Holiday Open House & Construction Updates

My intentions of posting before the big weekend hit didn’t quite pan out so here we are, post-huge-double-event-weekend and some pictures loaded so I can share with you what and how we’ve been doing. We’re doing great, by the way. Quick run-down of things:

• Our 4th annual Holiday Open House went smashingly. It was crazy. It was hectic. It was fun. And we are all excited about next year’s event and have made plans to bring in as many Hoang family members as can make it. Talk about fun working together! We couldn’t have survived the weekend as well as we have without the help of our family and friends. Thanks, everyone!
• The Honey House is moving right along and we are thrilled! The crews worked really hard to help us get in the HH by the time Open House came along and they did it! Walls and roof up and on, then the windows and doors crews got to work and poof, we got some useable space. We made due with a very, very long extension cord and were able to have hot cider and the Christmas tree lit but that was it. 🙂 We were thrilled to have such an open space even with it unfinished. Today we had temporary power hooked up so that the insulation crew could do their thing and they did. Can’t wait to look inside again tomorrow. Mark and Tang picked out paint today while I was at the mill working and the HH gets a coat of paint inside, top to bottom.

• Speaking of Tang, that’s my older brother and he is visiting with us for about two months while our dad is traveling. Tang got to stay with us a week last Christmas and we all had a great time so we were thrilled when we found out he’d be here even longer with us. He is a sweet soul and an eager learner and helper. He LOVES Mark and Stan and being around them and he loves to help them do “man work,” as he calls it. I love him and I love that my beekeeper is teaching him how to make candles. Tonight at dinner he told us he enjoyed making the candles and when asked which was his favorite, he responded that the 1-pound block is his fav. He’s not sure why; he just likes it. Made us laugh. I’m sure there will be many beeventures for Tang between now and February so we’ll be sure to share! By the way, his name is not  pronounced like the orange powder drink, but rather sounds like “tong.”

 

• We had a record sales day at the Pearl this past weekend and it happened to be the coldest day ever! The vendor turnout was lower than usual and we were in a temporary location due to the Tamales Festival running on the same day and there weren’t nearly as many shoppers as usual but the ones who came out to support the market were amazing! We really weren’t sure what to expect since we were pretty much frozen within an hour of getting there and setting up so imagine our utter surprise when Mark gave us the final numbers. And “us” includes Mark, me, Tang and another brother name Hung and our sis Lan. What a great crew we had and somehow we managed to laugh through some of it but man were we glad to get done and get home! Thank God for great family!

Okay, that’s about it for now. I need to do other stuff before bed. I hope you all have had a great month so far. This is my favorite time of the year!!!! If you want, here are links to two photo sets on our Flickr page. Click on the link to check out more of what we’re doing by viewing my visual memory book. 🙂 Goodnight.

1. Honey House Construction Photos
2. 2013 Holiday Open House Photos

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Honey House, Round Pillars & a Photo Shoot

Well, as of yesterday, this is how the Honey House (HH) is looking and we can’t begin to tell you the emotions and excitment we feel when we are out back there. It’s FINALLY REAL!!! See how happy we are? Smokey’s happy, too, and accompanies us each day to check out all the progress and to climb dirt piles and machinery. We leave the last two activities to him although I do get some height by standing on the tractor occasionally.

It’s been a crazy busy kind of week but Mark’s made some new candles and I’m totally smitten with them! First we have these sweet round pillars, which we’ll be debuting at the Pearl Farmers Market as well as in the bee class that Mark teaches, both happening tomorrow. These are 3-inch diameter pillars and their heights are 3-, 4-, and 6-inches (priced $14, $18, $22 respectively).

He aslo made some sweet little hand-dipped tapers – his first! I will get a good picture of them and share them next post.

