This will begin a series of blog posts that will cover past events in the life of Indian Summer Honey Farm, we hope these will be an encouragement, reminder, or spark a sense of hope in your lives.

It may seem that when people tell stories of past events that they are either gloomier or more optimistic than, in reality, they were. I suppose that memory is like that-

Chris and I were married in 1987 with the expectation that we would be migratory beekeepers from the start. We didn’t even plan long term housing for ourselves in Wisconsin planning instead to stay in the basement at my parents’ house (I guess we were millennials before their time). Needless to say, our plan didn’t work as we had hoped. Instead, there was the discovery of tracheal mites, and then varroa mites shortly thereafter, in the US and then a quarantine on the movement of bees from state to state thus eliminating our opportunity to be migratory beekeepers.

We carried on for several years maintaining the hives in Wisconsin for the summer and trying to overwinter the hives- we were running around 1200 hives at the time. We had good honey crops in the summer, but the winter losses were burdensome- we bought 200 packages each spring to try to recover from the winter losses. But feeling as though it may work out well to keep the bees for honey in the summer and then do off farm work for the winter months. We did experiment with multiple treatments- lest you think we were dispirited in our desire to attempt to continue keeping bees full time.  We tried menthol/shortening patties, paradichlorobenzene in paraffin cakes, and essential oils usually in a shortening/sugar combination- all with small successes but none of them effective enough to keep the hives alive through the winter.

Then in 1991 we were stopped in our tracks (again). We had just had our second child in August of that year and finished extracting- feeding bees- wrapping hives for winter when we discovered tremendous loss of hives, it was probably October or Early November when the loss became overwhelming- more loss of hives than we had ever seen nearly 60% of the hives dead and more dying! Chris was in despair! The quarantine on the movement of bees was still in force because of the varroa mites,  Was this a sign from God that we should get out of the bees- move on to something else? Or was there something else? We prayed, and worried, and sought advice from family and other beekeepers until at last a plan was devised.

We were able to get our remaining hives (about 400 double hives) out of Wisconsin using another Wisconsin beekeepers permit, moving our hives to his location in Florida- hiring a semi truck to haul them down, and then making a plan to come down as a family.

This involved purchasing a used hunting camper from a friend and figuring out where we were going to put it when we got down to Florida. To me it was an adventure (a scary one, that I was not sure God wanted for us)- to Chris it was a great dilemma. His Provider, Protector desire was keenly at work. How would it all work out?? That question was in the forefront of our minds. We were new parents, new business/farm owners, and new Christians seeking the best way.

As God usually does, when we are truly seeking and desiring His best- He directed us and sustained us. I think back to that time and it’s pretty blurry but I know I had highlighted in my bible then as I do now Proverbs 3:5-6 “ Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”  There were and still are times when we lean on our own understanding- however, God was and still is able to direct our paths!

In that winter we initially put our camper on a beekeeper’s property in Winter Garden (Larry Bergman), then we moved it to Groveland to the Miksa’s property. We learned so much that winter from those beekeepers and their willingness to share their locations and advice, and homes. Chris had spent time with these beekeepers in his earlier years of beekeeping (in his apprenticeship years) and had some knowledge of the area and about how to keep bees in Florida. This was after the freezes of the mid 80’s but there was till plenty of citrus around in those days. I think we came down as a family right after Christmas and stayed down until early April.  Chris divided his time between working for the beekeepers on whose property we were staying and our own remaining hives. I spent my time taking care of a toddler and baby, learning the ‘ropes’ of Florida living, and working our remaining hives.

We tell our, now grown, children the stories of how they grew up in a Florida orange grove and we all laugh but it was a reality! On the days we worked our hives we would pack up the kids in the pick-up truck with a pile of toys and snacks to last the day, and a portable crib for the baby (Zachary that year). Then we headed out to the bee yard. We tried new treatments for the mites, but in those days we didn’t have to feed the bees unless they came down hungry, and we very rarely used pollen patties. The maples started yielding pollen in January, then willow, then cherry laurel, and soon the citrus would start blooming- there was a steady form of nectar or pollen available throughout the winter/spring months and we made honey! So, we were able to make splits from the survivor hives purchasing cells from the Miksa’s in that way we were able to turn one strong hive into four in order to build back to 1200-1400 hives to bring back to Wisconsin.

Somehow through that long winter we survived and not only survived but decided that this was the best way to go- if we were going to remain fulltime beekeepers we would need to work together as a couple and as a family!  We decided to continue migrating to Florida. The Lord had directed our path- we are still grateful to those beekeeping families who helped us along the way. And we have continued to make decisions over the years to remain in central Florida although central Florida has changed GREATLY over the last 25 years! We ultimately, have decided that we know the land, the seasons, the plants and the people and are happy to settle in and call this area home.