Honey Harvest

by | Nov 16, 2021 | Food & Drink, LifeSkills, Pastimes | 175 comments

 

The harvest is a very small part of raising bees, the best part or the disappointing part. We have already started planning on next year’s plan. Right now the frame boxes are sitting outside on the garage slab, the bees are cleaning up this year’s frames that we just got done harvesting. They will strip all the remaining honey out and take it somewhere. Once the boxes are cleaned up by the bees (about a week or so), I’ll move them into the garage to be stored.

 

During the winter I’ll go though the boxes and frames, one by one, scraping all the excess wax off the frames, so they’ll be clean for next year., that’s a time consuming project but not very difficult, we had about 12 boxes and 120 frames this year. I use a paint scraper. It’ll be an inspection of the frames, occasionally they get broken and need to be repaired or discarded.

 

 

About Jan or Feb our bee provider will send out a catalog and urge us to pre- order, of course they are looking at keeping the free money in advance but it gives them some idea of what their sales will be. Honey bees are a perishable item and can’t be returned.

 

This year we ordered four hives’ worth, 12 pounds. They come in 3 lb packages. We installed them in two places, about 4-5 miles apart, put up the electric fence, about the first of May. We bought some high protein food (looks like corn syrup, maybe has some additive). Anyway, one of my hives didn’t look good the following day and by the second day the bees were all dead. It had never happened before and we were at a loss, like $170 loss. We found a bee keeper that sold ‘nukes’, which is a 6 frame box with a queen and already producing new bees, so we bought that @ $145 and traded out all the dead bee equipment and restarted with fresh equipment. Now we’re in for around $800 and we haven’t got a drop of honey.

 

 

During the summer we inspect the hives about every two weeks, any frames that are full get pulled and stored in a freezer. Replace the empty spaces in the hive boxes. We had a serious drought during May, June and July, very few flowers and all summer production was looking bleak. The a little rain came in August and the bees got busy and did their jobs. Anecdotally, it seemed that there were a lot of yellow jackets and wasps around the hives, my guess was that they were busy stealing what little honey was being produced.

 

In August we started getting more production and when we closed out in September we were a couple happy campers. A freezer full of frames, 2 refrigerator freezers full and a couple boxes that we left out. After the last pull, this year a week before HH we moved my bees to my partner’s bees, we borrowed a little space from a person that lives near a lake, open fields and a big garden. That eliminates most of the bees from the HH working area.

 

 

By this time we’ve alerted all the Glibs (Thanks, Tundra) and all the locals. We have to get our equipment ready, takes a day or two, borrow chairs and on the third Sunday of September let the fun begin. We had 5 hardworking people, plus me and started about 9 AM. This year we had pulled pork as the meat, done by a caterer and all the wonderful food the ladies have cooked up or stopped by Costco along the way. In any case there was lots to eat.

 

Back to work, until 6:30 PM, the ladies brought out food for us again and a half hour later we were working, finally quitting for the day about 9PM, almost done. Monday morning the crew showed up again and finished the honey and cleaned up most of the equipment. As it turned out we had a pretty good year, in spite of a slow start.

 

Then leave the hive boxes outside, where they still are, and let the bees clean them out. The eight boxes at our alternate spot are still full of bees, doing their best to prepare for winter, but when the weather dips into -20s and -30s the bees will die from the cold. We’ve tried to winter them over but every time failed. In January we’ll pick up those boxes and clean them up as we did the others.

 

It seems that local honey and maple syrup trade about the same prices. Maple syrup has a lot of hard work for a short time whereas honey has less work and really only one long day. Hours spent are probably about the same. Last year and this year kept some folks away, worrying about the virus. Apparently the vaccine doesn’t work for old people.

 

 

About The Author

Fourscore

Fourscore

175 Comments

  1. Rat on a train

    Any maple honey?

    • Fourscore

      The maple and oak blossom early, in the cool weather, before we get the bees. At the HH we did have a guest trade a jar of maple syrup for a jar of honey though. Win-win.

  2. slumbrew

    That’s great stuff, Fourscore. Super interesting!

  3. Yusef drives a Kia

    And the Bees all die in the cold, fascinating,
    Good stuff 4X20!

  4. Ownbestenemy

    Great stuff 4×20!

  5. juris imprudent

    Cool. Sadly unlikely to ever make it out for HH – Mrs. JI is quite allergic to bee stings, so we tend to give them a wide berth.

    • Mojeaux

      Same with my husband. He heard the word “bee” and noped right out of the idea.

      • Fourscore

        We move the bees away, a week or two before the HH, any residual get Rittenhoused. There are a few stragglers but the yellow jackets show up and start cleaning the honey frames, always a chance for a sting.

