Overcoming Seasonal Challenges

On more than one occasion, Leo and I have looked at each other with eyes full of despair, wondering how we are going to make it from one season to the next. 

Not just financially, but in terms of employee workload, transportation of trucks and forklifts hundreds of miles, work-life balance, and our own sanity.  Beekeeping is certainly not for the faint of heart.  Just like any other sector of agriculture, this profession requires grit, perseverance, planning, optimization, and straight-up hard work.  

Many people equate beekeeping with an idyllic field, kissed by the setting sun, with wildflowers gently swaying in the evening breeze.  Though that’s a beautiful image for an Instagram post, and we have witnessed this very scene on many occasions, it’s an oversimplified and romanticized version of the truth.  

So what’s the truth?  

What’s it like to weather the storms, both literally and figuratively, in the shifting seasons of the beekeeping calendar?  And how do we do it?  

The simple answer: we won’t let the business fail.

Beekeeping is seasonal by nature of it being an agricultural business.  On top of that, many commercial beekeepers have migratory operations.  Yes, you heard that correctly - migratory.  And if the image of a Canadian goose or maybe even a butterfly just popped in your head when you imagined the word “migratory,” you’re headed in the right direction.  

The main and most important difference is that the beekeepers physically ship the bees to different states around the country.  Though they’re mighty, bees can’t fly more than five miles.  So their chances of making it from Texas to Nebraska are pretty slim.  (We sure would love it if they could simply fly to their next location and avoid the shipping bill, though).

For various reasons, commercially operated beehives are shipped hundreds of miles throughout the year.  Our operation works like this: in January, we ship bees from Texas to California for the almond pollination.  They return to Texas mid-March and we sweat through the long hours of the splitting season until it’s time to ship them to Colorado, Nebraska, or South Dakota for the summer months.  But there’s no vacation for the bees during the sweltering summer because these precious months are where the year’s honey crop is produced.  Then, in the late summer, we start extracting the honey before shipping them back to Texas in early fall.  

Then it starts all over again.

Can you see the “snowball effect” taking place? 

One season builds upon the next, and one small misstep can cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.  Alternatively, strong bees have the potential to pay for themselves exponentially.

If our bees are weak going into California, not only will we struggle making sufficient money on the pollination service, but they’ll be weak headed into splitting season.  So the bees we wanted to split to make up for winter losses will be less than what we had hoped for.  Less bees headed into the summer can cost us thousands of dollars in lost profit from honey sales.  Even if we have a superb honey crop, we lost out on what stronger bees could’ve produced…see the problem?  

Add into that already sticky situation unexpected rainstorms, early snow storms, costly vehicle maintenance, stuck forklifts, broken trailers, and we find ourselves in a whole other type of storm entirely…one that might threaten to sink the operation altogether.  

So how do we fight back against the endless list of unforeseeable factors including inclement weather?  We start with one unshakeable fact: we will not let it fail.  And this is how we do that.

1. Find the Goal Line

• As business owners, it’s easy to get caught up in the next thing…which becomes one more thing…which easily steamrolls into a thousand other things you suddenly need to accomplish.  The “I’ll be happy when…” syndrome is especially pervasive in our line of agricultural work.  “Once all the splitting is done,” or, “As soon as the honey is extracted,” or, “I can finally relax when we know how many barrels of honey we produced” have all been words spoken dozens of times over the years.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with eagerly anticipating the conclusion of one season and moving on to the next.  But there is something wrong when your happiness, sanity, and fulfillment are tied to the outcome of those “If…then…” statements.  
• My solution: Find the goal line.  Find it, define it, and stick to it.  Understand the seasonality of what you’re trying to accomplish, and once it’s done, take a moment to look back and reflect on what went well and what could’ve been improved.  If you’re constantly shifting the goal line farther and farther out of sight, that’s when burnout hits you like a wall of bricks.  

