Andrew has asked to help deliver honey to stores for a number of months. Since it's generally not in the cards for him to "help" when I have several stops on the agenda, he has not received his wish--at least until today! There was only one stop on the list for this balmy Saturday morning, so we went tandem to take care of Natural Grocers in Cedar Rapids before visiting the grandparents. Here he is with the bill ready for presentation, and he took the opportunity to grab a quick ride upon the old delivery cart as well! I think I started doing a few deliveries when I was sixteen years old (the whole drivers license thing), so I think Andrew has me beat by a few years With any luck the bees survived in decent shape and we will have a new crop to deliver in several months!!! Here is a picture from one of the good survivors near Swisher. A good share of our bees look quite strong, but we're hearing a lot of horror stories from other Midwestern beekeepers despite a mild winter. It looks like we'll have somewhat worse overwintering than I've seen in the last couple of winters, but it doesn't look terrible in our case. I hope they continue to build strength! There are a good number that look like this as of this point in February--we are enjoying three consecutive days of +60F for them to stretch their wings! That is record-setting weather in Iowa. I even saw pollen coming into several hives today. Unreal! The package bees that we distribute from California in April are almost sold out, so please call the Lynnville location soon if you are eager to get on the list. We will also sell some nucs in May, but nuc availaiblity will depend on survival rates and strength, which we are in the process of gauging in the next couple of weeks.