      • Nephilium

        The girlfriend is terrified of bees, I’m hoping food and Glibs may win her over to going one year.

      • pistoffnick

        On my very first job
        I said thank you and please
        They made me scrub a parking lot
        Down on my knees
        Then I got fired
        For being scared of bees
        And they only give me
        Fifty cents an hour.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHaF36Kw8qc

  6. Mojeaux

    Fourscore, thanks for the great article, but more, thanks for the picture. It’s nice to put a face to the words, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you.

    • Ownbestenemy

      ^^^ That was a treasure indeed

  7. Ed Wuncler

    Thanks for the stories Fourscore. I had no idea that honey harvesting was intensive work.

    • Tundra

      Only for him and a few select cronies. The rest of us are total freeloaders!

      Especially Jimbo. He just spends his time kissing up to the lovely Mrs. Fourscore and the rest of the ladies.

      • pistoffnick

        “…the lovely Mrs. Fourscore…”

        She is pretty sweet and she makes some damn fine chicken.

  8. Tundra

    I was sorry to miss it. I’m planning to be there in 2022, though.

    Do you use a solar powered electric fence? We have goats in the neighborhood and use the portable fencing to move paddocks. Works like a charm.

    For anyone who wants to be on the mailing list for HH, drop me a note at Minnetundra AT geemail and I will add you to the list.

    • Fourscore

      Thanks for your efforts his past year, T. We do have solar at the ‘Up North’ area, on your favorite lake. Here is the regular stuff.

  9. Sensei

    Thanks Fourscore.

    I was creating an article yesterday and saw all the pictures and knew something must have been coming.

  10. hayeksplosives

    I never thought about how honey bees get through -30 degree winters.

    In the wild, do they die in Northern winters, go South, or do they manage some deep over-wintering strategy that can’t be readily replicated in bee “farming” setups?

    Thanks for the cool article!

    • Fourscore

      U of MN has a new, magnificent, expensive taxpayer funded Bee Research Center. I don’t think there are many wild honey bees here but they would have a chance. We liberate all the honey we can but any wild bees would have all their own honey so they would stand a better chance of survival.

  11. The Other Kevin

    Thanks for this! Sometimes we need to be reminded there’s way more to life than inept presidents and murder trials. I have learned so much from you and the other Glibs. This is one of the few places on the Internet where I come away smarter and not dumber.

    • Ed Wuncler

      Aye

    • Drake

      Yes – thanks.

      I worked at a local apple orchard on and off while in higj school. Just a way to make some cash before heading off into the “real” world. Now I want to do much more of this kind of stuff and forget about the crappy real world.

      We stopped by this place a few weeks ago. A slice of heaven – eating cider donuts, drinking great hard cider, and listening to live bluegrass music.
      https://www.jetermountain.com/about

  12. trshmnstr the terrible

    Ive been wanting to go to HH for a few years. Really thought that I was gonna make it this year, but things got weird and I couldn’t make the schedule work out.

    *puts placeholder on calendar for next September*

    • Ozymandias

      Ditto…
      Hopefully no one decides to mandate the whole military get a vaccine again in late-August.
      /FJB

    • Tundra

      It’s really beautiful country up there. I’ll send out the initial email earlier next year, so perhaps people can find a cool place and make a long weekend of it.

      This year, I believe kinnath stayed at Grandview Lodge, my second favorite Minnesota resort. Not cheap, but absolutely first rate.

      • kinnath

        Yes.

        We had an awesome suite right on the beach. Planning to do it again next year.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Same. Wife and I want to make that a road trip for sure.

  13. PieInTheSky

    this is interesting but sounds all so very weird to me. I know the climate is different but my grandpa would have been be appalled at his bees dying in the winter.

    Also I don’t get what this means ” any frames that are full get pulled and stored in a freezer.”

    • Fourscore

      As the frames are filled with honey we remove them from the ‘super’ and replace them with an empty frame. We store the filled frames in a freezer. During our early years we would leave them on the hive and put another super on top. Often (usually it seemed) in the fall we’d find not much honey and came to the conclusion something (the bees) was eating the honey. After we started removing the full ones and storing them in a freezer our production zoomed. A couple days before HH we take the frozen frames out and move them to an area close to a wood burning stove and warm them up so the honey will be more liquid again.

      • PieInTheSky

        see this I find strange. here there are multiple harvests a year where the honey is put in jars. I find the freezer thing unusual.

