Old Mill Apiary / Wissinger Farm LLC

09/03/2026

09/03/2026

🍇 Important Grape Stomp preparation reminder! 🍇

The Laurel Haven Grape Stomp is next Saturday, September 12—which means it’s officially time to schedule those fresh pedicures. 😂

After all, if we’re going to climb into a barrel and squish grapes with our bare feet in front of everybody, our toes might as well look fabulous doing it!

Who’s brave enough to stomp with us? 👣🍇

09/02/2026

Buster is in rut. Cotton is in heat. And let’s just say they had been very enthusiastically working on the possibility of future babies. 😂

Then they both turned and looked at me at exactly the same time like…

“Are you VIDEOING this?” 👀🐐😂

Why, yes. Yes, I am.

09/02/2026

My turmeric plants are blooming! 🥹💛

09/01/2026

Remember all that buckwheat we planted for the bees? Well…some of it came up better than others. 😂

At a couple of our bee yards, the grass and senna pretty much took over. I have pictures of all that senna—with just a few determined little buckwheat plants sticking their heads up through it. We even ended up with a little volunteer buckwheat growing in the compost pile after a few seeds apparently hitched a ride home on the tractor implements!

But the strip we planted beside the house, just outside the fence, actually did pretty well. It has now started making the cutest little dark, triangular seeds.

Despite its name, buckwheat isn’t actually wheat—or even a true grain. It’s a naturally gluten-free seed, which seems especially fitting here with my celiac disease. The flowers are wonderful food for the bees, and when there is enough planted in one area, they can produce a wonderfully dark, rich, distinctive buckwheat honey.

We’re going to leave this little patch alone and let it finish doing its thing, drop its seeds, and hopefully reseed itself. As for the other bee yards, we learned a few things this year! We already have a better plan for preparing those areas and getting the grass and senna under control before we plant again…without any chemicals.

Sometimes farming is as much about learning what didn’t work as celebrating what did—and these determined little triangular seeds are giving us hope for next year. 🌱🐝

09/01/2026

I discovered that installing flooring all weekend is apparently the same thing as signing up for an intensive two-day squat challenge—except nobody gives you a cute workout outfit, a water bottle, or a medal at the end. 😂

After all the bending, stooping, squatting, lifting, and crawling around, my legs officially filed a complaint yesterday morning. I could barely move, and every attempt to sit down or stand back up came with sound effects. Loud sound effects.

Then Maggie threw up on the rug.

I managed to quickly pick it up, but when I returned with a wet soapy towel and sat on the footstool to clean the spot, I discovered that I could not bend far enough to reach the floor. I sat there rearranging my legs and trying to calculate some possible way for my arm to reach the rug.

There was no solution.

The floor was simply too far away. 😂

Thankfully, I have mostly recovered this morning. There are still a few tender spots—especially when one of the dogs decides to trample across me—but I can once again reach the ground!

And the good news is that the new ‘commercial grade waterproof’ flooring in that building that I still haven’t told y’all exactly what we’re doing with, looks beautiful. 😉

Keep watching—washable walls are next!

08/30/2026

🐐❤️ Remember Bandit, the I-77 Goat? ❤️🐐

Some of you will remember Bandit — the handsome white goat who became a bit of a local celebrity after deciding that hanging out around I-77 was an entirely reasonable way for a goat to live. 😆

People watched for him, worried about him, shared sightings, and hoped somebody could finally get him somewhere safe.

And somebody did. ❤️

Gracie Simms was the one who actually went out there and rescued Bandit. She took the time, made the effort, and got that boy out of danger. Then she trusted us to give him his forever home.

Gracie, we will always be grateful. ❤️

So, for everyone who followed the adventures of Bandit, the I-77 Goat, here is your official update:

Bandit is safe.
Bandit is happy.
Bandit is loved.
Bandit has goat friends, plenty to eat, and a home where he never has to worry about traffic again.

And Bandit is also…

VERY. MUCH. IN. RUT. 🤦‍♀️🤣

Our beautiful, snowy white boy is now sporting a truly disgusting yellow face and beard and behaving as though he is the most irresistible creature any lady goat has ever laid eyes on. 🤢🤣🐐

Apparently this is what “living his best life” looks like when you are a buck.

And just in case there was any question about the seriousness of the situation: I have washed my hands multiple times AND taken a shower, and I STILL smell like a buck in rut. 🤢

If you know, you know.

And if you don’t know… be grateful. 😂😂😂

From dodging traffic along I-77 to being safe at home, loved, spoiled, stinky, and apparently convinced he is God’s gift to lady goats — Bandit has come a long way. ❤️

Thank you again, Gracie, for being the person who went and got him. And thank you to everyone who worried about him, watched for him, shared his story, and rooted for this crazy goat.

