It’s August in Arkansas, and it’s hot. Yet, as I sit in the shade behind the local event center at my farmer’s market stand, I can’t help but be thankful. Just 3 weeks ago my family and I harvested our first batch of honey from our beehives. As a person who suffers terribly from allergies, I couldn’t be more excited. The honey produced from local plants is thought to contain small bits of pollen that, when ingested, help desensitize a person to the histamine response they have to pollen. While this is not supported by research, I think that there is a placebo effect for me that helps me justify a little honey on my toast in the morning. I’m grateful to be able to supply some local residents with a healthy and locally sourced treat.

That said, I didn’t set out this morning to discuss honey, but rather the process of gathering the honey. I’ve had beehives for about a year and a half. I started with two, now I have three. It is a very interesting, though fantastically expensive hobby. On the day we decided it was time to harvest the honey, it was hot. The heat index was over 100 degrees. Despite that heat I had to suit up. I’m not one to take a chance on a sting, so that means a head-to-toe ventilated suit with leather gloves and rubber boots. I started with a non-toxic bee repellent sprayed on a fume board that is activated by heat. This means spraying the board, setting it down for a minute to activate, removing the outer and inner cover of the hive, setting those down, picking up the fume board and placing it on the hive and then waiting 15 minutes. After the wait time, the honey super (a super is a box that is used for holding honey rather than growing new bees) and the fume board are removed and put in a place where the bees can’t get back into them. For me that meant a 200 yard hike up to the house to place the super in the garage. A medium-sized honey super that is completely full of honey and has ten frames of honey in it weighs about 50 lbs. That’s a long hike to carry 50 lbs. And when your wheelbarrow has a flat, you’re carrying that box. After that super was dealt with, another super had to be taken care of. The process was repeated, however, the second super only had 8 frames, which means it was a little lighter, probably around 35 lbs, because it wasn’t completely full of honey. After the boxes were in the garage and the garage was closed, a fan was set up, because it was hot in that garage. Then the frames were pulled out one at a time, a large serrated knife was used to cut off the wax caps into a five gallon bucket, a small device called a capping scratcher was used to take the caps off the cells that the knife missed, and then the frames were placed in the honey extractor (basically a large centrifuge). Our extractor has to be spun manually for 5 minutes straight to get all the honey out of one side of the frame, and the extractor has to be held still by leaning all your weight onto it while it is spun to keep it from bouncing around. If you’ve ever seen a washing machine become unbalanced and start to bounce around the laundry room, that is exactly what was happening, except our extractor was traveling further. As the honey accumulated in the bottom of the extractor it became harder to spin. We decided to drain the honey to make it a little easier on ourselves, but noticed that the honey wouldn’t be able to pass through the double strainer because of the height of the bucket the strainer was placed in. We had to pull a board from the scrap pile to place under the extractor to raise it high enough to get the bucket under the extractor far enough to strain the honey. This meant lifting the extractor that had the honey in it to place it on the board. It took both me and my wife to do this successfully. After the extracting was completed the extractor had to be tilted to allow the honey to all drain out, then lifted and tipped over to scrape out the rest of the honey with a spatula. The end result was 38 lbs of raw, unfiltered honey. We had to lift that bucket up on the countertop to be able to individually fill about 50 bottles of honey.

Do what does this have to do with a Physical Therapy business? Absolutely everything! My wife is an avid Crossfitter and I have a program I follow regularly at home. These are the ways we stay fit. Without this level of exercise in our lives we wouldn’t be able to tolerate the stress of a full body bee suit in a heat index over 100 degrees. We wouldn’t be able to lift a 50 lb box of honey and carry it 200 yards without a break, let alone doing it safely so we don’t injure our backs. We wouldn’t be able to lean over the buckets to cut the caps or hold the extractor steady while spinning it without injuring our backs. We wouldn’t be able to spin the extractor continuously for 5 minutes on each side of the frame without wearing ourselves out. We wouldn’t be able to lift an extractor heavy with honey or pick up the extractor to tip out the last bits of honey without getting injured, if we could even lift it at all and control it to prevent spilling. We wouldn’t be able to lift a heavy bucket up on the counter, particularly without injury. All of this activity compounds together when you do it within a matter of a few hours and each new task increases the risk of injury. Exercise, particularly regular, high intensity, interval exercise, helps prepare your body for these types of stressors so that you can not only perform them, but perform them without injury or fatigue.

So if you are a gardener, a beekeeper, a grandparent who needs to be on the floor wrestling with those boys or playing Pretty, Pretty Princess with the girls, you need to be prepared to perform these activities, and perform them without injury. The Lake Physical Therapy can help with this. I’m not interested in giving you an exercise routine, I’m interested in helping you achieve the lifestyle you want. Exercise is injury prevention. Exercise is health and wellness. Even people who are not overweight but don’t exercise are at an increased risk for injury, illness and debility. Exercise mitigates these risks.

If you are interested in becoming more active to improve your health, allow you to move the way you want and decrease your risk of injury, let’s talk. Consultations are free.

I look forward to meeting you!

Until next time,

Paul