Turnbull Clan Homestead

Today I'm talking with Brandy at Turnbull Clan Homestead.

00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. Today I'm talking with Brandy at Turnbull Clan Homestead. Good morning, Brandy. How are you? I am doing good, Mary. How are you? I'm great. I'm so curious about your place because I looked at your Facebook page and there's lots about bees. So I'm assuming that honeybees are your main thing that you do?

00:28
Yes, ma'am. So long story short, my husband is active duty military. We were stationed out in Hawaii. And in 2020, during the height of COVID, we ended up buying our home sight unseen. And we got very lucky, bought the house and it was big enough that we were able to do all of the things. So being very pregnant at the time, I got home and started getting to work.

00:56
started clearing off land. We've got now honey bees up until I got bit by a tick and contracted alpagel. We had meat rabbits and we have a greenhouse going up right now. And then we've also got a bunch of like bushes and plants and things like that. Rather than invasive species that were planted here, I went through and I dug everything up.

01:23
and I planted more native species like elderberry and blueberries, the blackberries and raspberries and strawberries and things. And you're in Maryland, right? Yes, ma'am. I am in the heart of Southern Maryland. Okay. I thought so. Blueberries. I miss blueberries. I grew up in Maine. Blueberries grew all over my parents one acre property. So when blueberries were in, we were eating blueberries every day for weeks on end. Yes, ma'am.

01:51
Yeah, kind of miss it. We're too far south in Minnesota where I live to have them grow. We've tried. We've tried buying blueberry plants and they just don't do well at all. Okay, so were you military as well? I was. I did 12 years in the service before I got back from my last appointment and I was a little bit too beat up to continue to serve. So I was medically separated. Uh-huh.

02:18
Well, thank you for your service. My stepson was a US Marine for eight years. And he says once a Marine, always a Marine. So I guess he's still a Marine, but he is no longer active duty. He is, he is always a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine is correct. Yep. So, okay. So I also saw something about Mission Believe on or Be Leave on your Facebook page. And I really wanna know what that's about cause I hadn't heard of it.

02:48
So Mission Believe is a nonprofit up in Taney Town, Maryland, and their whole focus is offering different modes of therapies to like military first, military veterans and first responders, police officers and the like. And their whole premise is bee therapy. There's a lot of things that can be said about working with bees.

03:15
there have been studies done to show that the vibrations that they create when they're buzzing is actually calming for like your neural cortex and can actually bring you down out of like panic attacks and anxiety attacks and things like that and help with like PTSD and coping mechanisms and that the vibrations themselves can actually be healing on a deeper level than we ever thought. I know personally for myself

03:45
Bee stings actually help with my arthritis. And there's a lot of information right now that's been going around and a lot of research that's been done to support bee venom therapy for chronic pain sufferers like myself. And what they do is they set first responders, military veterans, whoever has served our community up with a mentor and allows them to work with that mentor for a year learning about bees.

04:14
basic husbandry and then at the end of that season, their mentor will actually gift them their first hive of bees at no cost to the veteran. That is amazing. I love that. I had no idea such a thing existed. I had no idea until I got out here and it's been amazing. I actually raise honey bees for them and go out and catch swarms whenever the opportunity arises and then I donate the bees back to them.

04:43
Okay, so it's mission BEE as in A B leave. So it's BEE leave, but it's BEE leave. Is it national or is it just local to you? It's stationed here local to me. I believe that they are trying to get a larger footprint. There are several other operations that are similar to them in other parts of the country. I don't know if they have grown big enough to operate nationwide, but they are definitely working on it.

05:11
That's fabulous. I hope that they get it to be nationwide because that would help so many people. It probably would not help me because bees raise my anxiety. I'm still mildly afraid of anything that stings. So for me, it would just raise my anxiety, but I also don't have PTSD and I'm not former military and I'm not former law enforcement or fire department or anything. So, so yay, I'm glad that the bees have a different job than just making honey. That's fantastic.

