Everybody here demands
local honey. There's some research that shows health/allergy benefits to eating area honey. Local honey is the best selling item at my sister's "variety store". She drives to a nearby town regularly to buy it from a bee farmer there..
Honey seems to be the only project that my cousin Becky has failed at. She offered to keep two hives for a local beekeeper last year, but the hives did not flourish. May have had something to do with the drought. My cousin has innkeeper ADD without being an innkeeper.
Her other projects have been very successful. She started a flock of chickens when her granddaughter wanted to watch chicks hatch from eggs, and now I am supplied with all the farm eggs I can use. She actually raises Monarch butterflies, a project that started when a caterpillar came indoors on a bouquet and a chrysalis appeared a few weeks later on her ceiling. She now supplies butterflies for weddings, funerals and a state historical site. I showed her an article about quilt barns, so now she has two quilt squares on her barn and is waiting for the artist to paint another square for the only other side of the barn that can be seen from the road.
Last fall she incubated quail eggs and released the quail which are now flourishing in her prairie grassland.
She helps me decorate the outside of the B&B each season, and grows special broom corn so I can have special fall decorations. Her garden is bountiful, so I have lots of fresh produce during harvest season.
Since her beekeeping experiment failed, I am really impressed with anyone who has success with beehives.
When guests ask me if I manage my B&B by myself, I say yes and no to give cousin Becky the credit she deserves.
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