Good news for our local northern Colorado customers!
Beeyond the Hive has just added a local and cost effective way to purchase all of your favorite products without the expense of shipping. Place your order online and pick up your goodies at The Cupboard, which is located in downtown Fort Collins.
All orders will be available for pick up on Wednesdays after 1pm. If you need your honey products sooner please contact us for alternative arrangements.
Follow our simple instructions and you will bee on your way to a sweet local experience:
→ Add all of your favorite Beeyond The Hive products to your shopping cart
→ Enter your ZIP Code
→ Select “Local Fort Collins Pick Up” from the shipping drop-down menu
→ Click “Recalculate” to see your shipping charges adjusted to $0.00 then click “Checkout”
→ Enter all of your billing and shipping info (Yes you must enter your shipping address even though you are choosing “Local Fort Collins Pick Up”)
→ Enter your payment info and submit your order
→ All set! Your items will be ready for pick up at The Cupboard, Wednesdays at 1pm
Jamie’s approving smile means that the hive is definitely happy and healthy.
One of the many reasons I love my job is because each day is always different from the one before. I truly enjoy the spontaneity of it all, but never in a million years could I have predicted that when I woke up this morning I would be picking up one of our truck drivers from the Fresno Hospital!
Just like beekeepers, truck drivers are an interesting breed of people. Loading and unloading hundreds of semi’s each pollination season makes it safe to say that Jacy and I have sort of become experts on the situation. We have worked with many truck drivers who are very nice, hard-working fellows. We have also had the opposite side of the spectrum & had truck drivers who refused to get out of the semi’s to help. Many claim they are allergic to bees which often times is the case & we are happy to do the work while they remain safe & sound. However, many of the drivers seem to be allergic to work & that is okay with me too, but I can’t help but feel a sense of pride when our work is done & I knock on their window to sign the paper-work & they see that a female just netted and strapped their load! The look on their face is priceless!
Since our dad has been doing this for so long, we know most of the drivers on a first name basis. Wait a minute…now that I think about it I can’t recall any of their first names! I know we have a fellow named “Rollover Ray” (for obvious reasons you can imagine). He rolled over a load of bees many years ago and has been unable to shake the nickname ever since. We have another driver called “Merlin”. I still haven’t figured out where that one came from. Either he’s a ‘magic man’ or really likes wizards I suppose? Another one of our drivers is an older man who is kind of like the Michael Jordan of truck drivers…he’s goes in and out of retirement quite frequently. We call him ”Grumpy” on his own request. No, he is not one of the seven dwarfs but does appear to be a little grouchy from time to time. I’d have to say one of my favorite drivers goes by the name “Billy D. Zero”. You see, unfortunately Billy D. fell off of a load and broke his leg. It was in that moment that he went from “Billy D. Hero” to “Billy D. Zero”!
There really are just too many drivers to name! I know Jacy is entertained by one of our drivers named “Rooster”. He is very loud and boisterous and weighs maybe 100 pounds soaking wet. The best part about Rooster is he always crows as he straps his load! One would think this might get old or annoying quickly, but we always seem to get a kick out of his unusual mating call!
“Yes, truck drivers are an interesting breed indeed,” I remember thinking as I drove to the hospital to pick up a truck driver named Jerry who had been stung on the neck earlier that morning and had a terrible reaction. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was Jerry’s opportunity for a clever name change. Almost like a right of passage, he had definitely earned it!
Johnston Honey Farms has just completed our 100th year of beekeeping in Colorado! Our bees have produced a great crop of honey that we can now pass on to our many customers that are loyal to the flavor of Colorado honey. Honey sales have been very strong under our two labels BeeYond the Hive and Colorado Honey Company. This is due to the many health conscious people in Colorado that realize how valuable honey is as a natural health product along with being the only pure and natural sweetener available! We are already making plans for next summer’s honey production where Jamie will be placing bees in select high altitude locations. These locations will produce some of the best tasting natural honey Colorado has to offer and this honey will be as close to organic as you can get. Hopefully this honey will be available next July.