2. Plan.  Plan.  Plan.  

• We’d say it a thousand times if we could.  If you’re not a planner by nature, find someone who is.  Seriously.  In our business, Leo likes to plan for the short-term but isn’t as interested in detailing his scope of work several months down the road.  Thankfully, I love to plan.  I’d plan years in advance if I could (ok, maybe not that far…but you get the point)!  
• We complement each other’s skill sets and do the best we can to forecast the entire calendar year and chart out our finances as best we can.  Doing a year-long cash flow certainly isn’t a magic bullet, but it will certainly help you get a grip on which months might be more lean and challenging.  
• Many beekeepers only get paid a few times a year, so we had to spend a lot of time figuring out how to spread income across the long stretches of months with mile-high expenses and no additional income.  Is it all perfectly accounted for, even now that we’ve been in this business for a decade? Nope. But it’s certainly much more manageable than it was at the beginning.

3. Triage. 

• List out all of the issues you’re facing that month, week, or even day-by-day.  Name all the expenses, breakdowns, and meltdowns as specifically as you can.  We’ve had weeks so crazy and intense that we had to narrow down issues to an hour-by-hour basis.  List everything that needs to be tackled and categorize each issue by severity.  
• For example: Does this truck need to be fixed tomorrow?  In some cases yes, in other cases, it can wait for a few months.  Does this forklift need to be hauled out of that mud and repaired? Yes…by the time the next semi load of bees arrives in eight hours.  Does that bill really need to be paid? Yes, unless you enjoy paying the government extra money as a penalty just because you didn’t take twenty minutes to pay a bill on time.
• Listing things and triaging them has helped us fight the overwhelm that can quickly spiral into fear, dread, and…well, more overwhelm.

4. Don’t Stare at the Weather App

• “Leo, you still can’t control the weather.  You know that, right?” I’ve asked this very question to my husband on multiple occasions.  He shakes his head and closes the weather app on his phone.  When something as critical as the status of the weather affects your business on such a profound level, it’s hard to accept that you cannot control it.  Only God can do that.
• So what do we do instead?  Accept the reality of what’s happening, and do our best to plan in the midst of an uncontrollable variable.  We respond to it…we’re not ruled by it.  Close the app, take a deep breath, and move on with the day.

5. Grow.  

• When you’re stuck, as our forklifts and trucks often are, in a pile of mud so deep it seems impossible to get out of, the last thing we want to do is think of more ways or avenues to expand and grow the business.  But without growth, life stagnates and eventually dies.  Growth is hard, but stagnation is much, much worse for your business in the long run. 
• But don’t just stare at a computer screen or social media and expect a brilliant idea to suddenly pop into your head.  To get a new perspective on your business, you have to distance yourself from it, either literally or figuratively.  Consider asking a trusted and reliable person in your life to offer insight into a new opportunity or area you might not have considered before.  Or, if you’re like us, your best ideas come when you’re in the middle of a grueling hike to yet another alpine lake (you’re welcome, Leo) without cell reception.

6. Persevere.

• There is literally no substitute for hard work.  None.  Especially in agriculture.  When everyone else gets to stay inside and enjoy a rainy day, Leo puts on a coat, marches out the door, and returns hours later soaked and tired.  When the 100+ degree weather in Texas makes you want to stand in front of the air conditioner, Leo loads up bottles of water in the truck and heads to the bee yard.  Do what others won’t.  Show up and work hard.  

7. Practice Gratitude.

• That’s a hard suggestion to swallow sometimes, believe me.  But when we let the pile of turmoil bury our thoughts, that doesn’t help anyone.  So we try to start the day by thinking of five things we’re grateful for.  And at the end of a long discussion about how we’re going to pay for another transmission that failed, we say a few more things we’re thankful for.  It works.  It might not feel like it at the moment, but it will over time.  

Beekeeping isn’t easy, and we don’t think it was meant to be.  There will be seasons of prosperity and seasons of tears. 

But would the honey taste as sweet if we didn’t have to weather the storms? 

I certainly don’t think so.