honey harvest

The harvest is usually the culmination/high point of any crop. With vegetables, fruits, grains, etc, the harvest often comes at one time; but the bees gather honey whenever they can. So then the issue is: when do you decide to harvest honey? Most folks harvest at the end of the “honey flow”, which varies depending on where you are. We are in the middle of the mid-west (northern Missouri) and our honey flow is usually mid May to end of July – mid August (depending on rainfall & weather). We normally harvest at the end of August. By that time, they will hopefully have capped most of the honey and it still gives them plenty of time to bring in fall honey for their winter stores.

There are 2 distinct parts to the honey harvest: getting the honey from the beehives and to extract the honey from the frames in the boxes. How do we get the bees out of the boxes of honey? We use a commercial product called Bee Go which is basically a bee repellent: it is smelly and unpleasant so the bees try to get away from it. We apply it to a cloth inside of a lid which we put on the hive. The bees go down in the hive allowing us to examine the frames to make sure we are taking honey and not brood. (Using bee go is the one thing we do which is not allowed in organic production. I choose to do it because of the various methods I have tried it feels the most humane to the bees – fewer bees get wounded or crushed than other ways I have tried)

How do you know how much honey to take? We generally take all the honey that is capped – above the bottom 2 boxes in each hive. Currently, each hive has a deep brood box on the bottom and a super on top of that. We leave them those 2 boxes – they contain a mixture of brood, pollen, & honey. Some hives have brood in the third box as well and so leave that as well. In the end, it’s an intuitive process – and my 30 years of experience. We want as much honey as they can spare – but always to leave them enough for them to eat through the winter. After the harvest, they keep gathering nectar: some years they gather a lot, and other years, not very much. We want each hive to have 2 or 3 boxes full of honey and pollen.

Now to the honey house where we extract the honey from the combs: when the bees have dried the honey enough so that it will store, they “cap” the little cells that contain the honey. The cap is very thin wax that the bees make to seal the honey from the air. To get the honey out, we have to take off this wax. We use an electric knife to cut the cappings from the comb. The photo shows one of our members, Apple, cutting the capping from the comb. Then the frames are placed in the “extractor” – a centrifuge. It is the shiny (stainless steel) round object in the lower right. This one holds 20 frames: it spins them in a circle so that the honey is flung out against the sides, runs down and we take it out of the bottom through a valve and pour it in a 55 gallon barrel. From here we bottle it in 1 lb and 3 lb (quart) jars.

WAIT! the best part of all is to munch on the wax and honey as we are uncapping it – it is SCRUMPTIOUS!

thank you beezzzzz

fruit harvest

Earlier, I wrote of our small fruit harvest. I started calling this one: large fruit harvest – to distinguish it from the small fruits – but that’s ambiguous: is the fruit harvest bountiful? or is the fruit itself large. In any case, we’ve been eating apricots, peaches and apples for about a month and a half.

Apricots. We have only 1 apricot tree and actually get fruit from it about every 7 years. Sometimes the blooms get frosted, other years the young fruit falls off (who knows why?), occasionally, the varmints (coons & possums) get the entire crop. But this year – we had a crop! Some of the fruit got wormy but we still had enough for fresh eating, drying, and apricot preserves. A rare treat.

Peaches: we have 2 basic kinds: grafted trees and non grafted or native peaches. The grafted trees usually have ripe peaches for a month beginning in mid-July. The native peaches ripen for a month beginning mid-September. The original grafted trees were purchased from a tree nursery; since then, we have used those trees as a resource to graft onto our peach seedling trees to have more grafted trees. We have 2 kinds of grafted peaches: New Haven & Reliance. The photo below is of the reliance peach tree.

What do I mean by “native peaches”? I am referring to trees that grow from seed. There were peach and plum trees here when we bought the farm in the mid 70s. Many of the fruit fall to the ground and rot – and sprout new trees! We often transplant these spouts into our “orchard” – an area where we take care of our trees and harvest the fruit.

What’s the difference between grafted and native peaches? As I mentioned earlier, they ripen at different times of the yeat; however, the most striking difference is in the size and appearance. The grafted peaches are much larger (4 times as large), and usually more colorful – a mixture of bright red & yellow, whereas the native ones are more subdued. Taste? It is hard to generalize since it varies from tree to tree and year to year; however, in general, the grafted ones we have are more succulent & sweeter (if not, we do not graft that kind!). But since they mature at different times, whatever is in season, is the tastiest!

Apples. We do not grow/harvest non grafted trees – with the exception of one crab apple tree. There probably are good native apple trees out there, but they are much more rare than the peaches. We have 2 kinds as well: summer & fall apples. Summer apples mature earlier (early August) and are generally not as crisp as the later ones. Of course, we eat them when they ripen, but they are more of a cooking/baking apple – great for apple sauce, pies, etc. The later (fall) apples are generally tastier for fresh eating and store better.

Growing green manure crops

Growing green manure crops is the key to maintaining soil fertility at Sandhill Farm. A green manure crop is planting a crop to feed the organisms and web of life in the soil: usually, the crop is turned under and incorporated when it is in the flowering stage – at that time, the plants reach their greatest biomass. It is just before seed begins to form, at which time plants use a lot of their own resources and the soil to grow the seed.