Finally, I just want to give a BIG TEXAS THANK YOU to our good friend, Josh, who owns Azulox Photography. I have admired his work and his talent for many years and we are so happy that we had a photo shoot with him finally – we’ve never had portraits made together, even for our wedding, so this was very special to us. I can’t think of anyone I trusted more to capture us and how we are together. We had so much fun and we love the photographs. It’s going to be very, very hard for me to pick the few I will put up on our walls. 🙂 Thank you so much, Josh! We love you and wish you all the best in your life and work. Here is ONE of my favorites:

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Back from West Texas & Kicking into Gear

Hello everyone! Sorry it’s been so long but we took some time off to visit our grandbabies and kiddos out in West Texas. And then it was bam, bang, boom as soon as we got back so I haven’t had time to catch y’all up on stuff. So much at work, home AND GBR. Be patient with us and I’ll do a fuller beekeeping post as soon as markets are over. Meanwhile, here’s a quick rundown of a few things.

We had a great visit with the kids, fell in love with the grandkids and witnessed a lot of beautiful skies, weather and landscape. Oh yes, and then there was the rainbow. Two of them. We were blessed to witness an amazing double rainbow the last night there and just as we finised dinner at the Lodge where our son works. Gorgeous and breathtaking!

Back at market today, we introduced our creamed honey and it was met with great enthusiasm and sold out by 11am. Nice. We’ll continue to work on the formal packaging but we have my handmade tags for the time being. Doesn’t seem to be stopping people from enjoying the smooth creaminess and spreadability of the new product. If you haven’t ever had creamed or whipped honey, here’s your chance to grab some. We’ll have a few jars at Quarry tomorrow and try to get more together for next weekend. Hopefully, our project with Maeve for the label will move along quickly and I won’t be making the laborous tags much longer. Not that I mind crafting but there’s too much to do for me to be crafting! 🙂

Earlier on Instagram and Facebook, I posted a shot of three of the new holiday ornaments we are working on so that they’ll be ready in time for holiday shopping – so exciting! We’re trying out molds and seeing how the wax might or might not develop a bloom over time, causing a little bit of haziness on the ornaments. You can easily wipe off the bloom and it doesn’t impact the scent or quality of the ornament at all but we still work on the bloom not happening at all. Anyway, we are just super excited to work with Maeve to develop just the right packaging for the formal introduction of these ornaments. Can’t wait!

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Burlap & How Facebook Helped Us Find It

That’s right – Facebook. Haha. One of our fellow vendors at the Pearl market is What’s Brewing, artisan roasters of gourmet coffee located in San Antonio (near the airport), and I follow them on Facebook. Good thing! I have wanted to craft with burlap in the past but found it difficult to lay my hands on some real burlap that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. I know they sell rolls of it now hobby stores and even at Walmart, but I wanted some with character. In other words, I wanted burlap with a story, even if the story is that it held coffee beans. 🙂 But what if the coffee beans traveled all the way from South America? Or Hawaii, like some of our queen bees? And how many people handled the bags and what are there stories? That fascinates me. Anyway, I saw What’s Brewing post that they have TONS of these jute bags and they were for sale. What? Cool! Mark had mentioned in the past that he’d like to use burlap if only he could find them. And like me, he didn’t want to pay too much since he’d be using the bags in the smoker. Burlap provides a nice, slow, cool smoke that won’t hurt the bees. He used to use burlap in the past but it became harder to find. Currently, in case you forgot, we use cedar bark which also provides a nice cool and slow burning smoke. Smells nice, too, and even though I had severe cedar allergies in the past, I have no problems being around that smoke, even when it blows on me in the bee yard. Anyway, we want to give this burlap a try. We’ll let you know how the smoker business goes. This burlap does have a vegetable coating on it, which may help prolong the burn and smoke but hopefully it won’t cause any problems. Today Mark did try a round with it but we’ll want to see how it does over several uses before the verdict is in.

