Beekeeping | A Lavender Farmer & His Bees

[Music] foreign ER says peace peace of mind it's calming [Music] it's kind of a majestic one of those Majestic plants it never grows old my name is Ryan Stark lavender farmer [Music] why does lavender impact people so much um I think because of its natural beauty the aroma um and just the calming property it's a very you know the plant's been around for a long time so you know it's people can tie into it so did you already know that if I'm going to do lavenders I've got to have bees no actually I didn't off the top of my head I think first off it was is this going to be successful because there were some people like you can't grow lavender in Illinois it's going to die you know so yeah so we took that first step and then once I seen it was doing well uh actually I found your page and I'm like that's a great idea it's like they have clover honey they have you know Wildflower honey I was like I'm sure there's lavender honey I started researching and sure enough it is so I was like okay we'll go that route plus with everything else we're growing the bees will do their work you know have they started going in there yet yeah it's kind of stuck on I need my screwdriver to pull that up you need a pocket knife yeah I just need a little wedge there you go oh thank you like behind it yeah [Applause] oh now you can hear him yeah that looks like mine nothing it's not they're not in there quite yet are they three boxes are about filled up as a kid I was in my grandmother's Garden yeah growing up planting stuff all the time yep and then as you got older my wife's favorite uh plant was lavender so yeah I started studying in college the lavender plants and uh the business side of it sure and uh we eventually came out here to the country about a year ago and started planning initially with about 2500 lavender plants there's you can see two different English variety English lavender varieties okay yeah um and then we had another 1500 plants this spring already which we've added uh five more hybrid lavenders yeah so this should be blooming and uh sequence tell me what you do with the lavender do you extract the oil yes I like the kind behind us this is the full gate uh we get we have a giant 200 liter steam distiller in the pole barn and we'll Harvest these bundles and take them in there and it goes through a steaming process and we get the hydrosols which is the byproduct from the distillation and the oils and we use that in our products we make lotions shampoos um what else we got the candles we do all kinds of stuff wow but it smells good in there doesn't it oh yes all this oil lavender oils yeah it smells so good and then eventually uh the bees are going to take uh the nectar and Infuse it into the honey yeah and it'd be a specialty honey you know oh yeah lavender honey and the Therapeutics of uh lavender yeah well thanks for buying packages off of this this year if there are bees out here it's like great I'm glad they're working hard for you I'm gonna have to get some more hives actually yeah you need a lot more for sure my gosh we could put more hives here and really pollinate these bad boys oh yeah oh that's great everybody wants to be able to do something like this you know to you know you've had you've had other jobs you've been in the Marine Corps thank you for your service and here you are being able to say I'm out in the country I've got bees I got lavender I get to work in the dirt with my hands that's powerful yeah that's my little Slice of Heaven down here it isn't it yeah it's very therapeutic yeah yeah and soon like I said we'll hopefully uh we'll share it with the public oh yeah if I can get that little slice themselves and enjoy it man I hope you hope you can yeah hopefully next year man just continuing to plant more do you have a goal of how much you're planning this year and you're trying to reach that goal um this year hopefully we'll have about 5 000 total planted and then maybe after the following year maybe seven eight thousand will probably max out at it that's a lot that sounds like a lot yeah yeah but it'll be something special though yeah wow but you guys ought to check this out you got some things for sale on your website don't you yes we do we have uh Earl Gray tea with lavender lavender sugar wow lotions uh bars of shampoo bars of soap oh wow um bath salts all kinds of goodies on there so yeah what if all of my viewers uh just your website and you're like oh no we've got ten thousand bars of shampoo to go well good problem to have okay I've heard that lavender helps you sleep it does doesn't really it does wow uh I said in the teas I usually drink it tell me you know yeah pass out uh I said people who have anxiety they take it a lot of times put on the wrist or on their Temple sometimes is that right yeah either way it usually helps just being here with all these lavender plants that's very therapeutic I can see like at least another eight flow hives out there yes I'd give you a ten that'd be nice and I'll have to get my bees from you too because I've done it there you go yeah absolutely we're just we're just working up to I wanted to see how the flow hives are going to work out yeah yeah I'm gonna make sure it was the right way to go oh yeah that's very good well you know as well as I do putting them together that was a little bit of a process some people on on my channel some people said man you're crazy I put it together in a half hour I mean I didn't even get my top together in a half hour I was like come on all those little pieces I'm like oh boy I know yeah I know but I found on my channel that there are a lot of flow Hive uh loyal flow Hive people yes and if you say anything negative about a flow Hive they just kill you you know yes and it's like okay well I I gave an honest review it was hard but my problem of assembling I just didn't have a dedicated block of time to do it so I'm working 10 minutes on it here and kind of getting reassociated a week later and put another 30 minutes that's why it took me longer to put the darn thing together but I like the wood look what you've done I kind of kept mine yeah natural look I just put a clear coat this is what you did too yeah that's what I did yeah it's like I didn't want to paint it just blend in so no it's very natural looking yeah I know well that's good that'd be cool I'm I'm doing some work with horizontal hives now really I got a horizontal Hive okay and uh that you might you might want to try a horizontal Hive okay I think it'd be really good for the lavender here and it's easier on the back yeah I definitely need that my back is a lot of bending over out here oh yeah I know everything is by hand the planning yeah the planet was planted by hand is that right the harvesting is with a sickle coming through oh no kidding I like this the bench it's lavender color bench and you and I you and I barely fit on here yeah yeah I don't know what that says it's a very small bench it could be at least it's supporting us for now it's an old bench too they had some rust on it oh it did really yeah I like it I like lavender artistic yeah I do all the plants and stuff like that but like all the products yeah the decor and stuff like that she handles all that so it's pretty cool yeah so this is what you can do all day long you don't have any other responsibilities you can just no this is pretty awesome that is so good what does lavender say to you lavender says peace it's peace of mind it's calming so yeah finding your spot in life I guess

Channel: David Burns

Views: 21,107

Keywords: Beekeeping, beekeeping 101, Beekeeping tips, beekeeping training, honey bees, how to inspect a hive, smoker, keeping a smoker going, smoker fuel, beekeeping classes, beekeeping basics, beekeeping for beginners, how to start beekeeping, why keep bees, save the bees, lighting a smoker, david burns beekeeping, varroa mite, when to start beekeeping, packages of bees, queen bee, where to buy a queen bee, bee suit, beekeeping business, lavender and bees

Id: W1VRd8sIJJU

Length: 8min 7sec (487 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2023