05:41
Yes ma'am, that they do. Okay, so what else do you do at your homestead? As of right now, it's been kind of a mishmash. I decided that I was going to go back to college, so I'm doing the full-time college student right now and raising my kids. And outside of that, it's been getting ready for, you know, crops to go in the ground. I finally got my asparagus in the ground after three years of himing and hawing on it.

06:08
And we've been working trying to get the property cleaned up because we've got a lot of invasive species that have been growing on the property just from the way things were set up in the neighborhood that we bought in. So it's been a lot of project reclamation working with the Maryland Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. There was one gentleman who came out last year. We have a beautiful chestnut oak tree as well as a couple white oaks here on the property.

06:38
And every fall, this gentleman has been coming out and getting, we're talking like hundreds of pounds of chestnut acorns and white oak acorns. And he takes those back to the nursery, their Maryland Department of Natural Resources, to help with woodland reclamation projects around the state. Wow. You are set up for wonderful things. That's great.

07:08
I was so smitten with the bee stuff that I was very focused on that. And I did talk to a lady who has kept honeybees for like eight years and her episode has already been released. So I can't really get into the bee stuff because I already did it not long ago. Already talked with someone. So was this your dream to have a homestead or is this new to you? So it was a dream.

07:37
It was a pipe dream. I was like there, there was no way, you know, growing up the way that I grew up that I would ever live in, you know, the nice house with the creek running through the property and a big old garden and honeybees and flowers and plants. It was definitely, definitely a pipe dream of mine since I was little. And my husband and I, we've been working hard and finally paid off. We finally achieved our end goal and

08:06
The fact that we've achieved it and we did it before we were 35 is just absolutely amazing. Yeah, that's fantastic because my husband and I had the same kind of dream and it took us until we were 50. So you're 15 years ahead of the game on us. Yes, ma'am. Do you love it? Does it make your soul sing? I absolutely love it. It definitely helps with my bad days. The bad days that I have, you know, they...

08:34
absolutely cripple me between the chronic pain and the PTSD from, you know, 12 years in the military and doing multiple deployments overseas. It kind of helps me be at ease. It gives me that happy, safe feeling that even when I get into a panic attack and I'm like, oh my God, what is going on in my life? I can just look outside and I can see my flowering cherry tree in bloom and I can see the honey bees buzzing around.

09:04
and that inner peace and that feeling of, you know, everything's okay in my life. That's lovely. I'm so glad that you have that because I know that you need it. It's really important for you. Yes ma'am, it is. Yeah. So is it full-blown spring in Maryland? Because it's not even close to full-blown spring here. Yes. Oh my gosh, it is definitely full-blown spring.

09:32
flowering cherry tree has already put on all of its blooms and the blooms are starting to fall off and my tulips are in bloom. The calipair tree out in our front yard, which I desperately want to get rid of just because of how invasive they are, has already bloomed and then had the blooms fall off. The laurels are getting ready to start putting on and some of like the two blows and the tulip poplars and things like that are coming into bloom and...

10:02
Hullin' is everywhere. People outside in our cars are green. Yeah, but does it smell good outside because everything's blooming? It smells amazing. Okay. It absolutely smells amazing. We're probably two weeks away from things starting to green up and put blossoms on. We have apple trees and we have peach trees. We actually put in peach trees that are cold hardy last year. So we're hoping to get maybe.

10:30
Maybe some really pretty blooms this year and maybe peaches next year. Maybe. Yeah. Let's see what happens. Minnesota is a rough on peaches. Well, we'll see how they do. Yeah. If I had any guests, you probably got the Alberta peach cause they are definitely one of the more cold hardies, either that or the Havana, I believe. Is what it is. I have. Either Havana or Alberta's. I have no idea. My husband bought them at.