      • kinnath

        Big produces can and will harvest single flower honeys. Most small scale producers either harvest once or twice per year. So it get labeled as wildflower. Sometimes as spring blend and fall blend. But wildflower none the less.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        It may be a local practice given climate and flowering schedule. I recall stacking supers, but usually only when the first wasn’t entirely full. I also recall doing mid-season harvests when enough hives had produced enough honey to justify it. I didn’t really get to see what happened when there was only one full super across all the hives.

        I can’t say that I was involved enough to know the motivation behind every choice. Grandpa said “pick up that box and put it over here”, and I did it.

  14. Sean

    We installed them in two places, about 4-5 miles apart

    Is that enough separation to see variations in the color/taste of the batches?

    • Fourscore

      Ours is a blend of the season. Wildflower honey. The bigger and more commercial producers can harvest as the crops are ready, hence Basswood, the really light to Buckwheat which is the very dark. Because of the drought this year we had little early production (no flowers) and the late stuff was darker, stronger flavored. Its all good.

      • R C Dean

        We don’t eat much honey, but my favorite variety is avocado honey. Very dark, with a definite molasses vibe. If/when I brew again, I will definitely be making a batch of mead with that stuff.

  15. PieInTheSky

    In Romania there are at least 3 honey harvests.

    First is for black locust honey, usually the most popular round here

    the second is for linden tree honey

    the third is called poliflora which means many flowers, although often in plains areas sunflower dominates

    My grandpa made mint honey but only two years out of probably 40, the conditions needed to be just right to find a field of mint with few other stuff around.

    In the mountains something called fir tree mana honey is made, bees get it from from some sort of mite like bugs on fir trees

    • PieInTheSky

      All I usually did was work the crank on the centrifuge thing that got the honey out.

      Do Americans eat honeycomb like put it wax and all in your mouth and chew on it?

      • Not Adahn

        Not commonly, but yes.

        It’s more expensive than just honey — probably harder to counterfeit.

      • Nephilium

        Yep. Honeycomb is sold at gift shops, natural food stores, farmers markets, and upscale grocery stores. Who would be hurt by just a couple of bee pieces?

      • mikey

        As a lad comb honey was common in everyday grocery stores. My Mom would often get it as a treat. I loved it. Haven’t seen in a long time.

    • kinnath

      Black Locust is great honey, but difficult to get in the US.

      Linden (Basswood) is also great honey that makes awesome mead (one of my favorites). I have an order in with the local honey guy for 100 lbs of basswood honey.

      Polifloral honey is commonly labeled as “wildflower” in the US.

      • Fourscore

        Kinnath’s mead gets a lot of extremely favorable comments.

        Like “Damn, that’s really good”

        Most of the locals have peaked out at Grain Belt so Kinnath’s stuff is a real treat.

      • kinnath

        Thanks

  16. pistoffnick

    Top picture doesn’t do him justice. Fourscore is a towering fellow with really long legs. I have to take 4 steps to his 2.

  17. Zwak, sensual panzer

    Great post! And I love putting names to faces, so big plus (I think?) there.

  18. DEG

    This is great stuff.

    I hope to be there in 2022.

  19. Ozymandias

    Sorry OT, Mr. 4×20, but I wanted to reply to a comment that JI made on the deadthread before i run out to meet the wife for her birthday lunch:

    JI – You seem to be perplexed that this could be some “grand conspiracy” and again, you fall into the trap of thinking that I’m saying that everyone knows about this and is willfully turning a blind eye.
    Let me offer this for you – (a) what we’re talking about is a very, very, very specialized area of the law. I would guess that there are a few dozen lawyers who are really well-versed (i.e. have the stomach for) poring over FDA regulations regarding the licensing of biologics. Of those, a good number work for the government and, as the great Twain said, “show me where a man gets his cornpone and I’ll tell you his ‘pinions.” It has ever been so. (b) There is very little money to be made for a lawyer in stopping the licensure – and thus, the sale – of drugs. (c) Massie, Paul, and many other right-thinking liberty folks believe the same thing you do – it’s just a variant of the “Top Men” paradigm. Your last post seems to suggest that somehow little ol’ me couldn’t possibly know MORE about this than those selfless public servants at the FDA.
    I had a judge look me in the eye and tell me – despite the plain language of what I showed him – that it wasn’t possible that I found something and ALL of THOSE OTHER SMAAAHHHT GUYS and GALS missed it.
    All I can say in response is Doe v. Rumsfeld. Go read all three of the Doe v Rumsfeld opinions on the anthrax vaccine and then tell me who’s right and who’s not me. 😉

    Cheers kids, I gotta run!