Bandit made it. And judging by that yellow beard — and the fact that I apparently smell like him now — he is REALLY enjoying his happily ever after. 🤣🐐❤️

08/28/2026

🍯🐝 There is so much more in a jar of honey than “sweet.”

I’m going to be a little hard to reach for much of today because I’ll be spending the day in online classes learning even more about something I find endlessly fascinating: honey itself.

(And by “spending the day in online classes,” I mean I’ll have my computer set up out in that building I’ve been teasing you about while I watch and listen—and work on getting a few more things finished so we can hopefully get that brand-new waterproof, washable flooring down this weekend! 😉 There’s your little project update for the day.)

The longer I keep bees, the less satisfied I am with simply calling a jar “wildflower honey.”

I want to know what is actually in it.

Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in understanding honey from several different directions—and lately those different areas of study are beginning to come together in a way that I find really exciting.

🧬 First, there is botanical identification.

I’m currently awaiting the results of DNA analysis on some of our honey, and I cannot wait to see what we learn! The analysis can help identify the plants represented in a particular honey, allowing us to look beyond simply calling something “spring honey” or “wildflower honey” and begin understanding which plants actually contributed to it.

🔬 Then there is biological activity.

I’m also having honey analyzed for characteristics such as antimicrobial and antioxidant activity, along with physical and chemical properties that are important in research involving honey and its potential applications, including wound care.

👃🍯 And then there is sensory analysis.

I’ve had the opportunity to take several classes in honey sensory analysis through the American Honey Tasting Society, which gave me a wonderful foundation in this fascinating way of studying honey—and I absolutely fell in love with it.

Sensory analysis teaches us to slow down and really examine a honey—its aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, persistence, and all the subtle characteristics that distinguish one varietal honey from another.

There is an entire vocabulary for it: floral, fruity, vegetal, woody, aromatic, warm, caramelized—and then increasingly specific descriptors within those larger families.

I’m particularly interested in continuing to build that sensory knowledge around the varietal and regional honeys we encounter here in the Southeast.

And here is where all of this becomes really exciting to me.

With experience, sensory characteristics can give us clues about botanical sources that may be strongly represented in a honey. DNA analysis gives us another way to investigate those botanical sources. Laboratory testing can tell us something entirely different about the honey’s measurable biological activity.

Now we can begin putting the pieces together.

If a particular plant appears prominently in a honey, what do we know about that plant? What compounds does it contain? How has that plant traditionally been used therapeutically, and what does modern research tell us about its biological activities?

And then, what can we learn about the honey itself?

Honey has been used therapeutically by people around the world for thousands of years. That part certainly isn’t new. What is exciting today is that we have increasingly sophisticated ways to study something our ancestors understood through observation and experience—to identify and measure honey’s biological activity, investigate the compounds and mechanisms behind it, and begin to understand why different honeys may behave differently.

By combining what we know from the traditional therapeutic use of honey, what we know about the plants from which it originates, and what we can now measure in the laboratory, we can begin asking much more interesting questions about each individual honey.

I’m especially interested in where this may eventually lead in my herbal and apitherapy studies.

When making something like an electuary—herbs combined with honey—the honey shouldn’t just be an interchangeable sweet base.

What if we understood our honeys well enough to thoughtfully choose a honey whose botanical origins, biological activities, and other properties complement the herbs we’re using?

Instead of thinking only about which herb should I use?, we can begin asking which honey should I pair with it?

Of course, identifying a plant in a honey doesn’t automatically mean that the honey possesses all of the properties of that plant, and sensory analysis alone can’t tell us everything that’s in a jar. That’s precisely why I’m so interested in studying honey from all of these different directions.

A jar of honey can be a little record of plants, place, season, bees, chemistry, biology, aroma, and flavor.

And THAT is the part of beekeeping I could study forever.

I can’t wait to get the results back from the different analyses I’m doing and begin putting some of these pieces together—and, most of all, I can’t wait to share what we learn about our honey with all of you. 🐝🍯

So if I’m a little quiet today, that’s where I’ll be—sitting in class, working on that mysterious building, taking entirely too many notes, and probably coming away with about 47 more things I want to learn. 😂

08/25/2026

So apparently this is 62. 😂🎂

I had plans for my birthday morning.

Nothing terribly exciting. I was going to sit outside in this absolutely gorgeous weather, linger over multiple cups of tea, eventually get myself cleaned up, and maybe head to Rock Hill. Wander around. Go into stores I don’t normally bother going into. See what’s out there. Look at all the Christmas stuff that’s inexplicably already appearing in AUGUST. 🎄😂

Basically, just spend the day doing whatever struck my fancy.

And what a morning for it! It was in the mid-60s with a little breeze—one of the very few mornings we’ve had in months and months when it actually felt GOOD to sit outside.

That was the plan.

The farm had other ideas.

First, there were the bees.