10:56
someplace when he was out and was like, peach trees would be great. And I said, oh my God, okay, we'll see how that goes. And I don't remember what variety it was. He also bought cherry trees. I think it was last year. And he bought a cold, hardy, sweet cherry tree. And he bought two, actually. And it's really hard to find a cold, hardy, sweet cherry. They're usually sour, tart cherries that do well here.

11:25
So he brought them home and he was telling me about it. And I said, can you bring me the tag? And he said, sure. So he went out and grabbed the tag that was on the branch of the tree, brought it in. And I said, you're gonna have to get a different variety to go with these. And he said, why? And I said, because they won't pollinate without a different variety. I said, they're like apple trees, they're related. And he said, okay, what should I get? And I said, I don't know, let me do some research.

11:54
Come to find out the only other sweet cherry tree that is good for pollinating the ones we have is a Rainier cherry. Rainiers are very expensive cherry trees. That they are. I spent a lot of time out in Washington growing up and cherries are a big deal out there. You've got the pie cherries, the bean cherries, the Rainiers, the black cherries. Yup.

12:23
So I said, you want to spend $60 on one reindeer cherry tree seedling whatever, sprout, I don't know what they're called, baby trees, to make the other cherries actually produce cherries? And he was like, yes, yes I do. I said okay. And I ordered one and it was shipped to us and it was healthy and fine and that got put in too. So we'll see how the cherries do as well.

12:50
That is one thing that I want to get desperately for my homestead is cherry trees that actually produce cherries because all we have is the flowering cherry tree. And while it is absolutely beautiful and provides great food for my honey bees, like I would love to have some actual cherries. Uh huh. Yeah, we love cherries when it's cherry season here and that's coming soon for Minnesota when cherry season is as in when we can buy cherries at the grocery store.

13:19
pounds and pounds of them. And we make cherry preserves, we make cherry pie. And there's only so much money we can put into buying cherries from the store. So when we hit our mark on how much money we can spend, then we try to make sure we use every single good cherry that we buy. And our cherry preserves are so good. I had had cherry preserves from the store and I was like, eh, it's okay.

13:49
When you make it yourself, all that cherry flavor comes through and it's like eating cherries off the tree, but it's in a jam or jelly form. It's so yummy. I love it. Yeah. That is one big thing that we do a lot of here at home is we've got a dehydrator and we also do a lot of canning. And we are very blessed to be where we are because everything that we grow here, from the chicken eggs to...

14:18
the meat birds that we raise, even the meat rabbits, because as soon as my allergy levels come back down, because when I got bit by that tick, I became allergic to everything mammal. I was having reactions to people cooking bacon. And it was full-blown anaphylaxis, like throat closing up the whole nine, haven't had a steak in probably about six months. I am so sorry. Yeah. It was heartbreaking.

14:48
Messing with the rabbits going out to check on I'm doing health checks things like that You know the daily, you know going out and oh, you're such a cute little buddy And you know giving them all the love in the pets and everything like I was reacting and having Really really really bad anaphylaxis from it. So As soon as my allergy level comes back down, I'm fully fully planning to get back into the meat rabbits Yeah So I don't on what kind of tick was it?

15:18
It was a Lone Star Tick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. You can call me a conspiracy theorist, but back in 2002, this brand new mystery illness came out of nowhere called Alpha Gal. And it was like this mysterious illness that started out here on the Eastern Seaboard where people were getting bit by a tick and developing an allergy to meat. Now if you go back and you look back to 2002.

15:48
during that time period, they were all about the global warming and blaming global warming on cow farts. I have my theories that maybe someone got up to something and maybe that's why we have this as a problem now because essentially right now there's close to a million people who have this allergy. If you start thinking about what that would do.

16:15
to the global market on mammal meat. Because looking at greenhouse gas emissions far as vehicles to truck animals and this, that, and the other, meat is one of the higher CO2 emissions. Yeah, absolutely. So I have my theories and speculations. But.

