It’s that time of year again for Brad Milligin and his crew at The Bee Tree farm in Lewis — honey time.
Crews at the farm were out gathering bee hives Wednesday, and the family was getting ready for the Annual Bulk Honey Sale, during which locals bring in containers and buy honey by the pound.
Brad Milligin, owner of The Bee Tree operations, was getting ready to process the honey on Wednesday.
He walked into the warm room, which Milligin keeps at about 90 degrees so that the honey flows easier and said that by Thursday, the room would be full of hives from the fields.
“This is straight out of the field,” Milligin says, pulling out a dark slab of honey comb.
On Thursday, the honey will be processed. On Friday, the honey will settle, and by Saturday, the golden liquid will flow into containers and leave with happy customers.
Milligin has about 2,000 hives across the Four Corners region. He created the Bulk Honey Sale 10 years ago.
“I started this because people were always knocking on my door asking for honey. So I created this event to take care locals and their honey needs,” Milligin said. “I created a monster.”
And a monster indeed.
On Saturday, Milligin expects the lines to stretch out the door of his honey-processing plant as container after container are filled.
Last year, nearly 5,000 pounds of honey left with happy customers. A gallon of honey weighs about 12 pounds.
“People come from as far away as Bayfield. One woman comes from Albuquerque,” Milligin said. “It has become quite an event.”
Milligin said the honey harvest will be down a bit this year and is why the price of honey this year will be up to $3 a pound.
“The bees were pretty healthy this year, but the honey production was down,” he said.
After checking with other beekeepers, a reduction in honey production seemed to be a trend this year, he said.
A late frost, dry weather and wind were all contributing factors.
“I’m hoping to make 75 to 80 percent of last year’s crop,” Milligin said.
The Bulk Honey Sale also coincides with the Colorado State University Extension Apple U-Pick Harvest at the CSU Southwestern Colorado Research station, 18 miles north of Cortez.
Like the honey crop, the apple crop this year is nothing to write home about.
“It’s not as good as last year’s, but it’s decent,” said Abdel Berrada, manager of the research station.
The research station will sell apples, plums and pears for 90 cents a pound.
“We had some cold and frost in the late spring,” Berrada said.
John Brock, a local beekeeper, said he had a rough year when it came to honey production.
“I didn’t even make a barrel out of 50 hives,” he said. “There was no rain or water this year.”