Yesterday, what I originally thought was a ridiculously late August swarm turned out to be one of my colonies that had absconded. With all the rain we’ve had, ants had been pushed up out of the ground, found the sugar syrup in their feeder, and essentially taken over.

Honestly? I can’t really blame the bees for moving out.

I tried putting them back into a box. They went back to the plum tree. After Chris got home and we were ready to try again, they took to the air, flew around a few minutes, and returned to the plum tree.

We tried again later in the evening, and gave them a nice feeder of sugar syrup to sweeten the deal.

Back to the plum tree.

So this morning I had resigned myself to putting on my stinky bee suit, collecting them for the THIRD time, and moving them across the highway to another bee yard.

Then, while I was trying to take a cute birthday picture with my teacup in the foreground and my troublesome bees hanging in the plum tree behind it…

THE BEES TOOK TO THE AIR.

Again.

Thousands of bees everywhere.

Here we go.

Except this time they flew back to the box we set up for them yesterday.

ON THEIR OWN.

Well…sort of.

They covered the outside of the box. A whole bunch of them gathered around the back. Very few seemed particularly interested in the perfectly serviceable entrance on the front.

Apparently the official message was:

“We have reconsidered the house. We will take it. We just hate the front door.” 😂🐝

They seemed to be requesting a back entrance.

Request denied.

The house is perfectly nice. It has drawn comb. It has food. The ant problem has been addressed. I even removed the weird little small-hive-beetle entrance contraption they apparently didn’t care for.

I am NOT remodeling the house.

And eventually…they settled down.

They’re out of the air. They’re on the box. I can see a little bit of the entrance from where I’m sitting with my tea, and I think they’re going inside.

I think they’re home.

Bees be crazy, Bee. Bees. Be. Crazy. 🐝😂

So, crisis over, right?

Oh no. It’s wasn’t even 8:45 yet.

Next I discovered seven aloe vera pups that I have apparently been attempting to kill through neglect.

One is doing beautifully.

Five have entered a rehabilitation program.

One has gone on to the great succulent garden in the sky. 🌱

And THEN the dogs went crazy.

Next thing I know, two men walking through my yard toward the tower area with orange vests on and huge backpack sprayers.

Oh, absolutely not.

Now, remember my original plan involved eventually getting myself cleaned up.

We had not reached “eventually.”

I had not gotten dressed.

I had not washed my face.

I had not brushed my teeth.

I wasn’t even wearing a bra.

I grabbed the heavy winter dog-walking jacket hanging by the laundry-room door, threw it over my pajama bottoms, and headed out.

Did I care about my appearance?

Not even a little bit. 😂

Because there were two men carrying backpack sprayers toward an area full of plants my bees forage, and at that particular moment I had MUCH bigger concerns than how I looked.

The gentlemen were contractors with Fairfield Electric and were headed back toward the tower to clear vegetation. Neither spoke much English, so when I started asking what they were spraying and explaining that I have asked Fairfield Electric not to spray on my property or immediately adjacent to the area my bees are using, they called their boss.

He didn’t really speak English either.

But he had a translator on his phone.

So there I stood.

Pajama bottoms.
Winter jacket.
Unwashed face.
Unbrushed teeth.
Uncombed hair in a very unflattering messy bun.

Conducting an herbicide negotiation through a phone translator.

And meanwhile…

MY DADDY WAS CALLING TO WISH ME HAPPY BIRTHDAY. 😂🎂

Could I answer?

Of course not.

Sorry, Daddy. Your daughter was busy saving the bee forage.

But we figured it out.

The sprayers went away.

And the machetes came out.

They’re still going to clear the vegetation, and I really hate seeing all that late-summer growth cut down just as we’re heading into fall forage.

But they have a job they have to do, too.

And I genuinely appreciate that they’re willing to do it with muscle instead of chemicals.

I know I can’t protect everything my bees encounter. They forage for miles. I have absolutely no control over what might be sprayed somewhere else within that enormous area.

But this morning, there were backpack sprayers walking right past my house toward an area my bees use.

That was something I could do something about.

So I did.

I can’t protect every flower my bees will visit.

But I could protect the ones right here.

For everything beyond my little circle of influence, I’ll say an extra prayer over my bees, send one up to St. Ambrose to keep an eye on them, and trust those little girls to make their way safely through a world I can’t completely control.

All this before 9am.

The bees appear to be home.

The chemicals are gone.

The guys are doing their job with machetes instead.

Most of the aloe will probably live.

I got to sit outside with my second cup of tea, which was actually still warm, and enjoyed this beautiful cool breeze while I watched over all of it.

Maybe I’ll go to Rock Hill later.

Maybe I won’t.

Because this is my ridiculous life.

And on this beautiful, cool birthday morning, I’m sitting right in the middle of it.

Apparently this is 62.

☕️🐝🌱🎂❤️