16:39
Yeah, as we all do about all kinds of things and I can't let you get into it on this and I can't get into it either. And if you want to talk about it another time over the phone, we can yak it up all you want because I have theories about COVID and I'm not going to share them in a public forum. So yeah, I'm trying to keep people interested, not mad. So let's not make my listeners angry today. Let's avoid that. I want them to be happy.

17:07
Well, I'm really sorry that that happened to you. That's no fun. And I can relate because I developed an allergy two years ago to capsaicin, the thing that, that makes hot peppers hot. Yep. Yeah. I am also allergic to that. Yeah. All of a sudden I was eating something with chili powder in it and my lips got cold and then they went numb and then all of a sudden my throat felt really tight. And I was like, what the hell is going on here?

17:36
And so the only thing I could think of was something in the chili. So I got some cornbread and ate that and drank some water and it got better, but I didn't eat the rest of the chili. And I asked my husband and my son if they were having any issues and they were like, no, it's great. It's a great chili. I'm like, okay. And then my husband put some hot pepper thing in something else he was making that I've eaten a million times like two weeks later, same thing.

18:04
And I was like, I can't breathe. You know, to my husband, I was like, I can't breathe. And he said, are you kidding? I was like, no, I'm not kidding. And he says, oh, oh, okay. And he said, stop eating whatever you're eating. Stop eating dinner. I was like, yeah. He said, put your head down and see if you can take any kind of good breath in. And I could breathe, but it was really tight. And I pulled in as much as I could get. And he was like, okay, blow it out. And I did.

18:34
do it again. And as I breathe in more, it was okay. But he said, I think you have an allergy to hot peppers. I was like, why in the hell would I have an allergy to hot peppers now? He's like, adults can develop allergies. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want this one. So it happens. I absolutely love spicy food.

19:02
And I have figured out that I can get away with jalapenos if I Cut them in half and I scoop out the inner skin where all the oil is and I do okay with that I know if you were itching for spicy food You might want to give jalapenos a try cuz I I have carry capsaicin as much as other things No, even the littlest bit of jalapeno does it to me too. I've tried I feel so bad for you because like my allergy to capsaicin is bad

19:30
But not that bad and it's an allergy that I've dealt with since I was like itty-bitty. Yeah, whenever we would have spicy food growing up, I'd go, my mouth hurts, my mouth hurts. And you know, my mom, you know being part of the generation that she was in was like, oh, you know, shut up, eat your food. And come to find out here just a couple months ago, they did a full allergy panel when I was having all those bad reactions not knowing that I had alpha-yell.

19:58
And as it turns out, I am allergic to capsaicin. And I love spicy food. I just have to dose myself on Benadryl before I eat anything. Yeah, it's the most bizarre thing that I have ever had happen to me. You know, just out of the blue, no more peppers. I'm like, OK, sweet peppers are good. The one I can do, as long as I do it in moderation, is smoked paprika. That doesn't kick it. And I have no idea why.

20:27
Have you tried cumin? Yep, cumin's okay. Cumin's okay. Nothing. But I can't do habaneros, I can't do jalapenos, I can't do any of the ones that make food taste good. It's very sad. But I'm sure I'll live. I'm sure there are way worse things that could have happened to me. I'm good on this one, it's okay. But the reason I mention it is because

20:56
A lot of people don't know that you can develop a fast onset allergy as an adult. Oh yeah. Yep, it definitely happens. And that tick allergy, it was different. Like I had no idea what was causing it and it was causing all kinds of weird reactions. Everything from my skin like crawling and itching to like full on like...

21:23
I was angry. Like I was big time angry and I don't get angry. Weird. So bizarre. Okay. All right. So I'm going to ask you the same question I ask every homesteader most of the time. Are you guys taking what you produce on your homestead and just using it to sustain yourselves or are you selling it, sharing it, whatever?

