Modern Homesteader

As the mornings start to feel a little colder, they bring a gentle reminder that fall is on its way. Shorter days, heavy sweaters and apple cider. Fall is my favorite.

While the chores in summer can keep a person busy from sunup to sundown, fall is no different when it comes to tending to the homestead. The majority of the time, these cooler months are spent harvesting from the garden, chopping firewood, and getting everything and everyone ready for winter. However, the beginning of fall in Montana, does not always allow us to let our guard down from the grueling heat of August. We are still very much in the midst of fire season.

Before I ventured into homesteading, there were just two dogs that we would need to pack up, should we be forced to evacuate. I remember that very thought in 2017, as the sheriff knocked on the door and handed me a pre-evacuation notice. While the plan was, and still is, to pack up and head to family in Kalispell, the situation looks quite different nowadays when it comes to shuffling all the critters around. I think about what it would entail to evacuate this mini farm of two dogs, two cats, 11 chickens, and 4 ducks. But I also think about the nearly 40,000 honeys bees that are here.

Relocating a hive of honeybees is not always recommended, even if it’s just a few feet. They have a very strategic and mathematical way when it comes to finding the entrance of their home. Moving two hives full of honeybees, brood and honey would definitely not be an easy task, but I don’t think I have it in me to just leave them to fend for themselves. Yes, they could fly away, and would fly away, leaving their hives; but they are a part of this little homesteading family, and I would do everything in my power to save them.

As a beginner in the beekeeping world, when I go to do an inspection on the hives, I smoke the bees. A common method that onlookers will see, as beekeepers walk out in their big suits with the bulky smoking apparatus in hand. Smoking honeybees is a method that has been used even the by ancient Egyptians, and honeybee hieroglyphs have been dated back to 3000 BCE. From then to now, smoke has been a tool that is used to calm the bees, making for a quicker inspection for the bees and the keeper of the bees.

A recent online class I took went into a little more detail as to why bees become calm when smoked. While it may be a controversial topic, I still found it interesting. When a hive of bees is smoked by the beekeeper, the bees sense their home is on fire. As they prepare to leave, they will go fill up on honey, knowing they have a journey ahead of them in trying to find a new home. As the smoke fills the hive, the bees (with their full stomachs), move towards the bottom frames of the boxes, as they are busily filling up on honey, they have no time to bother with the human intruding in their home, thus allowing the beekeeper to come in and inspect without causing too much harm to the frames. As the smoke dissipates rather quickly, the need for evacuation goes away and they go about their daily routine.

When learning this information, I realized that the bee’s mentality does not differ too much from my own. Not only when we sense the need to evacuate, we will gather what we can and leave; but I too, become calmer when I have the chance to fill up on honey.

The smoke in the area this year has not been enough to cause the bees to leave. And I am grateful for that. This is just one more learning experience I now have under my hat. As for the birds, as long as I have spinach and blueberries in hand, those girls will follow me anywhere.

Miriah Kardelis is a modern homesteader who is always looking for new ideas. Reach her at

[email protected].