We grow at least one green manure crop for every crop that we harvest; sometimes two or three. The photo is of a buckwheat/soybean green manure crop: the soybeans have the large dark green leaves; the buckwheat is flowering. I wish you could hear the sounds – buzzzzzzz – our honey bees love these flowers and the entire field hum. This crop is only 4 weeks old – that’s a lot of biomass we will be incorporating into the soil in a week or two. It will make a lot of soil organisms very happy.

After this crop, we will plant our winter green manure crop – wheat, hairy vetch, oats, & buckwheat. The buckwheat will die with the first frost, the oats will be killed after repeated hard frost – usually Dec-Jan, and the wheat and vetch go dormant in the winter and grow again next spring. The oats and buckwheat put out a lot of biomass in the fall. When they die, the wheat and vetch take over.

Buckwheat – we grow buckwheat as a green manure crop a lot. It is a bio-accumulator – it brings up phosphorus in particular and makes it available to subsequent crops. However, the main reason I grow it is that I find it spiritually uplifting: hearing the bees in it makes my heart sing and seeing acres of bouncing white flowers in the wind is aesthetically pleasing. I feel like it makes the whole farm more happy and joyous.

Time to grow rice?

We eat a lot of rice in our community and because we like to grow what we eat (or is it vice versa?), we fantasize about growing rice. After awhile, someone asks: don’t we have to flood the field? The general assumption is that the answer is yes – that usually dampens the enthusiasm. But wait! we do have this one low lying field that occasionally floods (once every 10 years or so)….

Well, this is the year. The photo shows sorghum plants in the flooded field on July 29 2008. The flood receded in a few hours – but not before Gigi and the dogs had a swim in it – you can see them in the background. Ironically, sorghum thrives in dry conditions; however, the sorghum in this field is actually doing fine now.

Inspecting organic farms

One of the “hats” I wear is that of an inspector; most of the inspections I do are of farms but I also do some processors – companies that make products from organic ingredients. I generally enjoy the inspections and especially the farm ones – due to the fact that I am a farmer and so relate personally to farm issues.

What does it mean to be an organic inspector? The process of organic certification works something like this: a farmer/producer decides that they want to certify their product organic. The first step is to select/find a certifier – there are about 50 certification bodies operating in this country that are accredited by NOP (National Organic Program) of the USDA (U.S. Dept of Agriculture). To sell any product as certified organic it has to meet the standards set out by US congress and administered by NOP. The producer contacts the CB (certifying body), which sends out an application form (hard copy or electronic). The producer completes the application (usually 10-15 pages) requesting certification of the entire farm/operation or only the parts that qualify – for farms that means that no “prohibited materials” (usually chemicals) have been applied to those fields within the last 3 years. The CB reviews the application and may request more info or clarifications. If satisfied, the CB contacts an inspector – some have full time inspectors that work for them but most hire independent inspectors (like me) to do the inspection. The inspector does an on site inspection of the farm/processor and then turns in an inspection report. The CB reviews all the documents, including the inspection report, and makes a decision – to certify (or not) the operation and usually stipulating further actions the producer needs to do to keep being certified (often to maintain better records).

So what does the on site inspection actually consist of? There are 2 distinct parts: to inspect the actual physical operation – in case of farms, to look at every field that is requested for certification – make sure that the producer’s application/records/maps match with what we see in the field. The second part is to inspect the records. What kind of records?  Seeds – are they organic? how do you know? we look at seed tags and invoices to make sure they are organic and if not, they MUST be untreated and non GMO seeds. We also check all other inputs: fertility amendments (eg manure, phosphate, calcium), make sure there is a buffer around the farm – a border between the organic and neighboring conventional fields, and then we check organic sales: can we track the sale of organic product from the sale back through the farm from storage to the field and production techniques and back to the seed? Are total sales in line with what are reasonable yields from these organic acres?

That all sounds rather dry…. So what really happens when I show up at the farm? Some farmers – especially if it’s their first inspection, may be nervous. Since I’ve been inspecting in the Midwest for over a decade, more than half of the farms I go to I’ve been to before and so the farmer and I are already acquainted. I am familiar with their operation and focus on what they are doing this year. Many farmers feel they are at odds with their surroundings – most of their neighbors are conventional. Some organic farmers are quiet & humble and do not advertise the fact that they are organic; others are enthusiastic; in any case, most are excited to tell me all about their latest experiments, trials & tribulations. Aha! that’s it! I realize that most of their neighbors are not that interested in what they are doing. I am a captive audience and I am genuinely interested in what they are doing – they love telling me all about their farm, ideas, philosophy, etc.

When you read this and imagine me in inspecting farms, imagine me contemplating what the farmer is telling me about his/her operation (the farmer, unfortunately, is out of view!). This photo is actually of me on our land – I love the shadows in the fields.

What I like about inspecting:  I get a larger view – of the organic movement as well as the individuals in it. Each has a unique story and viewpoint; and often they are passionate. I love the diversity and I love their passions.