Hello friends! It's been a while since I've had much to post about and I'm so excited to finally have some news. Last year we began our journey in beekeeping in May 2016, and by the end of the year after weeks of heavy smoke from a forest fire we lost our bees. It was really devastating, but we pushed on and prepared for the next season.
I'll get back to the beekeeping here in a moment, but first I really want to talk about some of the exciting news with Niffer's! First, who likes soap? Everyone, right? Well, almost everyone. I know some kids who would rather have mud baths. Well, if you like soap then you'll be pleased to hear that very soon Niffer's All Natural Products will have a line of soaps! You've heard this rumor before? Yeah, you have... but now it's happening sooner than later. At this very moment, I have soap curing and hopefully by the first week of May you'll have a few scents to choose from. The first of two scents I have curing is a peppermint and rosemary blend. Perky yet soothing at the same time, it's the perfect scent to freshen up on a hot summer day. It's topped with dried sage to add an extra little herbal hint. Second in line is probably my favorite so far, a lime and basil blend. The fresh lime comes through so clean and the basil follows up giving it a spicy note. Both soaps are made with pure and natural ingredients, of course. I blended coconut, olive, and castor oils to give you great scrubbing power and combined those with shea butter for the wonderful smooth and moisturizing benefits. I'm working on a few more scent blends but I'm hoping to have at least three to choose from.
I'll get back to the beekeeping here in a moment, but first I really want to talk about some of the exciting news with Niffer's! First, who likes soap? Everyone, right? Well, almost everyone. I know some kids who would rather have mud baths. Well, if you like soap then you'll be pleased to hear that very soon Niffer's All Natural Products will have a line of soaps! You've heard this rumor before? Yeah, you have... but now it's happening sooner than later. At this very moment, I have soap curing and hopefully by the first week of May you'll have a few scents to choose from. The first of two scents I have curing is a peppermint and rosemary blend. Perky yet soothing at the same time, it's the perfect scent to freshen up on a hot summer day. It's topped with dried sage to add an extra little herbal hint. Second in line is probably my favorite so far, a lime and basil blend. The fresh lime comes through so clean and the basil follows up giving it a spicy note. Both soaps are made with pure and natural ingredients, of course. I blended coconut, olive, and castor oils to give you great scrubbing power and combined those with shea butter for the wonderful smooth and moisturizing benefits. I'm working on a few more scent blends but I'm hoping to have at least three to choose from.
Next on the exciting news list is the announcement that the Mazama Store in Mazama, Washington is now carrying Niffer's All Natural Laundry Powder and Niffer's All Natural Dishwasher Powder. The Mazama Store offers many general items, including groceries, cleaning products, t-shirts, and more. But, what makes Mazama really unique is that they offer natural cleaning products in bulk where you can fill up containers, and reduce the need for excess packaging. I am so excited and honored to work with the great people at Mazama to offer great natural cleaners and reduce packaging waste. If you get a chance to visit, or live in the area, please be sure to stop in and get a bite to eat and some coffee, and of course fill up your jar of Niffer's cleaning powders. Check out their website to learn more, and then stop by their Facebook page where they've got great pictures of the AHH-mazing views from the trails nearby. Plus, I love their goat logo! Who doesn't like goats?
In other farm news, we've started the garden and already have some happy sprouts. We scaled it back this year to a 50'x50' space from the 28'x128' space last year. I'm also planning on limiting the varieties of produce. So far we've planted collards, red beans, mustard spinach, peas, green beans, beets, and inside we've started 12 total tomatoes (6 different varieties) and 19 total peppers (6 varieties). In the coming weeks I'm going to plant 12 more tomato plants to have a total of 24. We also started some cabbage and cucumbers indoors. One of our awesome neighbors (because we have a lot of amazing neighbors) let us borrow his seed planter. What a great help that was! We were able to get about 20 rows into the garden in about an hour and a half. Last year it took me days and days to get all the seeds in. Thanks Robert!
Back to the bees...
This year we did a lot of things differently, which I'm going to cover in a separate blog post. Today, I'll just give the quick version. It rained the day we had to install the bees into the hive which created a lot of stress on our end. Everything we read talked about waiting another day before installing them, but my husband had to go to work and we couldn't wait. We made it happen, and three days later when I checked to make sure the queen was released from the queen cage I was happy to find she was. The second hive, however wasn't happy about my intrusion so I had to come back the next day. But it rained again. So, five days after installation I verified the second box's queen was released. Then we waited. This past Saturday, one week and 5 days after installation we opened the hives again to see if the queen was laying eggs. The hives were beautiful, full of new comb and honey and pollen. The bees were busy, and tucked perfectly inside the cells were perfect little bee larva. We found the queens in both hives, wandering through doing her queenly business. We removed the queen excluders from under the hives, and closed everyone up. So far, both hives are far happier than last year's was at this stage. I'm hoping we have a successful first year! I'm going to try to get a full post about how we installed the bees in a day or two. We did it in a more nontraditional way, and I'd like to share what we did and then continue to update as the year goes on.
Until next time, I'd love to hear from you. Do you keep bees? Have you ever ignored the traditional methods? What is your favorite scent of soap? Do you prefer soap with color or just naturally colored with the oils and butters used? If you had three hands, what would you use the third for? Comment below, email, or find me on Facebook!
Happy Spring!
This year we did a lot of things differently, which I'm going to cover in a separate blog post. Today, I'll just give the quick version. It rained the day we had to install the bees into the hive which created a lot of stress on our end. Everything we read talked about waiting another day before installing them, but my husband had to go to work and we couldn't wait. We made it happen, and three days later when I checked to make sure the queen was released from the queen cage I was happy to find she was. The second hive, however wasn't happy about my intrusion so I had to come back the next day. But it rained again. So, five days after installation I verified the second box's queen was released. Then we waited. This past Saturday, one week and 5 days after installation we opened the hives again to see if the queen was laying eggs. The hives were beautiful, full of new comb and honey and pollen. The bees were busy, and tucked perfectly inside the cells were perfect little bee larva. We found the queens in both hives, wandering through doing her queenly business. We removed the queen excluders from under the hives, and closed everyone up. So far, both hives are far happier than last year's was at this stage. I'm hoping we have a successful first year! I'm going to try to get a full post about how we installed the bees in a day or two. We did it in a more nontraditional way, and I'd like to share what we did and then continue to update as the year goes on.
Until next time, I'd love to hear from you. Do you keep bees? Have you ever ignored the traditional methods? What is your favorite scent of soap? Do you prefer soap with color or just naturally colored with the oils and butters used? If you had three hands, what would you use the third for? Comment below, email, or find me on Facebook!
Happy Spring!