an Iowa life | bees and local food
quick recap of 2021. i am closing out the summer with 6 hives, 5 on the farm and 1 in my backyard. i harvested from 3, with 9 gallons or 90 pounds. management-wise, i call this year a success. although i had two colonies struggle with queens and i couldn’t…
I get a package every year to stay in tune with my students. This year, I installed a 3 pound package on a chilly, windy day. It came with a queen that was placed with the package for 48 hours, meaning that I could direct release her (as opposed to…
My paternal grandmother married into a culturally Dutch family with a Scottish name (Campbell). There seems to be a Celtic (the shared language of Scots) tradition called “Telling the Bees,” in which every hive is informed of a keeper’s major life event (deaths and marriages). I have found paintings and…
Julia attempts to explain her role as Vice-President of the Iowa Farmers Union (IFU) at NFU convention (Savannah, GA).