Beekeeping

While George was still farming with his brothers, they decided to add a few hives of bees to their farm. Gradually they increased the number of hives. At that time they purchased new bees each spring from the big beekeepers who went to the southern states to get the bees.

This is the way George operated for a while as well when they split the farm and we had our own bees. At first we had a four frame extractor that we set up in an old house. It worked well for the small number of hives we had. George started building frames and boxes in winter and increasing the number of hives.

Then we had to do something about the extracting as well. My Dad came and helped put up a new building that was a honey house in summer and a shop in winter. We also purchased a big thirty frame extractor and other equipment. Now we also had running water which helped a lot with clean up, etc.

We had as many as a hundred and fifty hives at the most. We sold the honey in barrels to the Honey Coop or other buyers. this made for a busy summer. With the family helping and often having our nephews, Ron and Greg over the work was enjoyed and the boys had time to have their adventures.

It was fun having the boys around and the help made the work seem lighter.

Having so much honey around and having the price of sugar rising, I found lots of recipes for cooking and canning with honey.

The last few years we operated the beekeeper in the USA got into some problems and couldn't sell their bees to us any more. We had to find ways to winter the bees. George stacked then with 4 hives close together and fed them sugar in fall. In a clearing in the bush they lined up the hives and wrapped them with insulation and tar paper.(Some bigger beekeepers build buildings to house them.).This worked quite well.

After the boys left home we found the work too much and so sold all the equipment. It was a worthwhile source of income

while we were doing it. I am thankful for all we were able to do in those years.