I know the reports for allergy sufferers has been rough this spring, but our bees our loving it. They are returning to the hives with massive pollen baskets. All four hives are still going strong this spring. I think this early spring allowed us to open them up early enough to get them ventilated and get a head start on the brood and set up for this summer's honey season.
Our main goal with our hives is pollination and fun. We have no intention of making money off of our operation but we love to give to family and friends or exchange it--like when I gave Melissa a jar for taking that pigeon off my hands. We're now getting to the point where we have more honey even after giving it away and we need to figure out what to do with it.
My sister Robin called a couple of weeks ago (yes, seriously I do have a sister named Robin and no she is not a birder) and asked if I would give her a City Birds/Country Birds book for a silent auction to benefit a local community center in Indianapolis called Fletcher Place that helps people get out of poverty. She's on the board and told me that it's a food related fund raising event. I said, "I should send you some honey if it's food related." I grabbed a round of our comb honey (that won the blue ribbon at the county fair last summer) and asked my beekeeping partner Mr. Neil to sign it and sent it off.
Above is a half eaten round that I have here at home to give you an idea of what it look like. The one I gave Robin is a full round. I love comb honey, you can eat the wax or if you put it hot tea, scrape it off the top and sip away. We also like to eat it with Greek Gods traditional plain yogurt. I told Robin she should put the honey on eBay since not everyone can go to her fundraiser in Indianapolis and there might be strong interest...and there is. It just went up this weekend and it's already at $127. 50. Holy cow.
It's not something we're going to do all the time, this is our first try with it but it all goes well, I'm sure Mr. Neil, Lorraine, Non Birding Bill and I will periodically link to organizations and people we've donated our blue ribbon honey to to auction off.