The Heron Hollow Homestead Blog & Candlemaker’s Journal
MUSINGS & MAYHEM AT OUR NORTH CAROLINA FARM
JUNE 2025
Yesterday I encountered a beautiful and healthy swarm of honeybees outside of our farmhouse. They had landed on one of the thriving hives in the apiary and were in the process of moving in alongside the already-established colony when I intervened. Quickly donning my beekeeping suit, I raced to the apiary with my bee brush and started brushing bees to and fro, looking for their queen. If you have the queen, you have the swarm!
Needless to say, it was hot work. North Carolina in late May is no place for someone in a full beekeeping suit with heavy gloves and boots, but a wild swarm is a beekeeper’s Holy Grail. I lost track of time as I searched and searched, finally tipping the entire hive on its side to see if she was in the cluster of bees clinging to the underside. I have special beehives that lock their insides in place for transport, so they can be turned every which way without anything shifting inside. But again, no luck—she was seemingly nowhere.
I suddenly realized I was soaked with sweat and that the pursuit had been going on for nearly an hour in the hot and direct Southern sun. I needed to go inside to drink some water and cool off badly, but knew that if I took off my now dirty and sticky suit that I’d never get it back on again. I closed my eyes in exhaustion and frustration and tipped my head up to the sky, calling, “Where are you, my sweet queen?”
Talking to the bees is something nearly all long-time beekeepers around the world eventually do. When I first started beekeeping, I was too afraid of them (and too afraid of hurting them!) to focus on anything other than what I was doing with my hands, but I’ve come a long hard way since then. I now talk to them nearly every day when I check up on them.
Lowering my veil-covered head and turning to retreat into the house, I just happened to notice some movement in a nearby patch of clover. I moved closer and saw a tiny cluster of bees milling around on the ground—nearly twenty feet away from the hive where the swarm had landed! Crouching to inspect more closely, I saw the beautiful elongated and honey-colored abdomen of the queen!
“There you are, my love!” I exclaimed joyously as I gingerly scooped her up between my gloved hands. A few of her attendants hopped on my gloves and I transported them over to the special “queen castle” hive I had readied for the new swarm.
Now begins the long and tricky process of integrating existing worker bees from another hive into the queen castle. By nightfall, the queen’s swarm had moved into the established hive without her (thinking she was already inside, no doubt), so she was left with only her few attendants in the new hive.
This morning I selected a frame of worker bees from the established hive and moved them in with the trapped queen, keeping them separated within the queen castle (for now) by a dividing board. This process may or may not succeed, but a beekeeper has to at least try.
This past winter, the U.S. lost the greatest number of honeybees ever recorded—around 80%. Although I always keep up-to-date on doom-and-gloom statistics and research, I remain an eternal “productive optimist”. I will always keep going, trying my best to actively do my small part as best as I can.
🤍Jenny
Jenny has been a Natural Beekeeper since 2005. She follows the Natural Beekeeping methods of Ross Conrad and other Green Beekeepers. She was mentored by a past president of the Indiana Beekeepers Association and remains up-to-date on all current beekeeping research and practices through national beekeeping publications and journals. Her personal beekeeping philosophy is: honeybees deserve to keep what they create. Jenny neither takes beeswax from her honeybees nor uses it in her candles.
CANDLEMAKER’S JOURNAL
Current & Recent Test Burns
📝Note: Candlecore™ only offers top-rated phthalate-free fragrances from two of the U.S.’s largest and most reputable professional candlemaker suppliers. Every fragrance was highly rated by professional U.S. candlemakers for: overall fragrance note composition; cold throw; hot throw; performance in soy wax candles.
📝Note: I do not rate scents—scent ratings are pretty pointless as everyone has their own preferences and prejudices when it comes to scent. The below entries are my personal impressions as a long-time candlemaker (but not as a professional perfumier!), and are only meant to convey certain characteristics about the scents (which, admittedly, may or may not be relevant to any given reader). I will always remember a particularly well-attended candle-making workshop at which participants were asked to rate their most and least favorite fragrances (not knowing which fragrance samples they were smelling). The Chanel No. 5 sample (and it was authentic, straight-from-the-bottle Chanel No. 5) was consistently rated as the “worst” and “cheapest” smelling of all of the samples, despite being considered one of the finest fragrances of all time.