Our bees are in excellent health and have very strong populations. The CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder)that has killed many bees throughout the United States has not had any affect on our bee operation so far. Are we just lucky or is it maybe our experience of 100 years that have helped us dodge the bullet? I don’t know but we are feeding our bees more protein, amino acids and vitamins than we ever have and we also install new queens in each hive every year. New queens cost $16 each which is very expensive but they pay off a big dividend to the hive by laying 1200 eggs per day which generate more population for the hive. Two year old queens will lay 600 eggs per day so these hives have more tendency to collapse under weak populations. I feel the biggest reason for CCD is a new pathogen called Nosema Ceranae which tear down the bees digestive tract then causing much destruction to the bee. Nosema Ceranae was first detected in China in 1995 and Spain in 2005 but it can be controlled and treated. We were very lucky to be able to treat our bees with a product that has prevented our bees from breaking down with this disease.
As I write this update our bees are waiting to be shipped to California for the winter to pollinate the almond crop. There are 700,000 acres of almonds in California requiring 1.4 millions hives of bees from USA beekeepers. Almond trees are almost 100% dependent upon bees for pollination to set a crop. With two hives per acre, the trees will produce as many as 3500 pounds per acre and with no bees an orchard will drop to as low as 400 pounds per acre. Johnston Honey Farms is the largest supplier of bees for almonds in the state of California so growers are happy to see us migrate back to California for the winter! Both Jamie and Jacy will come to California as needed and help with preparing the bees for the upcoming almond bloom that will begin in February. Jeff remains the mainstay in operating our honey packing plant in Fort Collins and is too busy to make the trip to California anymore. My next update will go into more detail on our California operation and the almond bloom!! When I have time away from our bees I will be working on my tan in sunny California so that when I return to snowy Colorado this winter you will be able to recognize me!
If you were to ask a person what the greatest gift their parents ever gave them was, I think a couple of common answers would be a car on their 16th birthday, or maybe even a college education. For me, the greatest gift I ever received was a beehive. Not a common gift indeed, but to this day it is my most prized and cherished possession.
I can’t really explain the feeling I get when I am out in a bee yard. The sound of millions of bees buzzing all around me may be frightening to some, but it is calming to me. There is just something about those little insects that absolutely fascinates me. At first I thought no one could understand or really, truly appreciate the bees unless they were an actual beekeeper. This past summer has taught me how wrong I have been.
My sister Jacy and I sell our honey and beauty products at a number of festivals and markets and this year we had so many people inquiring about the state of the bees since the Colony Collapse Disorder. These weren’t just people trying to make friendly conversation…they were genuinely concerned about our bees. It always makes us happy when our little worker bees receive the recognition they deserve! In addition to our festivals, I also agreed to give a summer presentation in my hometown of Rocky Ford, Colorado. I was told the ages of my audience would range from 4-82 years old. I admit I was a bit confused as to how I could make this presentation exciting and entertaining for everyone involved. The answer turned out to be simple…I just brought a live observation hive and a box full of honeystix and I got to be the most popular person in town (just for the day)! It was the best feeling at the end of my presentation when I asked all the little kids how many of them wanted to be a beekeeper when they grow up & they all threw their hands in the air & yelled “I DO!!!”
When my parents gave me my first beehive I’m sure they were trying to teach me “responsibility” like some parents do by giving their child a puppy. Instead, it has brought out this side of me I never even knew I had in me! Working in the bees with my family has been the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had in my life. Besides enriching my life, my hives have provided me with some of the happiest (and craziest) memories I have of my family! Anything from my Dad popping wheelies on his forklift, to Jacy sprinting from rattle snakes, to Jeff getting his semi stuck in the mud (and getting towed by a guy that looked like ZZ Top), to my mom being disgruntled about the (lack of) “bathroom situation” out in a bee yard…you’ll get it all! The good, the bad and the ugly! Although they are slightly nervous and highly disapprove, I will use this blog to keep you posted on all our crazy antics.
Johnston Honey Farms has just completed our 100th year of beekeeping in Colorado! Our bees have produced a great crop of honey that we can now pass on to our many customers that are loyal to the flavor of Colorado honey. Honey sales have been very strong under our two labels BeeYond the Hive and Colorado Honey Company. This is due to the many health conscious people in Colorado that realize how valuable honey is as a natural health product along with being the only pure and natural sweetener available! We are already making plans for next summer’s honey production where Jamie will be placing bees in select high altitude locations. These locations will produce some of the best tasting natural honey Colorado has to offer and this honey will be as close to organic as you can get. Hopefully this honey will be available next July.