21:53
So here in Maryland, as lovely as it is, you cannot sell eggs unless you have a permit. Okay. So we don't sell our eggs. We have a couple of close friends that we do give eggs to and there are a couple of families that we do barter our goods that we raise here with. Sure. So like the honey, we barter for milk, which has been amazing.

22:21
And we also use it to pay debts occasionally. Like if we go and we pick up, like I've got a friend that I get beef from. Yeah. As a thank you of, Hey, well, thanks for giving me beef at like a super discount. Here's some honey as a thank you. So we'll do a lot of bargaining and trading, but most of what we raise here, just because we've been trying to keep it small and manageable because we have three really young kids.

22:50
we keep most of it for ourselves except for that which we barter with. Okay, and I'm sort of stepping away from that question because that was a perfect answer. Thank you. How did your bees do this past winter? Because in Minnesota a lot of beekeepers lose hives in the winter because they just don't survive the cold. So I went into the winter with a very short-fused hive. So back in August,

23:18
I was trying to go completely treatment free with my bees as in like no kind of like pesticide treatment for like Varroa or anything like that. And I was trying to see how it was going to go. And both of my hives that I had decided that they did not like that kind of life and I was deemed a negligent beekeeper because they just like up and left. They were gone. So I got back from my trip.

23:45
down to Arizona and I had left with two hives worth of bees and came back and there was zero bees. Oh no. So I had to get a nucleus colony and it wasn't even really a nucleus colony. It was more like a package of bees, which the difference between a package and a nucleus is a nucleus will have babies like the actual honeybee brood and some food. What I had was not that.

24:15
So I ended up having to feed them a bunch and luckily we had a late bloom of some of the hibiscus flowers that we have here on the homestead. So they were able to put back enough food to make it through the winter. But I went into the winter with one hive and I can probably say I had a hundred percent success rate in making it through the winter because I only had one hive to manage. Well that's helpful.

24:42
I was wondering if the honeybees do better being kept in a hive in Maryland because you guys don't get as cold as we do, I would assume. Yeah, we had a couple like weird cold snaps where it went from, you know, 60, 70 degrees in the middle of wintertime down to like, we're talking like single digits and negatives with a windchill. But I had a thermal blanket on their hive, so they did okay. As far as

25:12
because I went into the box earlier than I was expecting to need to go into the box this year. Just as like a quick little pop it open, see how much brood they had, see how many bees actually made it through the winter, see how the queen was doing. And at the beginning of this month, they already had full frames of brood. There was eggs and larva everywhere. I was super excited about that. They were what honey beekeepers will say, going gangbuster. Basically, they're about to explode.

25:42
And it looked like they had decided that their queen was not up to par and they were going to dethrone her because I had some supersedure cells in the middle of my frames where they have decided that they don't like the current queen so they're about to crown a new queen. Nice. So it's a healthy, thriving hive. It is. It is very, very healthy. Good.

26:09
I'm getting ready to go to Florida. So as a precaution, I put up some swarm traps. So they stay put. Yeah. Okay. So Varroa. Varroa is a mite, right? Yes, ma'am. Varroa is a small mite that lives on the honeybees and they will actually get down into the drone cells because the drone cells are bigger. So when the honeybees are growing those drones are the male bees.

26:37
And the Varroa absolutely love going down into those cells and just kind of hanging out and reproducing. And then when the drone emerges, it carries with it the mites and then it affects all the other bees and it's a nightmare. Okay. So I keep, I've been hearing about Varroa mites for, oh my goodness, probably 15 years is when it, 15 years ago when I was, when it showed up on

27:05
my radar, like when I noticed the stories about it, I think. Are there other things that can harm a hive? Are there bacteria or anything like that? Yeah, there's a bunch of different pathogens that can get into hives, like American fowl brood. If you get that in any of your hives, it's pretty much a death sentence for every hive you have on your property. And in some cases, every hive within about three to five miles of your home, because it's so infectious.

