“Ready?” he asked, opening the door for her.
“As ready as I can be,” she answered, walking past him and onto the porch.
* * *
“I think Mary and Theresa filled you in about the ranch?” he asked as he drove out of the oval gravel driveway in front of the ranch house.
“Yes. But hearing about it and actually seeing it are two different things.” She saw the large, flat rectangles of fields. “Tell me about that field,” she said as she pointed to it.
“One of our four clover fields,” he said, slowing the truck and making a turn to a low hill that had a dirt road running over it. “My family, over the generations, were very concerned about the soil and ensuring that all the nutrients were not leached out of it. This clover field comprises five thousand acres. We cut and bale it three times in a season, selling the bales to local and regional farmers and ranchers.”
“Do you use pesticides or herbicides on them?”
Chase chuckled. “My mother would skin me alive if I did. No. The family matriarchs, for the last hundred years, have used only old farm practices. They planted herbs that naturally deterred pests from ruining any crop we have on this ranch. Further, we rotate our crops to keep the soil rich. We have an area near the ranch that has forty compost bins. Annually, every fall, we distribute that enriched soil back into the fields.”
He parked the truck and got out. She joined him, notebook open, pen in hand. Pointing to the field, which was flourishing with pink-headed flowers everywhere, he said, “They plant marigolds along the edge, at least ten feet wide, all around it. Over the decades, even though they are annuals, they drop their seeds and reseed the next spring.”
“I can see them,” she said. “That’s wonderful. Are you using marigolds to keep rabbits out of it? Wouldn’t they love to eat the clover?”
“Right you are,” he praised, giving her a curious look. “Are you steeped in natural ways to keep pests out of a crop?”
“Very much so,” she said, writing down the information. “Since you’re going to have beehives, you need to stay far, far away from pesticides, herbicides, and no GMOs. You don’t have them here anywhere on the ranch, do you?”
“Hell no,” he growled. “Everyone in this valley has agreed to never use GMO seeds or anything that has been genetically altered or tampered with. My next-door neighbor, Logan Anderson, has had family in this valley longer than anyone. His ranch is a hundred thousand acres. Ours is forty thousand. They butt up against one another on one boundary. We had a talk about this at the ranchers and farmers meeting when GMOs first came out, and we all agreed never to use them. So far, that pact has held. Besides, my mother is an herbalist, among the many hats she wears.”
He pointed to the right, on the other side of the main ranch area. “Over there are a number of gardening plots, vegetables for Mary’s grocery store—Mama’s Store—in town. She will sell only organic produce with no fertilizers on them except natural ones, like our compost soil. The compost is put into the soil in late fall, after the vegetables have been picked. She uses marigolds, basil, and perennial lavender, around her plots.”
“The bees are going to love your clover and alfalfa fields,” she said, pleased with his explanation. “If you really want a good year of honey, usually from May to September, and sometimes later, if winter is mild, you need large areas of one type of plant. Then, the bees will go back to the hive and do a waggle dance and tell other bees where it’s located. They generally don’t like to travel more than a mile to get their pollen.”
“Hmmm,” Chase said, scowling, “we were never told that. Court put all twenty-five hives over there”—he pointed to the west—“next to our fruit orchard. That’s several miles away from our hay fields.”
“Then, what you do, Chase, is put a number of hives outside the clover and alfalfa fields so that they don’t have to travel so far. The closer the flowers and pollen, the more trips a honeybee can take and bring it back to the hive. That adds up to a lot more honey. If it has to travel two or three miles, that cuts down on how many runs a day they can make. That limits how much honey you get, too.”
He scratched his jaw. “That makes a lot of common sense. Those poor bees over at the fruit tree orchard had four miles to go before they could reach this clover field.”
She gave him a sad look. “That might explain why there probably wasn’t enough honey, from what Theresa told me. The flowers were too far away, fewer trips, and, according to her, Mr. Court took all the comb and honey out of the hives and fed them fructose sugar throughout the winter. That’s what killed them. They need the nutrients found in honey. Did you know honey contains vitamins and minerals? Bees are just like us. We need the same things to stay healthy.”
“Yes . . . I did know because Theresa told me a few days ago.” He gave her a wry look. “I’m feeling a lot of anger toward Court. He never shared anything like this info with me.”
“I’m sorry that happened.”
“I didn’t listen to my mother or Theresa. This is on me.”
“It can be turned around,” she said quietly, giving him a slight smile. “Are all your clover and alfalfa fields the same size and vicinity?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Any other hay crops?”
“We have two of alfalfa fields, the same size. They’re north and south of the main ranch area. I have a good map that lays out where all our crops are, the size and where they’re located. Would that help you?”
“Very much so. Theresa said the bees starved to death, so that means all the hives you bought can be reused. What I’d have to do is order so many pounds of honeybees for each one, and that’s something I can do after I inspect each of them.”
“That will save me a lot of money, then. I thought it was all gone.”
“No, just buy a new bee colony to restock each hive.”
“That’s good news.” He gave her an admiring look. “You really do know your stuff.”
Her lips twitched. “Yes, I should. Can we drive around? We don’t need to see all of your ranch, but I would like to get a feel for the general field areas. Plus, the last stop will be the hives. I want to look at them myself. Theresa has been feeding them honey and she said the brood boxes in each of the surviving hives are looking good.”
“What’s brood mean?” he asked, walking her toward the truck. The sun felt good on his shoulders.
“Brood box is a beekeeping term. When the queen lays her eggs, a honeybee attends. By the way, honeybees are all female. The only males are drones and there’s between a hundred to four hundred of them. The only thing they are good for is eating honey and trying to mate with the queen bee when she’s ready. They’re dead weight.”
“Sounds like a good job,” he teased.
“No, not really. As soon as the lucky drone catches the queen in flight, mates with her, she tears out his abdomen along with his male family jewels, eviscerating him on the spot. I don’t think you want that job, Chase. The drone, of course, dies.”
He opened the door for her. “Oh . . . no, not a job I want. That’s pretty harsh treatment of the only males in a hive.”