📝Note: Size and placement of a candle are all-important factors when it comes to how a candle performs. Every space has its “zones” in which candles perform at their best and at their worst. Don’t expect a small candle or a delicate scent to tackle a large space with its scent, and don’t expect to smell a candle placed in a “scent dead zone”.
📝Note: About my house (the test burn environment):
2000 square feet
Single story farmhouse with peaked 9 foot high ceilings
1000 square foot open floorplan kitchen/dining/living room/den area
Known “scent dead zones”: 1 (on the end of my long kitchen island)
Indoor air temperature kept between 68F (winter) and 73F (summer) using full-house HVAC system and ceiling fans
Lots of shedding pets wandering around at all times
🕯Vanilla Cake Pop: I love this scent. Unfortunately, the nose adapts to it rather quickly (a phenomenon called “nose blindness”), so it’s easy to mistake it for not being as strong as it is. I have it burning in my master bathroom in a 12 oz mason jar and the throw fills the master bathroom and pours out into the master bedroom in a very pleasing way. Although it’s technically a gourmand scent, it doesn’t scream, “CAKE!”, so it’s actually a lovely and sensual addition to the master bedroom.
🕯Lily Of The Valley: I’m not a huge floral fan, but I recognize this is a very lovely fragrance. Around this time of year, it seems everyone is ordering this scent from me, so I’m quite familiar with it. I currently have it burning in a 16 oz mason jar in the small hallway bathroom so that the scent fills the small space and pours out into the hallway and a nearby guest room. I pour my Lily Of The Valley at a soft and soothing scent level because I can’t stand cloying too-strong florals—especially when the scent contains only floral notes. This means that those who like to be hit over the head by a candle’s fragrance probably wouldn’t be too happy with it. Also, for those who associate classic floral scents with “grandma at a picnic” or “grandma at church” vibes (yes, this is actually the phraseology being used to describe these traditional scents!), avoid at all costs.
🕯Lemon Blueberry Crumble: This one is always a crowd-pleaser. It’s also the one I burn in the 1000 square foot open floorplan area of the house because it’s so strong. There’s no fading into the background politely and pleasantly with this scent—when you walk into the house you think someone’s been very busy baking, indeed! I have it burning in a 16 oz mason jar in the middle of my kitchen and I need to extinguish it and take a break from it every so often.
🕯Obsidian: Just finished burning this one in an 8 oz straight sided jar. Masculine scents fall at the very bottom of my scent preference list, but this one quickly won me over. It was no surprise that my husband loved it, but I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. That said, the candle finished burning last night but I can still smell it this morning. It was very strong (which wasn’t really a shock given the staying-power of its individual fragrance notes including…patchouli)! You either love patchouli or you hate it, but everyone can agree that you can’t get rid of its scent for a while once it’s been around. I happen to love complex and earthy scents (like Apothecary!), so this worked for me. My (adult) daughter and mother-in-law were both in town visiting us during the days while it was burning, and they didn’t comment on it, which says it all in their case (they are both equally and unfailingly diplomatic and polite).
🕯Water Lily: I finished burning this one in an 8 oz jelly jar in the small hallway bathroom last week. A very, very delicate scent. I am a huge Monet fan and have even traveled to see some of his original paintings in France. This scent was supposedly created to put one in mind of his ethereal pastel creations of the same name. I agree that if I ever smelled a scent that embodied the Water Lilies paintings, this would be it. That said, it was so delicate (and I intentionally use the word “delicate” and not “weak” because this fragrance could never be strong, no matter how much of it was used in the candle…it’s supposed to be a water lily, after all) that the 8 oz jelly jar merely filled the small bathroom with scent—no spillover into any adjacent areas. This was partly, of course, due to the small size of the jar, but I’m sure that even a 16 oz mason jar wouldn’t have fared that much better. Nevertheless, I really can’t wait to make myself another candle with this scent to enjoy it all over again.
🤍Jenny