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      I know a lot of people who are adjacent to that field (they’re in patenting biologics). I should ask around to see what they think. The last time I heard a pharma attorney talking about this topic, he strongly hinted that he didn’t believe the story being told about his company’s mRNA shot based on the studies he had been reading for the past 20 years. Granted, this was over 6 months ago.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Berenson adds some fuel to the fire.

      Pfizer lied about the number of deaths in the Phase 1 trial.

      https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/more-people-died-in-the-key-clinical

      On July 28, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech posted a six-month data update from their key Covid vaccine clinical trial, the one that led regulators worldwide to okay the shot.

      At a time when questions about vaccine effectiveness were rising, the report received worldwide attention. Pfizer said the vaccine’s efficacy remained relatively strong, at 84 percent after six months.

      It also reported 15 of the roughly 22,000 people who received the vaccine in the trial had died, compared to 14 of the 22,000 people who received placebo (a saline shot that didn’t contain the vaccine).

      These were not just Covid deaths. In fact, they were mostly not from Covid. Only three of the people in the trial died of Covid-related illnesses – two who received the vaccine, and one who who received the saline shot. The other deaths were from other illnesses and diseases, mostly cardiovascular.

      Researchers call this datapoint “all-cause mortality.” Pfizer barely mentioned it, stuffing the details of the deaths in an appendix to the report.

      But all-cause mortality is arguably the MOST important measure for any drug or vaccine – especially one meant to be given prophylactically to large numbers of healthy people, as vaccines are.

      • R C Dean

        Pfizer said the vaccine’s efficacy remained relatively strong, at 84 percent after six months.

        The Swedish study sez:

        At four to six months, the relative risk reduction with the Moderna vaccine was 71%. Pfizer was at the same time point only offering a 47% reduction in risk, and AstraZeneca was at that point not doing anything whatsoever to lower risk.

        When we go further out than six months, things get even more depressing. By the nine month mark, the Pfizer vaccine is no longer offering any protection whatsoever against symptomatic covid-19.

        This is all relative risk, which is what the Pfizer study claims to measure.

      • juris imprudent

        OK, that’s another question – where does Moderna (and J&J) fit in, since Ozy has focused on Pfizer/BNT/COMIRNARTY? What exactly is the relevance of the COMIRNATY licensure on Moderna or J&J, since both of those have been used in the U.S.?

      • R C Dean

        Both are still 100% EUA/experimental, even by the FDA/CDC standards.

      • juris imprudent

        And so is Pfizer/BNT, right?

        That’s the part I’m not getting, the relevance of the COMIRNATY licensure. Unless the point is that Pfizer is coat-tailing that licensure, which doesn’t really seem to put them at any advantage over the other two.

      • R C Dean

        Except the FDA/CDC have “approved” BNT via the do-si-do with Comirnaty. I gather its labelled as an approved vaccine. But they aren’t even pretending the others aren’t experimental. THeb advantage that PFizer has is that the FDA/CDC say it is approved, which opens the market for them w/r/t mandated vaccines.

      • juris imprudent

        So the mandate is SOLELY for Pfizer/BNT? I completely missed that – I thought it was for any/all of the EUA vaccines.

      • kinnath

        You are mandated to take an approved vaccine (that isn’t available in the US). We will generously allow you to substitute an equivalent vaccine that still EUA. We have big hearts.

      • UnCivilServant

        And so will you when the cardiac inflammation sets in.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        So the mandate is SOLELY for Pfizer/BNT?

        No, that’s where the bait and switch comes in. The stated reason for the mandates coming down, first informally and then the federal ones, were because “there is a licensed one out there, so we’re not forcing you to take experimental medicine”. Except the licensed one is impossible to get.

      • juris imprudent

        So how did Comirnaty actually get licensed?

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Here’s what the FDA has to say:

        How did the FDA arrive at the decision to approve Comirnaty (COVID-19 Vaccine mRNA)? What is different now when compared to the December 2020 authorization of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine?

        FDA conducted a thorough evaluation of the data and information submitted in the Biologics License Application (BLA) for Comirnaty before making a determination that the vaccine is safe and effective in preventing COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older.

        The EUA for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for individuals 16 years of age and older was based on safety and effectiveness data from a randomized, controlled, blinded ongoing clinical trial in approximately 18,000 individuals who received the vaccine and approximately 18,000 who received a placebo. The vaccine was 95% effective in preventing COVID-19 disease among these clinical trial participants with eight COVID-19 cases in the vaccine group and 162 in the placebo group. The duration of safety follow-up for the vaccinated and placebo participants was a median of two months after receiving the second dose.

        Follow-up data from this ongoing clinical trial was analyzed by FDA to determine the safety and effectiveness of Comirnaty. The updated analysis to determine effectiveness for individuals 16 years of age and older included approximately 20,000 Comirnaty and 20,000 placebo recipients who did not have evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection through seven days after the second dose. Overall, the vaccine was 91% effective, with 77 cases of COVID-19 occurring in the vaccine group and 833 COVID-19 cases in the placebo group.

        The safety was evaluated in approximately 22,000 Comirnaty and 22,000 placebo recipients 16 years of age and older. More than half of the vaccine and placebo recipients were followed for safety for at least four months after the second dose. After issuance of the EUA, participants were unblinded in a phased manner over a period of months to offer placebo participants Comirnaty. Overall, in blinded and unblinded follow-up, approximately 12,000 Comirnaty recipients have been followed for at least 6 months.

      • juris imprudent

        This makes no fucking sense. If the Pfizer/BNT is still supposed to be in clinical trial, through May of ’23 (which of course is now meaningless with the un-blinding), how did Comirnaty complete a FULL set of trials prior to that?

      • kinnath

        This makes no fucking sense.

        The CEOs of pfizer and Moderna are the newest members of the billionaires club.

        That’s all the “sense” it needs to make.

      • juris imprudent

        That’s all the “sense” it needs to make.

        The govt tends to thrive on process, even when that process never makes progress to any kind of goal. This seems counter to that, which I can’t help but find weird.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Clinical study of Comirnaty started in November of 2020, so you tell me how they managed it.

        Phase 3 was not even started at time of application.

      • Sensei

        So how did Comirnaty actually get licensed?

        “They knew this guy…”

      • juris imprudent

        What exactly is the lie there – from the numbers cited it appears the vaccine was hardly different than the placebo (with regard to all cause mortality).

      • R C Dean

        Pfizer said the vaccine’s efficacy remained relatively strong, at 84 percent after six months.

        That appears to be a lie.

        Lies can also be by omission. Such as, omitting (by burying in an appendix, so they can argue its not technically a lie, I suppose) that both COVID mortality and all-cause mortality were higher for the vaccinated.

      • juris imprudent

        Not by a statistically significant amount.

        While it indeed indicates lack of effectiveness, which is the key rationale, it does not indicate greater harm (at least in the short run).

      • Ted S.

        But the fucking point of the “vaccine” is that covid mortality is supposed to be significantly *lower* with the vaccine than the placebo. Which it wasn’t from their own statistics.

        I know you want to be a contrarian, but stop and think once in a while rather than being reflexive.

      • juris imprudent

        2 COVID deaths with vaccine and 1 without. Got it. Yes, that’s a fair question on efficacy. But the bigger part above was supposedly about all cause mortality, and 15 versus 14 is not a big deal.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        They changed their mortality numbers in the experimental group and buried it.

        With the updated figures, the mortality was higher on the experimental side than on the placebo.

      • juris imprudent

        Higher by 1. That’s not really a significant difference.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        All cause mortality and COVID mortality both higher on the experimental side than the control side.

        That would seem to suggest that the “vaccine” has a negative effect on health last I checked.

        But you are correct that the numbers are so low as to be statistically meaningless, but that observation also defeats the need for the vaccine.

        There is no way you can rationally interpret the Phase 1 trial results and come out with the conclusion that the vaccine is justified, but the CDC/FDA neatly and conveniently changed their requirements to “generates an antibody response” instead of “provides safe and statistically significant protection.”

      • juris imprudent

        Oh I fully agree that efficacy looks like shit here, at least for the matter of death. Be interesting to know the age profile of both cohorts. I’d guess a lot under 65.

      • robc

        I would assume the age cohorts are similar, it would be insane to run it with one group being old and the other being young.

    • juris imprudent

      Thanks Ozy, and sorry if you think I was really poking at you. What you are saying does reinforce my skepticism about IP in general, and pharma in particular. Oh, and regulatory capture. How much better off we would be if no one had the authority to claim these are acceptable and the companies had to face full liability for any harms done.

      Interesting point about that judge isn’t it – he still had the final word (at least until history renders its own verdict).

      If this is wrong-doing, and you’re making a good case that it is, then the question does have to be considered – why does it not garner more attention? It isn’t that every moral compass is defective, whether Top.Man or common.

      • R C Dean

        why does it not garner more attention

        It will fail at the confirmation bias gate for the Branch Covidians.

        It will, therefor, be dismissed as a conspiracy theory by the legacy media and social media gatekeepers, and be actively suppressed.

        Its rather technical for those who aren’t already out of the game (Branch Covidians, those reliant on DemOp controlled information).

        Even among those who make it that far, the idea that regulators could be that bad (in whatever sense) is going to be ahrd to swallow, except for a small minority.