You know what my advice is for you if you’re going to go get some burlap – account for it being bulky and dusty. And maybe you should wear long sleeves. I know that’s really hard to do when it feels like 100F degrees but man my arms and face got itchy. I think I may just be a wimp because Mark took it all in stride of course. He’s my macho man! I don’t know what I was expecting but the bags were bigger than I anticipated so I was a little surprised by the bulkiness. Just keep that in mind and clear your trunks if you’re heading to SA to pick some up. Mark got 200 and I got 20. With our market equipment and supplies in and on the truck, we sort of pushed it getting everything loaded but he strapped us in and back we went with our bags. And then we had a lot of fun going through the pile and pulling out the ones with graphic designs on them. I can’t wait to do some things once I have some time. I picked out some extras from Mark’s pile – love them.

They are so unique and some quite lovely with the details. I even love the information printed related to weight and so on. I like this for it’s unique blue, the only one in the batch I got. And the design reminds me of Matisse, one of my favorite artists.

And I like this one for the details:

Okay, so I think I should actually include a shot that is related to beekeeping. Sorry I got carried away with how pretty the graphic bags are. The majority of Mark’s 200 bags did not have the graphics but some did. We stopped by Home Depot and got a new little ax and then he rolled up a bag and chopped these rolls and now they are ready to pop into the smoker. Less messy for sure than the cedar. Day one went well; more to report later. Good night, all.

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Wrapping Up the Honey Harvest Season

Now that the summer harvest is over and equipment’s been cleaned (thanks to the awesome work of our Belinda!), it’s time to tend to the bees to make sure they are ready for fall and winter. We tell people who go through our classes or who buy our bees – treat for mites, feed when they’re hungry, check on the bees. Do it now.

In the above picture, which I snapped right before dinner this evening, Mark is checking on the new divides we have out back to make sure things are going well. He’s looking to make sure queens are accepted; he’s feeding hives that look like they might need a little boost (nothing much for them to feed on lately); he’s making sure he doesn’t see some problem that needs to be handled immediately. Happy news is that they are looking good so far; strong and doing well with their new queens that were recently installed. This makes us feel more confident that they will head into winter months able to sustain themselves into next spring. It’s what every beekeeper wants, right? To know that their bees will be okay over winter. So far, so good but some rain would sure help the girls make some honey for their winter store. We’re always hoping. At least there are more clouds in the sky lately. That helps keep us below the 100 degree mark which makes a big difference believe it or not. The mornings seem more pleasant and actually a bit on the cool side (don’t want to say that too loudly for fear it will change on us suddenly). Today only got up to about 94 I believe. Cool front! lol

In mite news, Mark’s been treating with Apivar right now and he’s completed Cibolo Creek, Elm Creek and Big Oaks bee yards. Each hive had to be opened and each box of the hive receives two strips per brood box. It’s much easier to handle than Hopguard and has proven to be very effective for our bees. He’ll continue with treatments with each yard; he’s got quite a few more to go.

In addition to the treatments, he also had Stan help him move emptied honey supers and other equipment out of the The Farm location and into a new storage facility – a temporary solution until we get that honey house built. Here’s our new storage at the warehouse our friend Mary is letting us use – we’re only taking up a small portion of the space but it’s a huge help to us!

Another view:

It’s going to be so nice to have our own space one day soon! I love it when things are neatly piled in their places. Of course, you can necessarily tell that by looking at our house right now but I do. lol Okay, here’s a look at the before shot of the former storage space at the Farm (this is just one side of the space we used so there’s some equipment to the right of the picture you cannot see here):

And here is how Mark and Stan left it – nice and very clear, ready for whatever new adventures await the spooky-ish greenhouse:

In Honey House news, it’s moving along! Engineers and drawings completed, septic system designed, building purchased and plans in review…things are getting lined up. At this rate, we are hopeful that the HH will be ready (enough) to host our annual Holiday Open House, which is usually in November. Keep your fingers crossed!

