The Little Yellow Box
How would ewe prefer to lamb?

—Bob Kidwell 

Walking across the lush, green field, the early morning sun beginning to dry the dew-drenched grass, ewes stretching as they rise from their resting spots, lambs nursing, thrilled to find their mothers standing at last, it’s hard to recall the advantages of lambing in the winter. There are several, of course, but scenic beauty isn’t one, nor is the warm sun. For many years we winter lambed our 150 ewes in the barn. Then we found an easier way that involved a little yellow box, a plastic, sort of waterproof tackle box. In the old days, prior to two years ago, lambing started in mid January, usually during the coldest weather Michigan could dish out. The cold weather and crowded conditions made it necessary to start the lambs nursing immediately and confine each new, happy family to four-foot by four-foot pens called lambing jugs so the easily befuddled ewes could learn the identity of their own lambs. Ear tag numbers didn’t help much with this. As can be imagined, this whole process was rather labor intensive. We made frequent trips to the frigid barn to be sure the mothers were put in the jugs before their recent birth experiences slipped their minds.

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The Bees Need our Help!

—Kim Flottum

Winter relaxes its grip here most years only with reluctance. Its hard-fought compromise with summer is spring—a time of forgiveness for meteorological sins past, and hope for kinder, gentler days to come. Often it’s hard to tell if winter has indeed let go as cold and snow and wind plague spring as much as winter. Too often winter’s grip refuses to relax, and not nearly enough does it step aside with even a tease of summer warmth. When it comes to all the kerfuffle about global warming, I read the papers, watch the movies, keep tuned to the web...and plainly see the results of our aberrant behavior. Still, a hesitant week in what’s supposed to be spring tends to cast a doubtful shadow on all those warming predictions. Beekeepers, like all farmers everywhere, live for the promise that next year will be better—better prices for the goods we need, better weather, better tools to solve the problems we encounter, and certainly better prices for the crops we raise. Yes, next year will be better. We have to believe that; we have to. But for the past several years next year hasn’t been better. It fact, next year seemed to be far, far worse. And no matter what beekeepers did, when they did what they were supposed to do, what they had always done, what everyone said to do, their honeybees still died. It was a mystery, an unknown. A plague of uncertainty ruled. But it seems, perhaps, this spring has been different, at least for some beekeepers—those who have finally realized that the old rules no longer apply, that “business as usual” isn’t part of the program, and that just hoping for a better year probably won’t bring a better year.

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