Encodo spent part of this year learning about bees and honey. We met several times throughout the spring and summer to take care of the bees, gather honey, extract it from the honeycomb, fill it into jars, make labels and, finally, pack it all up and send it out to our customers for the end-of-year present. We hope they enjoy it over the holidays!

In addition to the pictures below, we made several videos throughout the process:

Beekeeping:

• Closeup and explanation of a honeycomb saturated with bees
• Opening the hive
• "Smoking" the beehive
• Closeup of busy bees crawling over their honeycombs
• Closeup of the open hive

Harvesting:

• Decanting the honey
• Extracting the honey

Filling:

• A honey jar filling slowly
• Joel is almost on the dot
• Richi gets it just right
• Kath filling honey

Encodo spent a 3-day weekend in Grindelwald for food---fondue and Züri Gschnätzlets---and fun---sledding, skiing, snowshoeing and hiking.

Encodo took a trip to the north to the beautiful Rhine Falls (Rheinfall), which served as a backdrop for a team event at a rope/adventure park. There was something for everyone and many of us were surprised at how much we were willing to take on as we swung around in the trees.

We started off with breakfast, then played Tarzan for a few hours and finished up with a long lunch in the afternoon. A few went to the river to go swimming afterwards, while a couple of others (Marco/Tom) rode their bikes back home.

There are also a couple of videos:

• Marc Ziplines in from a long way away
• Video of Karin ziplining
• Video of Marco ziplining

Encodo went go-kart racing at the Tempodrom in Winterthur! The cars are electric and race at almost 40kph over a 400m track. We raced three eight-minute rounds with lots of action: passing, bumping and blocking (I'm looking at you, Tom).

Every year, Encodo hangs an advent calendar in the office, usually filled with chocolate and trinkets. A few of the years, we've had puzzles and larger toys that were split into several pieces.

This year, we split up the Legos Saturn 5 rocket over the workdays leading up to Christmas. Beforehand, though, Karin, Kath, Remo and Marco put the rocket together—just to see what it looks like.

Every year, Encodo gets together and puts something together for our customers. Several years ago, we baked cookies ... and those were really, really popular.

For 2017, we bowed to customer pressure and baked cookies again, digging up our hand-made Encodo-logo cookie forms and baking traditional Swiss Christmas cookies.

Encodo had a 4-day team weekend in Tenero-Contra, Ticino in the south of Switzerland. The pictures document the journey to Contra (by car, bike and train), the long weekend and the journey back north.

On a warm spring day, we took an afternoon off for lunch and a Segway Tour of Winterthur with Segway City Tours. After an introduction on a flat plaza by the Zeughaus, we cruised all over the city for hours, stopping on the Goldenberg and at the Oskar Reinhart Museum.

Encodo sponsort das Frackmobil der Systemtechniker der ZHAW

Last year, we sent customers and friends something to drink. This year, we provided some food to go with it: hand-made sausages and an Encodo cutting board!

Encodo celebrated its 10th anniversary as a company this summer in Bussang in the Lorraine region of France.

Encodo took a three-day weekend in the Bündner alps at Savognin for some sun, sledding, skiing and snowboarding. Also a bit of billiards, jass, lots of good food and few beverages.

As we do every year, Encodo wanted to give its customers, partners and friends an end-of-year gift that was interesting, relatively unique and at least partially hand-made. This year, we built a machine from a kit that would make our presents for us -- the Egg-Bot.

Our second networking event in 2013 included a short presentation and subsequent discussion that asked the question, HTML5: Is it a serious development platform?.

Dani and Marco had a week-long business trip in Dallas, Texas and took some pictures.

The story of how we made Williams, a pear-flavored schnapps for the holidays in 2014. More information available here.

Most of Encodo went to the Zugersee to Ferrum where we took an all-day course on knife-making, from start to finish.

Our first networking event in 2013 including a presentation about the latest web technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3.

Encodo spent a whole afternoon pouring, painting and detailing chocolate bunnies for customers, partners and colleagues at a local chocolate-makers shop.

Encodo's holiday party was at Chuchiart, where we cooked and ate together with friends.

The second networking event of 2012: Marco gives a presentation on high-performance user interfaces.

The first networking event of 2012: Dieter Schumtz gave a presentation on project management.

The second networking event of 2011: Remo and Jeremias gave presentations on the state of reporting tools.

Encodo drove to Sirot -- a few hours driving into France -- to eat, drink, be merry...and to make jam. Lots of jam.

The first networking event of 2011: Remo gave a presentation on Silverlight and afterwards we went bowling.

Encodo baked logo-cookies again this year. A good time was had by all!

Encodo took a twilight/nighttime tour of the Masoala Rain-forest Hall at the Zürich Zoo followed by a nice dinner at the Outpost Restaurant.

Marc, Remo and Marco went to Chicago for a week-long business trip, working by day and feasting by night.

Encodo's first networking event of 2010.

Encodo traveled with friends in a first-class train to Geneva to take a guided tour of CERN.

Encodo & friends try their hand at mini-golfing and then finish off the evening at a Lebanese restaurant.

At the first Encodo Networking Event in 2009, Patrick Stählin presented the inside scoop on DigitalStrom. Afterwards, we spent a pleasant evening chatting and nine-pin bowling in Winterthur.

On one very pleasant and productive evening in December, all of Encodo -- some with the help of their better halves -- made cookies out of six kilograms of dough. Thanks to everybody's energetic input, things went pretty smoothly and we ended up with some very tasty results.

Encodo does its year-end dinner typically late -- with a curling lesson for a couple of hours, then dinner at the Doktorhaus restaurant in Wallisellen.

Encodo threw a Mexican-themed party for friends and family to officially celebrate the opening of our office in Winterthur. We even managed to fly in authentic tortillas from Mexico (thanks Marina!) and had a margarita mixing machine set up at the bar! Take a look at the pictures and meet some of the folks at Encodo.