In market news, we had to drop Southtown market for several reasons but we are rooting for the other vendors that the market will be successful. We’re just pretty worn out, to be honest with you. The 7-day work week in the heat is wearing on us and let’s face it, while we’re not in our golden years, we’re not spring chickens anymore either. 🙂 We need some kind of rest that’s more than the Sunday afternoons after markets are done. Anyway, we’re still at two markets and we hope you’ll continue to support all your local farmers, ranchers and producers no matter which market you support. We have an entire new level of appreciation for the growers of our foods and we feel blessed to have had the chance to meet all these fine, hard-working people who we now consider friends. Please support them as best you can. Thanks!

Random market story: We met a young group of friends last Sunday at market and one of them was Vietnamese and she asked me if I’d heard of or sampled a new trendy delicacy – bee larvae in puddings or porridges. No. I can’t say I’ve had it but I have heard of it and not too long ago, actually! A beekeeper in Hawaii that I follow on Instagram posted about the protein provided by bee larvae and how people harvest some of those for that purpose…that’s about as close as I’ll probably get to consuming them. I don’t see myself trying that since I look at bee larvae and I see a honeybee to be. Oh well, still interesting to learn new things.

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Unexpected Queen Flight & the Deformed Chicken

One of my favorite times of any weekday is when Mark and I regroup in the kitchen and we’re winding down while we prepare dinner. During the week, I don’t often get to go on beeventures with Mark and I always feel like I am missing out on stuff. I try not to think about it most of the time and he’s really great about texting status updates and pictures to me and other family members. We are blessed that our families enjoy learning about what we are doing and they are constantly asking for updates. I use those updates for everyone on our social media outlets and I especially love it when Mark shares pictures, and sometimes videos, with us (lately my favorite it still the two fighting bulls out in a field). So here’s the story on our sweet little Ebert queen in the above shot. Mark casually told me this story while I was peeling shrimp or something like that and I couldn’t wait to tell y’all. Hopefully it’s as interesting to you as it was to us.

The twenty Ebert queens are tucked away in their queen bank and as Mark needs them, he can quickly and easily retrieve them from the back yard. There are currently about thirty newly divided hives back there along with the queen bank and the hives are grouped together based on when they were divided and when they need their queen introduced. The other day, Mark was introducing queens to two hives that he had not gotten to the day before. He opened up the plastic cage so that the queen could crawl out and onto the tops of the frames in that box. Well…this one decided for whatever reason, she needed to fly about for a bit. So Mark watched as she took flight and circled the hive in the area up above his head a few times. Now this part I don’t know that I would ever catch with my own eyes, but Mark caught sight of her a couple of times as she rounded so he stepped back about six feet and into the tree line in front of the hives. He watched as she landed at the entrance of the very hive he had opened. Then she calmly walked into her new home and new family. WOW! I guess she just didn’t want to be dumped there. That queenie was determined to make an entrance. She did it her own way. What a queen. He checked her two days later and the above picture is what he saw when he picked up one of the frames.

Here’s a shot of new divides in the back yard. I like seeing them lined up back there and I’ll miss them once they are ready for a permanent home.

Now I want to finish off with dinner, which on a market night is either leftovers or pizza or the buffet, whatever our energy levels happen to be. Tonight was actually leftovers we knew would be great because the jambalaya gets better with a few days on it. The okra was from Engel Farm at the Quarry market and I got it last Sunday. The chicken was an entire chicken that I got from Parker Creek Ranch who are at both Southtown and Quarry markets with us. I just love Travis and Mandy – really great young couple doing a great thing out there in D’Hanis (y’all look them up and try their beef, eggs and chickens – we have and it’s all been GREAT). The funny thing about the chicken is that Mandy called it “deformed” because though it was a very good chicken, it was missing one leg. I didn’t have time to ask for the back story on Deformed Chicken but I needed a small chicken since I wanted dark meat in my jambalaya so when she held it up to me, I thought I just had to have it – a small chicken with a story. That’s bound to make my jambalaya good. And it did. Thanks for the deformed chicken, Mandy. You are my favorite poultry vendor ever. See you tomorrow!

PS – The garlic toast was made with Cheddar Dill bread from Biga on the Banks, a wonderful restaurant on the SA River downtown. Their awesome pastry chef, Lila, is a vendor at the Pearl market. This was delish!

