Way back in the 70's I lived in the Ozark National Forest like Mr. Natural. Outhouse, wood stove, water running into the kitchen sink from a spring up the hill. Lots of time, little money, and enough natural beauty to make your heart tremble. Me, and my wife, four kids, and a permanent guest from the rainbow family who showed up and never left. And Bees. Lots of bees.

It was a fine life, providing you loved hard work, low pay, and the forest. Being younger, the first didn't bother me. Being idealistic, no money wasn't a big problem. I mean, Jesus had no cash, right? And the forest...ahhh. The forest was right up there at the feet of God in my book. My temple.

Unfortunately, the temple had a few full time residents which at first seemed merely unique and colorful, but turned out to be a real hassle. One of these was Black Bears.

To be fair, it wasn't the bear's fault that they were such a pain. Bears had been all but eradicated from the Ozarks in the past. Why? Because the people found them to be, as I said, a pain. But not just an ache, or a brief twinge of discomfort. No, we are not talking no downstream pain here, but rather a fullblown, raging, agonizing pain in the Anal Pore. How, you ask? What could be more innocent than a black bear in the woods? Ask that after he rips off your screen door, destroys the kitchen and all edibles, opens the fridge, and drinks all your beer. Pretty funny, eh?  Ha. Ha. Oh, and did I mention? Bears like honey.

So, the people in the past 80 years or so got rid of most of the bears.

Enter the U.S. Forest Service. To the USFS, not having lots of bears was somehow painful in inself. So, they introduced lots of bears to the forest.

At first Mr. Natural thought bears were really pretty cool, man. Like they do their thing in the woods, and it's all cool. Our brothers. Then one day about 20 beehives, loaded with honey, get methodically WASTED,  I mean trashed, dude. Stunned disbelief. Confusion. My brother? Did This? Let's smoke one and think this out, man.

So the very next day I was wandering down the path to the outhouse, thinking this out, when this huge black hairy bulk came to my attention, right in front of the crapper. WAAAAAH! It took about 2 seconds for disbelief to morph into indignation, which grew with amazing speed into anger, which manifested into me running back to the house yelling "get the shotgun!" How quickly the fall from grace. Well, the gun in question was an old single shot model. I stuffed a shell into it, ran back to the outhouse, and was met by the bear, who had apparently had enough of this crap and reared up on his hind legs at me. In a rage over my bees, I aimed the gun in his general direction and fired.  He lunged at me as I tried in vain to eject the shell, which was stuck. I can remember my exact thoughts as he came at me. They were "Oh F**k".  Then, just a few feet from me, he spun around and ran the other way! I know we are to be thankful for whatever comes our way, and suddenly my thoughts reflected this belief as I said, "Thank you Lord!" most fervently. Isn't it funny how circumstances can alter our beliefs and actions? Anyway, the question was, What Happened?

We tracked the bear into a deep thicket a few hundred yards away. He lay dead. To make a long story short, we ate him. He was very large, maybe 600 pounds. I don't really know exactly but I do know we used a tractor to hoist him up to clean him and he was HEAVY. And when we cleaned him, we saw that the slug had passed directly through his heart. To this day I consider that if not for that lucky unaimed shot, the one being eaten that day would have been me.

I am not a hunter, and I hated the whole affair. But I will say that Brutus there fed a family of 7 people for one entire winter.

Finally..found the time to harvest the honey crop. This year has got to be one of the finest tasting crops I can remember. Really a classic wildflower honey, amber, and tasting as rich as gold. I harvested up to 80 pounds per hive! This year most of it got bottled in pints and quarts.  

I found myself pondering the incredible nature of reality as I looked at the vat of new honey, weghing hundreds of pounds. Where did this come from? The concentrated essence of flower nectar, collected from billions of blooms over hundreds of acres. With all our technology, could man do this? Is this phenomena not one which, if it were unknown and proposed in a science fiction magazine, be considered too outlandish a concept for even that literary genre? Just incredible, one of those miraculous things that happens all the time and we take for granted, like lightning, or the flight of insects and birds, or our very existence.                   

I am being overrun! At this rate, I will have to start yet another bee yard.  Anybody want to buy a few hives??

Amazing, the phone is ringing off the hook. There seems to be an improvement on the bees this year, which is sorely needed. They are on the verge of virtual extinction, and you can bet that if they go, people will NOTICE. Notice, as in: hey, why are watermelons 25 bucks all of a sudden??

People seems to finally be accepting the superiority of "funnel" versus tear-out removal. Better late than never...

Pollen really coming in, and the stronger hives making a little honey.  Also, got the first report of a swarm yesterday in downtown Tulsa (it had flown away by the time I got there).I expect a lot of swarms in about a week or two.I have been performing extensive anti-swarming work on my own bees. Swarming, which involve the natural splitting of a hive's population into two seperate hives (one of which flies away) destroys honey production. But, as it is a form of reproduction, it is hard to stop! And I am getting too old to be climbing trees to get the swarms back....seems like around my place they like to settle way up high, understandable I suppose when you consider I live in the forest.

