!) 6 oz. flip-top bears (BPA-free containers) sell for $2.75. The bears make perfect little teacher thank you gifts.

My oldest checking a frame. I know…it looks like me, but it’s not.

A list of uses for beeswax can be found at This Old House, which I have pared down and made one addition.

• Unstick a drawer. A thin coat of beeswax on wooden rails makes the wood drawers on Granny’s old bureau slide smoothly. It does windows, too. Use wax to lubricate sashes.
• “Whip” a frayed rope. I love this tip. It’s easy and very helpful. Wrap a waxed length of string tightly around the rope’s tip about a dozen times. Tie off the loose end and trim the excess.
• Prepare screws. Georgia Beekeepers’ Association president Robert Brewer rubs wax over the threads of screws to make them drive smoothly and resist corrosion.
• Make spoon butter. Preserve woodenware in the kitchen like spoons and cutting boards and wooden knife handles.
• Polish concrete counters. Give a sealed, dark concrete countertop a muted, natural luster by rubbing melted beeswax over the surface with a chamois cloth. Let it dry and then wipe, says Fred Hueston, director of the National Training Center for Stone and Masonry Trades.
• Preserve a patina. Seal a copper sink by rubbing it with softened beeswax and polishing off the excess with a lint-free rag, says Shane Jost, owner of Mountains Edge Copperart.
• Waterproof leather. Combine equal parts beeswax, tallow, and neatsfoot oil (available online). Warm the mixture and use a rag to rub it on your work boots or gloves.

Des Moines Backyard Beekeepers. I maintain a beekeeping support group in central Iowa. Our online presence is run through yahoogroups. Prospective local beekeepers and current beekeepers are welcome to join us. We won’t clog your email inbox, and get together a few times a year.

The bees bring us pleasure. They are something to talk about. Because of her paternal grandfather’s persistence, my oldest child began keeping bees in 2008 with the assistance of a youth scholarship. After two years, I became the primary beekeeper. Thank you for buying local.