27:34
And basically what it does is it gets in there and it just wreaks havoc and you end up with basically soured bees and they will develop this bacterial growth on them and It just it infects everything once you get it you have to burn all of your equipment replace anything that you had come in contact with those bees and There's no coming back from it. Oh Okay

28:02
I thought there was something, but I just didn't know what the answer was. Yeah, American fowl brood. And are there other stinging insects that will ruin a hive? Yes. So we have a big problem with European hornets out here in Maryland. And anyone from this area can tell you that they are not pleasant creatures to deal with. And last year I lost two different hives.

28:31
At the beginning of the spring, I had nine hives. I made some splits and donated a couple, sold a couple. The European Hornets decided that while I was in there doing this, they saw one of my weaker hives that I had made a split from. They wanted what they had in there because they had a pretty good stockpile of honey and some pollen and nectars and things like that in there. They completely decimated that hive.

28:59
Because the size of a honeybee versus a European hornet is about a 10 to 1 size ratio in favor of the European hornet Those are the great big scary looking dudes, right? Yeah. Yeah, I don't want ever Quite as big as the Asian hornets, but they're they're pretty big like yeah Size comparison they're about two-thirds the size of an average adult thumb. Oh

29:26
No, you can keep them in Maryland. I don't want them coming here. Yeah, some people will argue that they're pollinators. I mean, when you get down to it, the nitty-gritty of it, all bees are pollinators in one way or another. But these things are so big and so aggressive that my kids, when they're playing out in the front yard, if they see one, they will literally pick up a wiffle ball bat and swing at it.

29:55
and you can hear it make contact. It's so harsh. Yeah, I'm... It's like, holy moly, man. Yeah, I'm getting the creepy crawlies up my back just thinking about it. I really, I am okay with honey bees because I love honey and I know that honey bees don't want to cause me harm. If I get stung, it's my own fault because I did something stupid. And bumblebees, same thing. They have a job. They pollinate my squash blossoms and my...

30:25
They try on the tomato and the cucumber, but they're very big bumblebees here, so the honeybees actually do a better job of getting in there. I'm okay with honeybees and bumblebees. I hate paper wasps. I hate hornets. Little hornets, big hornets, doesn't matter. Hate them. I don't want anything to do with them. Yeah, as long as they're over doing their own thing and not bothering me, I'm fine with them. They're going to do what they're going to do.

30:54
I am like super duper allergic to bee stings, which is funny because honey bees, I don't react nearly as bad to like when I get stung, I still kind of look like elephant man for a couple days. But I have not been stung by a wasp or a hornet yet since I developed my bee allergy and I am absolutely terrified that if I get stung by one, I'm going to end up in the hospital from it. Yeah. Yeah, it's.

31:20
It's scary and you don't want to walk around being afraid to walk around outside, but you definitely have to be aware. So okay, well, Brandy, number one, I love your name. Number two, I assume that Turnbull Clan is a reference to your family and Homestead is Homestead? Yes. Yeah, Turnbull Clan, my husband's family is heavily Scottish and they actually have their own...

31:49
little castle out in Scotland called Fatlip Castle. So the Turnbull Clan is homage to my husband's family being Scottish. Okay I always try to remember to ask and I try to ask the beginning about people's names for their places but I didn't do it this time. I'm gonna cut you loose because I know you're busy and you got kids to take care of and stuff to do. Thank you so much for your time and your knowledge about bees because that was really fun.

32:17
Yes ma'am, I still have a ton more to learn. Like I'm only three years into my beekeeping journey. Honey bees was one of those things when we decided to do it. We were like, it's Thursday night, let's get bees, you know. And come, you know, Friday that next week we had bees. So nice. All right. Well, enjoy them and keep doing what you're doing because you're doing a good thing. All right. Well, thank you, Mary. I appreciate your time.

32:47
and thank you for the invitation. Yeah absolutely have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye.