May Bees and Jelly

Posted by OfWoodandEarth June 15, 2026

May Bees and Jelly

It's looking like she has Rylee's smile, Will's forehead, and Luke's wispy hair (although, she definitely has the least hair of all the kids). Who do you think she looks the most like?

May started out pretty busy for us (but honestly, when are we not). A friend contacted us last year that they had a beehive in the camper in their back yard. However, they couldn't find the key or the crank needed for us to get into the camper until the start of the year. So, we finally scheduled a time to go out and remove the hive for them.

We were under the impression that the beehive was a swarm, so we brought a couple swarm boxes and enough frames to fill them. When we finally got access to the hive, we found that it had been established there for several years, and we had not brought enough frames to get it all.

(this is the top board and shows the size of the hive. You can see how many things of comb they built as well.)

Auntie Tay to the rescue! She went to our house, grabbed a flashlight and some extra boxes and frames for us. We ended up framing up 16 or so frames of comb by cutting the comb to size and rubber banding it into a frame. The bees will permanently attach the comb to the frames by building frame in the spaces, then chew through the rubber bands and take them out of the hive. (click on the picture to see the Reel)

We put a swarm box in the camper and watched them to see if they would start moving for the box but quickly realized that the camper still smelled too much like the queen. The bees were not going to leave, and there were still hundred if not thousands left crawling and flying around the camper. (click on the picture to see the Reel).

That day happened to be the day of Rylee's dance rehearsal for her recital, so while I took her to her recital, Sam built a bee vacuum with the last available swarm box we had. After the rehearsal was over, I swung back by and helped Sam get the remaining bees into a swarm box. (click the picture to see the Reel)

Right as we finished up, the neighbor showed us that a swarm had attached itself on the pool deck a couple of days ago and was still there. Even though it was in a poison ivy TREE, we managed to use the bee vacuum to move the swarm to its own swarm box. (I have video footage I need to process for this).

Not wanting the bees to starve or overheat, I moved them into more permanent hive supers that evening. We ended up with a hive that was two supers deep for the main hive that came out of the camper. The swarm from the pool deck I moved to a single super. There were still so many bees crawling all over the swarm boxes, that I left them propped up on the bee wagon and hoped the bees would crawl into their correct hives overnight. When Sam went to check in the morning, everyone was happy! EXCEPT he found a swarm hanging from a tree limb on the bee yard perimeter.

Turns out the swarm we had moved from the pool deck turned their noses up at our hive offering and tried to leave. We caught the brats and left them in the swarm box for a few days before opening the entrance to the queen excluder entrance so all the bees but the queen could move in and out as they needed to. (I have video footage of Sam shaking the swarm into a box balanced onto of my head...but it still needs to be processed, too!).

So at the start of the spring, we had a hive on the bee wagon, and a hive in the tree (a swarm that we caught last October and survived the winter). We moved the swarm to the bee wagon to have two hives there and hung 3 swarm boxes. A swarm showed back up to our house (where we took the bees out all those years ago).....

(click on the picture to see the Reel)

and we caught a swarm in the tree just on the bee yard perimeter (we call it "Old Faithful" because we catch a bee swarm there every year). Then the hive we pulled from the camper and the swarm from the pool deck for a total of 6 hives that we now have.

Two of the hives are in permanent boxes, but the rest are still in swarm boxes. It's not a huge problem, except the bees will start to draw comb down in the empty space in the swarm boxes and eventually run out of room. We used some of the funds from the Conservation Office to purchase more bases and tops, but we have yet to assemble them. I did end up assembling like 30 more frames to make sure we had enough for the removal in the first place.

And THEN after all of that (are you exhausted yet?) we had to process all the scraps that we got from the camper that we couldn't put into frames. Because they were scraps, we had to do a sort of crush and strain method, only we had A LOT of comb. Pippa came over, and after reheating the comb a bit (we had stuck it in the freezer to kill all the bees that were trapped in the honey during the removal), we put it in a sheer curtain and twisted as tight as we could to crush all the comb and drain the honey overnight.

The honey was filtered one more time before it went into a drink dispenser that I used to fill our honey jars. We ended up with about 30 lbs of honey JUST FROM THE SCRAPS of the camper. So awesome!

I was a little worried the water content in the honey would be too high since some of the comb scraps were uncapped, but it was within range for shelf-stable honey (~18%). 20-22% is when you should worry about your honey fermenting if you leave it out of the fridge.

(click on the picture to see the Reel)

And THEN (you thought we were done didn't you?), once all the honey was removed, I melted the crushed comb down and extracted the beeswax. We ended up with about 11oz of beeswax, which is enough for me to make about 75 tubes or more of beeswax chapstick. I used a different method this time, and it worked a lot better than in the past. I have tiny sacks you can cinch that will fit inside of a crock pot. So I put a liner in the crockpot, filled it about half way with water, filled two sacks up with comb, and put them in the crockpot with the lid on until the comb was melted. Then, just pull the sacks up and let them drain. The wax will float to the top of the water and harden into a disc of wax as it cools. I did this a couple times, scraping the junk off the bottom of the disk each time, before I moved it to a clean crockpot water bath and filtered it through a new bag filter one last time. It really sped up the process not having to poor the water through filters and things. And good news, I think I will be able to reuse the bags next time we have wax to render.

(Here's the reward for all our effort! This plus two new bee colonies.)

While waiting for parts to come in for the backhoes and mowers, Sam managed to build nesting boxes for the chicken mobile! We are so excited because we put it in a spot that the kids can access easily, so they can go get the eggs like they used to before the barn burned down.

The chickens took to it right away, and they hardly lay in the floor anymore, which helps to keep the eggs a lot cleaner.

Sam has been working so hard and almost non-stop on getting his back-hoe up and running. There are so many projects on the farm that we need it for! He moved the parts back-hoe up to the slab by pulling it with the car. Then.....HE MANAGED TO START AND DRIVE THE OTHER ONE! He was so excited! The steering needs help, and he has to replace cylinders and plenty of other stuff I'm sure...but he was so excited that he's gotten this far!

(click on picture to see the Reel).

We've been keeping up with flower jellies to the best of our ability.

We did miss dandelion season (for the second year in a row), so I'm pretty sad about that. #1) because dandelion jelly is our favorite of the flower jellies and #2) because Mom and I bought a wine making kit last year SPECIFICALLY for making dandelion wine. But honeysuckle bloomed early this year, so we made honeysuckle jelly. We also managed to make a couple batches of red clover jelly.

(picking red clover buds)

The roses also bloomed out already, but the weather was not cooperative. A mix of windy and rainy made me miss the season, so no rose jelly this year either.

I did do the next level of certification hoping to make the flower jellies "legal" as herb jellies. But it turns out you can only use approved recipes, and the USDA has not done official research on flower jellies. So if you all want to continue purchasing my flower jellies....keep in mind they are a "craft" and not for human consumption. Haha. But the extra certification means that we are going to be able to sell canned pears, pickled hot peppers, canned tomatoes, and possibly tomato juice to you all this year! (If I ever get my raised beds built). I just have to find the appropriate recipes and submit them ($5/recipe) for approval. How would you all feel about canned cushaw? I was thinking I could include a packet of spices so you have most of the ingredients to make cushaw pie filling.

Towards the end of May, we turned our attention to the duck coop. The ducks are with the peacocks, and REALLY need to come out. It's so muddy in there and really gross from the duck poop. The kids and I started tearing it apart so we can rebuilt it. Sam and I are going to put metal sheeting on the sides, fix some soft spots on the bottom, and metal sheeting on the roof. Then we should be able to lock the ducks in there for a few days and release them to the pond (fingers crossed they don't get eaten this time around).

(Before I took off the water-rotted wall that allowed the skunk to come in and eat my last duck hen and her t-2 day old babies.)

While I was working, Will and Rylee wanted to fish the pond. So I took the old duck coop doors over to the pond edge so they would have something to stand on and let them cast. Will caught a MASSIVE fish that we put back. We had no idea there were fish that big in our pond! We've always talked about stocking it in the future. I'm hoping all the little fish we see swimming around now will get big enough for us to actually catch and eat some!

On the book side of things, May was a BUSY month. In addition to finalizing the book design and slowly adding picture in as Sara finished them, I also found and booked a sight for the launch party, designed and printed fliers that I've been handing out to local and surround parishes and friends, designed stickers for the launch party, the front cover of the book, and designed prayer cards.

I was going to order the stickers and the prayer cards from uprinting, but they were going to charge $230 in shipping and handling. Ridiculous. They were the only company I could find that would print custom 2.5 x 4.5" cards (average prayer card size). I ended up printing the prayer cards in Canva as postcards (4.5 x 8.5" or something along those lines) that I will have to cut in half. I ended up getting 1400 cards for the same price I was getting 525 (pre shipping and handling charges). It just means I have to now cut 700 prayer cards in half.

I did end up going with uprinting for the stickers because even with the expensive shipping and handling, they were still the cheapest to get an 5.5 x 8.5" sheet of stickers. I'm really excited to see how everything turns out! And it will all be available on our website as well starting June 13th.

Here's the front cover I designed using Sara's illustrations. I did cheat and use Canva stars...shhhh don't tell anyone!

On the family side of things....

Rylee had her dance recital! She had a tap, acro, and ballet routine. Next year we are dropping acro, but she says the tap is her favorite class right now!

We dressed little bean in a tutu to cheer on her big sister!

The kids finally finished soccer season (remind me NEVER to sign the kids up for soccer, dance, and Tball at the same time. We had 1-2 practices EVERY SINGLE NIGHT except Wednesdays for almost a month. It. was. miserable. But the kids had fun I think. Tball and softball (my favorite) season has started!

The moms and coaches have made it super special this year! They made bows for the kids, and they do the anti-glare marks on their faces almost every game. And they even have a speaker and do a small walk-out music snippet with their name and number when they are up to bat. It's really fun! Rylee gets sad when she strikes out, but she's getting better! This is her first year doing coach pitch.

They had an opening ceremony with the major and county judge doing first game pitches. And one of the coaches got into a dunking booth and patiently waited for ALL the girls (and Will Will) to dunk him. The kids got their faces painted! I think William looked like a Vulcan, haha. Must have been the eyebrows (he was a Jaguar).

We had another annual Pentecost party at a friends' house. She had even more friends over this year, and it was a lot of fun! They always have these hats you can make which are really cute.

And lastly, we ended the month with an ER visit. I was upstairs putting laundry away (a miracle in itself), and Luke accidentally shut Mena's finger in the front door. When I came down to check and see why she was crying, she told me what happened, and I took a look at her finger. Her poor finger was dented worse than I had ever seen a finger before, and the tip was angled slightly back. Needless to say, I freaked out a little (internally), got everyone's shoes and socks on, packed them up in the car, and asked Pippa to meet me at the hospital. She had to leave to go to the airport in like 3 hours, but she stopped what she was doing and picked them up lunch and fed them at the hospital until Sam could get there.

Luckily, it wasn't broken. They think it may have been popped out of place (why I saw it angled backwards) and either she or I accidentally put it back when I picked her up and while I was walking around getting the kids dressed. Her finger had already swollen back out by the time we got in the car. They did an X-ray to be sure, but they sent her home with a splint (which she kept on for approximately one evening). She's a trooper!

Decorate your own cupcakes for Alanna's bday party! You can kind of see in Will Will's picture that his left eye is swollen. He ended up getting into poison ivy, and it got on several places on his face and made his eye start swelling shut. The doc was able to give us an oral steroid to help it dry up.