      • juris imprudent

        Oh I don’t expect Branch Covidians to be dissuaded by anything.

        Russian collusion fell apart the more it was looked at and the reality of it came into daylight. So I suppose the same could happen here. [Again, setting aside the True Believers who will never give it up.]

      • Ozymandias

        I don’t mean to be flippant by way of reply, but I (literally) wrote a book about this. In my opinion, the book directly asks and (partly) answers this question.
        That’s the short answer.
        Here’s an example of it in your own life. Are you old enough to remember the Church Committee hearings? Because on live television high members of the government admitted in front of the entire country (and Congress) that U.S. soldiers had been given experimental drugs, including LSD, without their knowledge or consent, by members of the CIA and U.S. Army in a joint, (taxpayer-funded!) program. And not a single person was ever held to account for it. Ever. Not only that, they were told they couldn’t sue over it.
        And everyone knows about this.
        I know about this – and I could easily ask you, or anyone, what have YOU done about it? Why haven’t YOU been screaming about such a gross violation of American’s rights? IOW, you’re like “why haven’t more people been screaming about these vaccines being EUA and mandated” – and the answer is multi-factored.
        (a) good people who know have been trying, but that will get zero MS coverage – and that is the alt-reality that DC lives in. Indeed, it will actually get only actively derisive MSM coverage and you might ask yourself why that is and how much it might further prove my point; (b) because public education deadens people’s curiosity, as I’ve argued here before, which, (c) makes it much easier to defer and rely upon “govt expert” pronouncements on complex matters, and (d) no one genuinely gives a fuck. If they did, they’d be screaming about it. Only after this idea was taken from the military (during the Gulf War) and expanded in the “era” of bio-terrorism (anthrax vaccine), and then finally applied to the rest of the docile, incurious frogs, do we even now finally get some pushback.

      • Ozymandias

        JI – this is a 30 year-in-the-making program that I have lived through, so I have the same opinions on this as a guy who’s lived in the woods of Idaho for 30 years does about seasonal weather patterns. I’ve watched this tree bloom during my watch. You, me – and many others – were otherwise occupied. Perhaps there’s a little bit of denial, too. Do you doubt that there were Atomic Veterans? Do you think there’s a chance that people in the government knew that agent orange was a carcinogen before they spread it everywhere (including on their own troops)? Nod your head up and down. After that many instances, JI, I refuse to keep calling it “bad luck.”

  20. Not Adahn

    From the local honey store, I’ve pretty much decided that I like tree honey rather than herb/shrub flowers. Except I do like alfalfa.

    • kinnath

      My favorite honey is from a weed that grows in the pacific northwest and alaska — Fireweed.

      My next two favorites are from trees — Tupelo and Basswood (Linden).

      After that you have honeys made from fruit crops — blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, and cranberry.

      Raw unfiltered clover honey is excellent as well.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I like buckwheat honey. Maybe not my favorite, but it sticks out in my mind as unique.

      • Rat on a train

        I grew up with local orange honey, mmmm.

      • Animal

        Yeah, we bought some fireweed honey and some fireweed jelly this year. Good stuff. Next year, her health permitting, Mrs. Animal wants to start making her own fireweed jelly.

      • kinnath

        I have five gallons of fireweed honey in the basement that needs to be turned into mead.

      • Not Adahn

        Tupelo honey is the tits, as is acacia.

        I’ve had cranberry and blueberry, but didn’t like them as well.

      • kinnath

        I like them because of mead that comes from them.

        I don’t actually eat much honey.

    • Unreconstructed

      My personal taste was seriously affected by my dad’s honeybees in the back yard growing up. The predominant flower was chinaberry trees. Clover honey from the store always seemed so bland.

      • kinnath

        Clover honey from the store always seemed so bland.

        Pasteurization and filtering kills most of the flavor of honey.

  21. Jerms

    Thanks so much for the article Fourscore. What a head of hair you got there for an 80 year old. God bless. I’d kill for that hair.

    • Tundra

      Right? If he and his wife weren’t such sweet people, I would suspect a deal with the Devil.

    • DEG

      Apropos

      In order to protect their lives and homes, Kenosha residents are painting “Black Lives Matter” over their doorposts just in case local Antifa communist rioters don’t like the Rittenhouse verdict and decide to burn the city down again.

      • UnCivilServant

        If that wasn’t the bee was I was going to respond with “Atropaic signs don’t work, stock up on ammo.”

        In fact, they should stock up on ammo anyway. End the riots fast and hard if toublemakers try that shit again.

      • R C Dean

        they should stock up on ammo anyway.

