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Show -r- i. ' E .- ! ....' ! ' ""n v, . . : : . ! 7 , " '' r U ' 1 : i ; . J H DELICIOUS CREAM honey anyone? This is the cream honey machine. After the honey has been gathered, extracted, and is ready for packaging, a certain percent is processed into cream honey. It is important to know the moisture content of honey. The black instrument atop the three containers of honey between bet-ween the two machines is a refractometer which can measure the moisture content of honey in less than 48 seconds. The old way took 48 hours. JENSFN RESIDENT, Bill Wheeler, checks his weight on a packaging scale. Large containers stacked in froni of Bill are the containers used in shipping Lind's Vernai Honey for purchase orders. The smai! wire cage to the foreground is the type of cage used for shipping bees by way of air freight. V " " " ' i f - ! ' . i V. it . , - - ;t '" ' - :- AFTER THE HONEY FRAMES are decapped in this Utah manufactured automatic decapping machine the frames are then placed in machines which by centrifugal force the honey is extracted. Pictured here are, to the fore, I to r: Elmer and Rulon Lind , back row; Elvyn Bascom and Bill Wheeler. There is an electrically operated conveyer belt from this machine to extracting extrac-ting tanks which Rulon Lind invented. Honey business goes info 3rd generation Photos and article by Margaret Bason, Feature Writer Lind's Vernal Honey is one of the oldest businesses in the Ashley Valley supporting it's third generation partnership. part-nership. Lewis Peter Lind , his son, Elmer, and Elmer's son Rulon have all made their vocational life as beekeepers. Lewis Peter Lind was born in AJborg, Denmark. In 1879 at 18 years of age, Lewis and his brother accompanied by George Freestone brought the first two hives of bees into the Ashley Valley. It was not until 1892 that Lewis went into the bee business. In 1893, he married an Englishwoman by the name of Eliza Gray. Lewis and Eliza were married mar-ried by Lewis' brother-in-law Bishop George Freestone in Mr. Freestone's home. Elmer was born October 11, 1894. It was at six years of age that Elmer recalls his father's bee business, "My first association with my dad's bee business was when I was six years old. I was sitting on top of a colony hive box kicking the sides of the bee's wooden home with the heels of my shoes. Pretty soon they were all over me. My dad grabbed me up and threw me in the pond. I've been stung ever since." At the age of 14, Elmer, marketed his first haul of honey in Lonetree, Wyo. He helped his father until the time of his marriage to Lucy Goodrich. At the time of his marriage he moved to a farm in the Naples area in 1917. He remained there for two years. In later years after the death of his first wife he married Theo Morrison. In 1920, Elmer began in the mercantile mercan-tile business with the purchase of the Naples Store. In 1922, Elmer traded the store for stock in the Ashley Cooperative Co-operative Company. Elmer managed the dry goods department for three years. The Ashley Co-Operative Company Com-pany was located where J.C. Penney Company is now. The year 1925 foiuid Elmer leaving the Ashley Co-operative ComDanv to manage Acorn Mercantile Company. He managed this company until 1927 when he and Marion K. Shaffer bought the entire stock of Acorn Mercantile. This business was located where Rexall Drug was and where Unique Shops International In-ternational is now. Selling his share to Marion in 1930, Elmer moved to the Lind property in Dry Fork Canyon. This property is now owned by Henry Peltier. It was at this time that Elmer began his bee business in conjunction with a sheep business. Elmer was a bee inspector for the east side of Uintah County from 1957 through 1967. Recalling the old days of honey selling sell-ing Elmer related an experience which happened to him while he was enrolled at BV'U in 1916. Elmer's father, Lewis, wrote to his son and told him if he sold some honey he would come and get him from school to return home. Elmer stated, "He came out by way of a four horse team and wagon. He brought 60-five gallon cans of honey. We delivered the honey I had sold in one day. The honey was $8 for one-five gallon can. We then returned home to Vernal. The trip took three days." Presently honey retails for $46 a five gallon can. Rulon Lind was born December 14, 1923. He is a Uintah High School graduate. He was in the army and served serv-ed during WWII in Okinawa. He completed com-pleted an LDS mission in Canada. Rulon grew up with the bees on his family's property in Dry Fork Canyon. He presently lives in Richfield, Utah, where there is a small Lind's Vernal Honey plant. Rulon is a bee inspector for the east side of Uintah County. The company has better than 1,000 hives in the Basin area. The Richfield plant has 240 hives which are presently in California pollenating the nut groves. After pollenation, the bees will be transported back to Richfield. The Lind's ship all over the United States. "We are not large enough to ser vice every state in the U.S. but you can go to any town in the U.S. and find the reputation of the honey," Elmer reported. Vernal sells more honey per capata to direct customers than any city ci-ty in the U.S. Italian bees are used by the Lind's to harvest alfalfa and clover honey. Elmer added, "From the first to the 10th of June if you don't have at least 75,000 bees in your hive you might as well forget a production flow for that season." He went on to stress, "last year was a bad year because too much pesticides killed many of the bees." During the 1980 producing season the fields were sprayed for the alfalfa weavel. The insecticide killed many bees. The growth of the Basin area has caused a decrease in the sizes of colonies col-onies of bees distributed in the Valley. Elmer emphasized, "It used to be we could put 100 hives in an area, but now we are lucky if we can put 30 in a location loca-tion because of the growth in the area." The life cycle of the bee is the business end of the bee company. "If the queen bee can't lay about 2,000 eggs a day during the heavy honey flow then you have lost production for that season," Elmer stipulated. Honey is harvested in 50 gallon barrels bar-rels that weigh 750 pounds each. It is important to know the moisture content of honey. This is calculated by the use of a Japanese made instrument called a refractometer. Honey has very little moisture. This is because the worker bee after working all day to gather honey works all night "fanning" the honey with his wings. He will do this until un-til the moisture content is 17 or lower in count, although, his calculations are by nature. It is this constant pace the worker bee must keep that is believed to contribute to his short life span of four to six weeks: he literallv wears his wings out. If the levels in the honey are high in moisture the honey will sour. "You can make very fine vinegar from sour honey," smiled Elmer. Bee's wax is an important commodity commodi-ty of the honeybee business. At close to $1.90 a pound the wax is used in making candles and in cosmetics. Bees wax has never been duplicted by modern man in any laboratory. "If only we could construct bridges and buildings in the manner in which a bee constructs his coned home; their architecture cannot be excelled for durability and strength," Elmer continued. con-tinued. Pollen which is collected from the hives is very high in protein. "We don't have a protein as good as pollen," Elmer commented. He went on to report that old bees live on honey and the young bees are raised on pollen and some, a mixture of both. The pollen is the protein part of the hive and the honey is the carbohydrate composition of the colony. The bees cannot reproduce without pollen to mix with the honey to feed the larva, this feeding secretion is called royai jelly. Elvyn Bascom and Bill Wheeler are friends of the Linds and also help them at harvesting time. Born and raised in Vernal, Elvyn has been around bees since he was 13 years old. He is a Uintah High School graduate and is now a bee inspector for the west side of the county for American Fowl Brood. His rpports are sent to the state offices. Bill Wheeler is a Jensen resident and an engineer in construction. He has a few hives of his own and has worked with the Linds for seven years. The Linds, Bill and Elvyn all warn that in the event you are slung by a bee remove the stinger by scraping, "Don't snoop around the bees. If you don't know what you are doing you can get stung," concluded Rulon Lind. |
