In the eye of the storm

What's left of the grain bin next door, after our Friday storm.

What's new on the farm:

A belated Canada Day and Independence Day to everyone!

I hope you all had some time to kick back, enjoy a refreshing drink, and spend some time with loved ones.

This week has been all about weather for us.

For many years, we were on a drought cycle in our part of Saskatoon.

Year after year, we'd be scanning the skies and weather forecast for clouds, but rain would never come our way.

Instead, we would get long hot days with clear blue skies. Beautiful for enjoying summer activities, but not great when you're depending on water for flowers to grow.

When drought occurs, everything gets stressed.

Trees start to die off. The ground gets so dry and crusty that any water that does come will bead off instead of soaking in.

The plants don't grow as much, and they don't produce as much nectar.

Then the bees have a harder time foraging enough food, or getting a diverse diet, and they get stressed out as well.

They become more likely to get sick and more vulnerable to pests like Varroa.

After years of beekeeping under these conditions, we have become very sensitive to rainfall in the summer and snowfall in the winter.

What we're not used to is getting too much rain.

But the last two weeks, we have been getting rainstorms every day!

There is so much rain that we are seeing dried-up dugouts filling up with water again, and trees are bouncing back.

There's so much rain that the ground can't soak any more in.

And now this is becoming a problem, because we are now having a hard time getting into our yards!

The ground is too soft and muddy to drive our trucks in.

And some days it's been raining so much that we can't get any work done at all.

So there are some splits (new hives) we made that are stuck in our home yard, and we can't get them out until the ground dries up.

Each day we get one thunderstorm after another, and the ground never gets a chance!

And on Friday, we got a whopper of a storm that came near our farm.

Saskatoon had a sudden tornado warning that we weren't expecting.

We were out of town, but on Friday evening, Andrew started getting calls from our neighbors asking if we were okay.

That isn't a good sign!

It turns out, we had a massive storm with tons of wind and rain.

And the grain bin in the field beside ours got picked up and smashed back on the ground!

Luckily, it was an old structure that was on its way out, and there weren't any other buildings that were damaged. But still quite a pain for our neighboring farmer.

So far throughout Andrew's family history on this land, we have had two tornadoes hit the farm and take out buildings. This week it was pretty close to a third!

So it's been pretty crazy weather-wise around here.

After so many years of drought, it seems wrong to wish for it to stop.

But we really do need a break with some sunshine and heat! Not just for us to move bees, but also so the crops don't drown.

Fortunately for us, the crops are a bit delayed right now, so we have a little bit of breathing room to get the hives out before they start blooming.

But we are cutting things close and hoping that we can move everything out this coming week, so wish us a couple of sunny days to dry things up!

Our real life Winnie the Pooh

One of our customers shared a funny story recently about their honey order that I had to share with you!

"So our shipment arrived yesterday - neither me nor my husband heard the Fedex van.

He placed it at our front door and unbeknownst to us, a bear stole the box! (We live in a forest on a mountain).

So, checking my email this morning, I saw it was delivered, yet it was nowhere to be found!

I set off looking for it in the trees on our land - was about to give up and checked down a slope only to find all five jars behind a bush - the box was in shreds!

LOL Just thought I would share with you! Thankfully, we have the honey and it is so good - so good the bears stole it! 🙂 I wasn't about to give it up that easily!"

-Rosemarie

Poor guy didn't get to have his fill of honey this time, he did look quite hungry. But we're so glad Rosemarie didn't give up on the package! Check out the photos that she shared below.

Bear spots his prize and heads for the door.

Do you think he knows the package is a jackpot?

Made a good effort at the jars, but couldn't get to the sweet stuff!

Thanks to Rosemarie for sharing her story!

And thank you to everyone who has supported our business and has taken the time to share your thoughts with us, whether good, bad, or mediocre.

It helps us improve our business, and we love reading your stories and reviews. We go through every single one!

It makes our day to know that our honey has become a small part of your daily lives!