        Always good advice. I need to do a serious inventory of what’s in the arms room. I think I’m good for .45 and .308, which I don’t shoot much any more. Recent buying has focussed on 9mm and 5.56, and I think I may be getting to a good par level for those. We should be good for defensive ammo across the board. Definitely need some more practice ammo for the shotgun, and likely more 9mm and 5.56 practice ammo.

      • Drake

        Lamb’s blood works best.

      • ignoreLander

        CNN is even warning that protests could be even worse than last year, when they were mostly peaceful. “If Rittenhouse isn’t found guilty, we may even see partially non-peaceful protests this year,” said one anchor.

        Masterful.

      • Animal

        If by “Masterful” you mean “Idiotic,” sure.

      • R C Dean

        Yo, Animal:

        I heard this song recently, and it immediately took me to the Minas listening post and the protagonist.

        TW: Imagine Dragons, which like any current band will have a lot of haters. I like this song, though, quite a bit. The backstory is that he wrote it for his brother after his brother’s wife died from cancer. The first time I heard it I thought “Oh, another song about a breakup”. Then I realized no, she died.

      • Animal

        Not a bad tune. Yeah, I can see how you’d draw the comparison to our pal (who was totally not intentionally based on Bruce Campbell) at the Mimas Listening Post.

  22. Ghostpatzer

    Thanks, 4×20. I am unlikely to ever make it to HH – never been much of a traveler, and even less so now for multiple reasons, so it’s nice to get a feel for the joys of honey harvesting here.

  23. UnCivilServant

    As I recall, when I visited the bees didn’t like me hanging around the hive boxes and got a bit stingy.

    Thankfully I discovered that I am still not allergic to bee stings. Also it turns out that the barbs don’t always stick, so the bee that stung me got away with it.

    • rhywun

      OFFS

    • EvilSheldon

      Racist graffiti in a porta-shitter? Next thing you’ll tell me that there were dicks drawn in it…

  24. Tundra

    What’s taking this damn jury so long?

    • DEG

      According to the livestream, they’re eating lunch.

    • R C Dean

      I was gonna say, they probably want to get one free lunch out of it, at least.

      Plus, the first morning was probably taken up with updating their wills, putting their houses on the market. You know, jury stuff.

      • Drake

        Free lunches are really great. One thing I miss about going to the office.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I thought that in a high profile case like this, the courts would have to keep the jurors identities a secret to avoid intimidation.

      • R C Dean

        Good one. This jury wasn’t even sequestered. They have to know of the threats that have been made against the city, the judge, and them. People have been filming them, but regardless, their identities wouldn’t be secret after the trial anyway.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I see. In a just system, any instances of jury tampering and intimidation in this case would have been nipped in the bud immediately.

      • R C Dean

        Indeed. But we don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system.

      • kinnath

        I recall there being reports of “activists” admitting that they were doing everything they could to “dox” the jurors.

      • DEG

        The court’s cameras are set up so that the jurors are never on camera.

        There was an instance where sheriff’s deputies saw someone taking pictures of the jurors. If I remember the story correctly, the deputies had the person delete the pictures. The judge, again if I remember correctly, ordered deputies to confiscate the phone/camera of anyone caught doing such a thing.

  25. Brochettaward

    You know what your problem is, Fourscore? You are so caught up in all this sugar business, that you’ve gone and forgotten the taste of real honey.

    • kinnath

      What the fuck are you blathering about today?

    • Fourscore

      I may have forgotten the taste of a real Honey but I’m not in any business. I would be the first to know.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      This is normal. Remember all those measles and smallpox outbreaks among vaccinated populations? Happens all the time!

    • rhywun

      “87 lives saved”

      • Sean

        https://www.rt.com/news/540442-gibraltar-cancels-christmas-covid/

        Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases, Gibraltar has canceled official Christmas events and “strongly” discouraged people from hosting private gatherings for four weeks. Gibraltar’s entire eligible population is vaccinated.

        Whatcha got for this one?

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Nursing home officials said 48 residents and 21 staff members have recovered from the virus.

        Not yet.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Residents and staff will become eligible for the booster shot when the community has gone two full weeks without any new COVID-19 cases, they said.

      So were they really fully vaccinated?

  26. DEG

    Wasn’t Andrew Branca mentioned here recently with respect to the Rittenhouse case? He’s on the Rekieta Law livestream now talking about his thoughts on the case.

    • B.P.

      How is that comment section on the right side scrolling at 70 MPH helpful?

      • slumbrew

        I popped it out and minimized it. Super annoying.

  27. Sean

    https://nj1015.com/mask-or-vax-parents-being-forced-to-choose-in-nj/

    Choose to move.