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Happenings and Using Solar Power for Decrystalization

Above photo: Every time I see comb like this, I simply want to glob a big fat piece of it into my mouth. Yuuuum.

Ever feel like there’s so much going on that you don’t even know which way to turn. And then the next thing you know, it’s bed time. And then you the alarm goes off and you are at it again. LOL that’s us right about now. We still try and make time here and there to just sit or to visit with friends or to go hunting down historical STUFF…but it’s a crazy time for GBR and most other beekeepers are in the same boat, we’re sure. It’s harvest and dividing time so that’s what we’re all about. The weird spring turned weird summer means it’s totally different from last year, when EVERYTHING was pulled at the same time and we killed ourselves trying to extract before the honey went bad on us. This year it’s more like a little here is ready and then maybe a little somewhere else might be ready. Crazy year for sure.

Okay, here are some of the highlights as of late:
1. We got more queens in, this time from Ebert out in Iowa. Mark’s already used six of them.
2. With dividing of hives in progress, he now has 30 new hives, quite a few in our backyard awaiting queen introductions.
3. Went to the Marriott yard today in SA and pulled a few supers. Sponsored hives are looking pretty good and I got some shots of the activities in order to send out an update to our sponsors.
4. We’re still working on getting the word out about the Southtown Farmers & Ranchers Market down at the Bluestar Art Complex (Saturdays 9-1p) so help us out if you can. Sonia and Danny are working it for us and doing a GREAT job. Sure appreciate them!
5. Belinda’s rejoined us and we’re happy to have her help and her smile back.

Here’s the second queen bank Mark built for the 20 Ebert queens. They came in plastic cages.

Finally, I wanted to just tell you about how happy I have been to put all the blazing heat to good use out here in Texas! 🙂 It’s in the 3-digits these days and the sun is hot enough to fry eggs on the ground. Really. I saw a little egg drop from above onto our pavement and though it was not of the eat-me-with-a-biscuit quality or quantity, it was cooked. Poor baby birdy. Anyway, a friend of ours (hi Pete!) asked me about decrystalizing a bottle of honey he had gotten a while ago. I explained the typical hot water in a pan technique and then I said, you know what – just go set it on a table outside for a couple of days and it’ll do the trick. I have had our various crystalized jars out there (Remember my cabinet full of honey? Some of it had crystalized and while I like it, it’s hard to get the honey out of the plastic squeeze bottles.) and most of them have been successfully decrystalized now. Free. Easy. Pretty fast. Done. And so am I. Goodnight, friends.

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The Return of the Shopping Cart

It’s back and better! When the shopping cart went down on us a couple of weeks ago, the company that ran the back end didn’t even notify clients. Really! That is crazy business. Thanks to Troy and Mark working away since that time, we now have a brand new shopping cart with lots more for you.

Here are a couple of things I wanted to point out real quick since I need to go to bed for an early drive to SA markets.

You like the honey? You want to tell us how you cooked with it in a wonderful recipe? We now have a review feature – tell us what you liked and didn’t like (hopefully you’ll call us on this one so we can work it out together)!

Need to do a quick search since you don’t have time to browse? Check out the new search capability as well as the featured products for that time period.

Take a look around and tell us what you think. We’ve been working and testing but nothing beats real user testing. We also added several free pickup locations in the “shipping” section. Thanks for your patience and support as we worked through another little hurdle in running a business and having an online store. When a server crashes, sometimes you just have to sit and eat honey until the next solution is ready. 🙂 We’re ready now.