I have been demareeing my hives to control the swarming. Those of you who keep bees might find this interesting. I have located the queen, placed her in the bottom brood chamber with only a frame or two of brood, added an empty deep, then a quen excluder, then on the top a deep with most of the brood and a rear entrance.. I expect that the bottom box will not swarm, as the queen has been removed from most of her brood, and furthur expect that the top box will raise a new queen, being so far from the queen. So, evgentually I expect that these will be two-quen hives. Eventually one queen will be killed by the stronger one, so I will have hopefully requeened and stopped swarming at the same time. The final step, in a few weeks, will be to rearrange the boxes and be sure the top box is used for honey (no queen).  If all this works as planned, these should be REAL strong hives....

I have been noticing a very encouraging phenomenon in the last couple years. Encouraging, and disturbing. Ordinary people, folks who are by nature not wild-eyed radicals or old hippies, are all coming to the same general conclusion. And that conclusion is: SOMEONE ELSE IS RUNNING AMERICA'S SHOW BESIDES AMERICA. Or, more accurately, the American government no longer seems to represent the best interests of either the country as a nation or it's people. An alarming number of people are coming to believe this. And the mainstream MEDIA, which is supposed to reflect truth to some degree, ignores this fact. But it is becoming as difficult as ignoring a bull in a china shop, and equally destructive.

I used to travel a lot. Europe, Africa, the Caribbean. People used to love Americans in many places, I saw and experienced that firsthand. But travellers now bring back different reports. They despise us. Rather than considering us the best hope of the world, we are viewed as a moral cesspool and a rogue nation. They watch as we "rewrite" the Middle East with the blood of innocents. They watch as we support the brutal occupation of Palestine year after year, and call those who are so desperate that they are willing to take their own lives to harm their enemies "suicide bombers". Yes, they are suicide bombers. But let me ask this: If the USA were an occupied country, ruled with a brutal iron fist by an vastly stronger oppressor who killed and jailed those civilians who resisted, what would we call an American who strapped on a bomb and went after the enemy, no matter who? I can tell you: A hero. That "suicide bomber" would be idolized.

Why does our country increasingly support tyranny, and turn a blind eye to the real despots? Why does our government pursue policies that in the years to come will leave the USA an economically destitute wasteland? Questions, questions. But again, there is encouragement; the answers are to be found in increasing nymbers right here on the internet. This form of media is the last uncensored form of communication left. You can find lies, garbage, and filth. But you can also find the TRUTH, unavailable anywhere else in "print".  Let us thank God for that, and for the increasing awareness of the American people as a whole. Because only we can save ourselves.

I have been advised that this photo should be removed, because it might offend. Actually, I put it in because I myself was offended. Yes offended, that Man still has the capacity for such cruelty in his heart. I understand that slavery still exists today, in fact is rampant, and while we sit in our air-conditioned pleasure palaces, it might be well to reflect upon this fact. And to be offended.

It is not so much the evil, but the indifference toward it.

The bees are about a week away from swarming. I notice a lot of pollen coming in, and some of it is bright red...I think from all the henbit ( that's the purple carpet of small flowers around Tulsa.   I am once again praying for a good honey crop this year. The bees are looking good, it seems that I have raised pretty disease resistant bees, as my winter losses were less than 5%!!

Bright yellow pollen has been coming in sporadically for the last few days, whenever it gets warm. I am not sure what the source is.... Cedar? Witch Hazel? I went looking, but couldn't find them working anywhere. Years ago, when I was keeping bees in the Ozark National Forest, the first pollen was usually Witch Hazel. Amazing how they can find whatever it is.

How interesting. Wasn't it not long ago that a poll of the people said the vast majority wanted out of Iraq? Now, strangely enough, Only Obama emerges as a somewhat antiwar choice, and that is debatable....whatever happened to Ron Paul? Almost everyone I talked to said he was their choice. But no Ron Paul. Well, maybe I should just not say anything. Don't worry. Don't question. Several tons of Steel and Titanium engines vaporized on impact at the Pentagon. Yup. That could happen. How do I know otherwise? The experts know.

After all, don't want to get labelled a Suspected Terrorist, and put in a box somewhere with no rights.

But thats OK, Right? I mean this is America. It must be OK.

Right?

So "Tulsa local honey" shows in a google as #1, but "local tulsa honey" puts me around #20.......go figure. But hey, that's great!

After just erasing about 4 hours work in one second, perrmanently, and almost simultaneously threatening my very soul with damnation due to a series of vile oaths I uttered, I have decided: I hate programming. And this is supposed to be a website builder for dummies???