*Originally published in Idaho Falls Magazine
Some days, I feel like my entire life here in Idaho is one giant game of Never Have I Ever. In case you aren’t familiar, this is the game where you put up 10 fingers and then you make statements of things you have or haven’t done. You play with others and everyone puts a finger down if they’ve done the thing you stated. For example, I would say, “Never have I ever had chickens.” Oh… Wait, yeah, I would have to put a finger down. “Never have I ever held bees in my bare hands” Crap, another finger down. See what I mean? I’m losing this game.
There was a short time in my life during which I was convinced I wanted a farm. I don’t explicitly remember this, but my dad jokingly reminds me that I wanted cows, pigs and goats. Obviously, this must’ve been before kids since they now act like the above-mentioned animals with a little added backtalk. While I do still want a goat because they’re absolutely adorable, I am busy enough with five young kids, two small businesses and a personal brand to know that a full-fledged farm is far beyond my capabilities. My self-awareness wasn’t enough to curb my urge to own two dream-farm species, though — honeybees and chickens.
The bees were a bit of an impulse buy, but I love them! We have a beautiful pink crabapple tree in our backyard. One spring day in 2017, I opened my back door and was blown away by the buzzing sound coming from my favorite tree. I looked up in astonishment at the hundreds of bees swirling around the pretty pink blooms. My husband, Anthony, and I immediately went to Cal-Ranch and purchased all of the supplies we would need to start a hive. We had unfortunately missed the ordering window to purchase a package of bees (a box of bees with a queen) but they happened to have one extra and we knew it was meant to be! We immediately started our colony and were thrilled to officially be beekeepers. Our initial hive was quite small, but thriving when we got a message from a friend that would lead to one of our greatest bee adventures. My friend Stacy had a swarm of bees the “size of an 8-year-old” in one of her front trees. Swarms are caused when a colony of bees grows too large for its hive. They create a new queen and half(ish) of the colony takes off with their original queen in search of a suitable home. Generally, they cluster somewhere safe very temporarily while scouts search the area for a home. If they don’t find anything quickly, they move along.
This is why I always tell people not to worry about a swarm of bees as they are likely only a temporary addition to the area. As a beekeeper, though, free bees in search of a suitable home are like a bat signal to me. When we got the message, we dropped everything and rushed to collect this swarm. Once we got the swarm home, we actually
split it into two hives and purchased another queen from a local beekeeper for the additional hive. While none of our original or subsequent hives have survived the winter yet, we are still very happy with our decision and hope to continue learning so we can successfully overwinter a hive next year.
My second Never Have I Ever moment came when I finally convinced my husband that we “needed” chickens.
With five young kids, we consume a ton of eggs! As we’ve started making healthier choices regarding our food and toxin intake, we had already been purchasing farm fresh eggs from local sources and I became convinced that we could have a healthy chicken coop. When I found a cute coop on Facebook Marketplace for a great price, I knew it was meant to be. As with most of our crazy ideas, this one unfolded quickly as we visited Cal-
Ranch to purchase chick supplies and contacted Sugar Mountain Co. in Rigby to purchase freshly-hatched chicks. Par for the course, our five chicks ended up turning into four roosters and only one hen. Due to living within city limits, we had to rehome our four roos: Sausage, Chorizo, Tofu and Moo. We were saddened, but were also excited to get rid of our all-day alarm clocks. During the process of rehoming our hens, we were able to acquire four beautiful hens for a total of five lovely ladies named Coffee, Tea, Bacon, Scone and Maple. While they are adjusting to us, they are laying their eggs in an Easter egg hunt fashion and we are continually hunting for them. For now, we count this as a fun family activity, though I can assure you it is less fun than it sounds.
As an immigrant’s daughter growing up in apartments in cities throughout the East Coast, pets always seemed like a luxury to me. While I realize chickens and bees produce a by-product, they still feel like a luxury and I am thrilled I have the opportunity to raise my kids with fun animals that can instill a sense of mutual responsibility in them. We care for the chickens, we get (disgusting) eggs. We care for the bees, we get delicious honey. While the thought of eating my chickens’ disgusting butt nuggets still makes me nauseous, I’m positive I’ll be grateful for them one day!