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Markets Are Done; Time to Chill Out

It is seriously hot out on the asphalt, in case you don’t know that. 🙂 While we love going to market, it sure can get like an oven during Texas summers. I was pretty wilty out there today but I remembered to bring a water bottle mister that my friend Laurie gave me and it really does the trick for cooling down roasting vendors (I even shared with some other ladies). You can put ice in the bottle and that’ll keep the water cold so that when you pull the trigger of the mister, it’s the same concept as a regular spray bottle but its value pretty much sky rockets when it’s in the upper 90s and we’re all a hot mess. Anyway, something to think about if you’re thinking you might want to get into markets in Texas. It’s hot and it’s hard work but for us it’s also a lot of fun because we get to meet such awesome people and it’s a steady income for our growing business. By the way, I’m eating a delicious concoction from our friends at the Original Winner Winner Chicken Dinner food truck. It. Is. So. Good. The crew rocks so if you ever have a chance to try them, do and tell them we sent you! We love Adrian, Kenny and Mae!

The above picture is one I shot yesterday at the Pearl market after our neighbor Chef Luis of Humble House Foods (graduated from the Culinary Institute of America of SA and located at the Pearl complex) brought it over to our tent – talk about getting spoiled! This sauteed vegetables dish was so great with his tomato sauce. So put them on your list to visit as well. We’ve had their Pesto and love it but had not tried this tomato sauce just yet. And guess what – it’s got our honey in there! We are thrilled to have him use our honey in his product and even happier we got to sample the goodness. Now I have another dish I can recreate here at home for us. By the way, that’s red potatoes and bell peppers sauteed with a bit of the sauce.

Here is the Humble House tent on a busy day yesterday. Happy every time we see fellow vendors busy and selling out.

Finally, before I go check on Mark in the Candle Shop, I wanted to share this thought with you. After the truck gets unloaded, groceries and bees are put away, and while Mark balances the books, I got us a snack and thought of how lucky we are to have access to such delicious, healthy and clean foods. So blessed! And as I cut up the fruit for our snacking, I think, “Thanks, bees. Because if you don’t get out there and pollinate these fruit plants, I wouldn’t be enjoying this goodness right about now.” Yep. Feeling pretty awesome about the bee work Mark and his friends help him do. Thanks, everyone.

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Rainy Day Activities

Well, it’s quite the flood this afternoon! At last check, Mark reported about 4.5 inches in about 1.5 hours. Amazing. What a lovely sound, too. The hard waves of rain and then some lightning and thunder. The line of storms looked pretty wide-spread and long running north-south so we feel like almost all areas where we have bee yards will benefit from this rain. Yay!

In other news, we are prepping for market again as we listen to the beautiful rain come on again. We’ve also had more orders for gifts and other things – it’s wedding season. Heck, this entire year seems to be wedding season as friends, family and customers’ families get hitched. We are thrilled that more and more people are thinking of using our products as either wedding favors, gifts or decorations. What an honor to be a part of such an important event! Thank you very much everyone! Here’s one of the testers for table decoration –

These lotus candles are destined for cellophane gift packaging for wedding attendant gifts and the hearts were part of an order for 24 to be picked up later. Not sure what the customer’s going to do with all of them but I’m sure they’ll let us know when they pick up their order.

And opposite of the dark, cloudy, thunderous outside is this lovely burst of sunshine inside. I got some sunflowers for Mom’s little prayer table because they remind me of her big bright smile! I love to watch the pollen fall sometimes – it’s so peaceful and lovely. A quiet activity you don’t notice in the field but is quite a sight indoors. I am thrilled at the thought that I have Monday off (Memorial Day here in the states) and that we will likely go to check the bees in Medina County at Comanche Creek. We have to pass through Castroville and Mark said that the sunflower fields should be beautifully open for me to photograph! I am so excited because I was told about that a couple of years ago but when we went to hunt down the fields, the blooming season had already passed. Now I have a chance to see them. Charging up camera battery NOW.

In other news and activities, it was Canopy-Check Week around here. We go through them pretty well and it was time for the men to haul them all out to see which tent needs what part. Helped us reduce clutter in our little garage. Still no serious movement on building of the Honey House, which I now have the urge to rename House of Honey. :-p

Well, I better get back to wrapping candles for market. Hope you have a wonderful evening, weekend and holiday! And that we see you at one of the markets. 🙂

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