Episode 114: Chilly Blast, Solid Honey and More Truck Troubles

Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 114 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet, Finally, We’ve had some rain, The Spring honey extraction has turned into a honey cut out and I’ve another tale of trouble with the truck.Sign up to every podcast as they are released hereI’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.Check out The Pollinators Documentary hereHi everyone and well, here we are again, another week and another series of challenges, it all goes with the territory of being a commercial beekeeper but sometimes these little bumps in the road go straight through to the bone. So we finally got some rain, after a very lengthy period of dry Spring weather with some accompanying high temperatures we finally got what was predicted to be a few showers for a few days and that turned into some prolonged fairly heavy rain that has lasted for at least a week and is due to continue through the rest for this week with sunshine and showers predicted right up until this podcast is released. I try to get the podcast recorded and edited by the middle of the week if I can and that means that on the release day, which is normally Friday things can have changed quite dramatically. So, here I am on Monday typing away with dark grey ominous clouds outside and rain threatening. I’m actually home from the new unit, I must come up with a location name for it, I have the workshop over with Pete so I need to think of another name to call Unit 2.  It’s crazy how much work happens online for me these days and it’s not a surprise to see maybe twenty or thirty emails from various beekeepers around the world asking questions about their beekeeping or a particular technique...........And finally this week I had an email from Peter Nelson, the director of the Pollinators documentary who I chatted with a while back on the podcast. If you’ve not heard the interview do go back and have a listen to Peter’s story. However, the reason for Peter’s email, other than some friendly beekeeping chat was some exciting news about the documentary. Peter attached a press release and I’m simply going to read it out here, The award-winning documentary THE POLLINATORS, will be released across all digitalplatforms on June 16, 2020, right ahead of National Pollinator Week (June 22 – 28).The Pollinators is a cinematic journey around the United States following migratory beekeepers and their truckloads of honey bees as they pollinate the flowers that become the fruits, nuts and vegetables we all eat. The many challenges the beekeepers and their bees face en route reveal flaws to our simplified chemically dependent agriculture system. We talk to farmers, scientists, chefs and academics along the way to give a broad perspective about the threats to honey bees, what it means to our food security and how we can improve it. The Pollinators has screened widely in theatres and communities across the U.S. and around the world. We are thrilled that it will now be available digitally and viewable in your home.To find out more about the film and to sign up for email updates, please visit our website and watch the trailer.Well, that’s it for this week, Thanks for hanging around until the end of the podcast and keep the comments coming.I’m Stewart SpinksAnd that was Beekeeping SSupport the show