    Gov. Phil Murphy is essentially forcing parents to make a choice between keeping mask mandates in place in New Jersey schools or getting their young children vaccinated.

    On Monday, Murphy reiterated his stance that if more kids get vaccinated, the quicker the mask mandates will go away.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      On Monday, Murphy reiterated his stance that if more kids get vaccinated, the quicker the mask mandates will go away.

      They would never lie about this.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        What would they have to gain?

  28. limey

    In the third picture there’s a pair of boots and blue jeans standing to the left of the magic bee cauldron.

    • Tundra

      Don’t mock our culture, limey!

      • limey

        Who said that?

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Look like Merrells slip-ons to me.

  29. Ownbestenemy

    I have much better faith in at least 65,000 people that have sat around to listen to Rekieta Law and Friends just talk about law. That will be upwards of 65,000 people slightly more engaged with our legal system.

    • ignoreLander

      That will be upwards of 65,000 people slightly more engaged with our legal system.

      I read that originally as slightly more enraged with our legal system

      And then I realized, maybe we can both be right….

      • Ownbestenemy

        Both…both are absolutely correct 🙂

      • Ownbestenemy

        On that, we got to watch real time State actors violate the 5th amendment (twice), 6th amendment and sorta shit all over the 1st amendment in a grand play to demolish the 2nd amendement.

  30. trshmnstr the terrible

    Wow, I didn’t realize that the racists and sexists in charge at my company are now requiring law firms we hire to pledge a certain percentage of the work we give them will go to “diverse employees”, and we fine them if they don’t meet their pledge.

    Even without vax mandate bullshit hanging over my head, methinks this company isn’t going to be trying very hard to retain me.

    • slumbrew

      How is that even legal?

      • Sean

        Social equity. Duh.

      • Ownbestenemy

        How is that even ethical?

      • Ted S.

        Lawyers have ethics?

    • DEG

      Join the Dark Side and jump ship.

      • DEG

        Huh. I thought I had your e-mail. Drop me a line. I know of a place that’s hiring, not for patent lawyers but something else that I’ve heard you talk about working on.

      • DEG

        Err… yeah, I’m doing a worse job typing today than the Rittenhouse prosecution did.

        Something else related to what I’ve heard you also talk about working on.

        Actually, that probably just makes less sense.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I thought I had yours, too. You can get me at trashy [dash] glibs [at] disengage [dot] co

    • Ed Wuncler

      It’s fucking insulting to the “minority” workers who busted their asses to get to where they are in their field.

      • Sensei

        I can’t even imagine. I get why that would be enraging.

      • Ed Wuncler

        This may be anecdotal but I’ve noticed the workers who go on an on about diversity representation are usually the marginal workers. I remember this Asian dude I worked with at my previous company who knew all the stupid woke buzzwords and complained about white privilege constantly, was probably one of the most clueless employees in Finance.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s not anecdotal and it’s true across all professions.

        I was encountering it two decades ago in engineering.

    • nw

      “Happy to do that. Of course you understand that Joe here is
      in great demand, so he bills out at $600/hour.”

  31. Sean

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/11/16/illegal_immigrants_would_get_105_billion_from_reconciliation_bill_146739.html

    In an analysis conducted in October, my colleague Karen Zeigler and I estimated that illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children would receive $8.2 billion from the new CTC. However, we had assumed that the new program, like the old ACTC, would require children claimed as dependents to have Social Security numbers (SSNs). But reconciliation (page 1452, line 14) would permanently repeal this requirement.

    Illegal immigrants are able to receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children, who are American citizens. In the case of the old ACTC, they simply acquired an individual taxpayer identification number, which is not hard, and then claimed their payment. In practice, only illegal immigrants with U.S.-born children could receive payments under the old system, since as American citizens those U.S.-born children receive SSNs. The permanent elimination of the SSN requirement means that even illegal immigrants whose children are also illegally in the country can receive the new expanded credit.

    If the reconciliation bill is passed, we now estimate illegal immigrants whose children are also illegally in the country will receive $2.3 billion from the new CTC, for a total of $10.5 billion in cash payments to illegal immigrant parents. This includes illegal migrants here in 2020 and those stopped and then released into the country in 2021. These payments are not related to the huge cash settlements the administration is planning to pay illegal immigrant families separated at the border during the Trump administration.

  32. Pope Jimbo

    Tundra gets a shout out?

    *stomps off in a huff*

    • Fourscore

      Sorry, the dumplings are gone, your chicken is but a memory. A retroactive shout out to my really great friend, uh,uh,uh, oh, Jimbo!

      And thanks for your gift of books and electronics, oh so many months ago. I really enjoyed your visit in my time of need.