Honey Bee Update

I've had a few people ask about how different projects are progressing, so the next few days I will be posting updates.

Today's picture is of one of the wild honeybee swarms that Bob and Sue Nelson captured for us. As you can see, the bees have adapted beautifully from being homeless to having a house and garden.

Just after we brought the bees home, we had a cold snap and were afraid we might loose the bees. Bill Bebee, of BeBee's Bees suggested feeding sugar water to the bees to help them along. We did, and it worked out great for us and the bees.

At present we have 2 sets of supers. Bob is working on capturing another swarm for us, which will make our honeybee neighborhood a nice size. And just look at this thing! The swarm, which is high up in a tree along the creek on the Nelson's property looks like a fuzzy football. Can you imagine how many bees are clustered together? It is mind boggling.

 

Marcheta *boggled.

Making Herbal Vinegars

I became interested in herb gardens in the early 70's, shortly after I was married. I love the textures and aromas of fresh herbs. To me, having garden fresh herbs makes cooking an adventure. But you don't need a garden to have fresh herbs to cook with; many types of herbs are happy to grow in containers.

In the late 70's I read about making herb vinegar. Some years, if I am feeling ambitious, I make a few because, well....just because!

Herb vinegars are good for marinades and salad dressing, but mostly I like the way the bottles 'dress up' the kitchen. :)

Earlier this Spring I made half a gallon of chive vinegar. Making herb vinegar is super easy. All you need to do is to fill a glass container with the herbs you've selected and then cover them with vinegar. I use white vinegar, but rice vinegar or any other vinegar that does not have a strong taste on its own is good to use. Strong tasting vinegars, like apple vinegar, do not let the herbal flavors come through.

It takes a few weeks for the vinegar to draw out the herb's flavors, but you can let it go even longer. When the vinegar's flavor is at a strength that you like, strain the herbs out and place back in the glass container or, as most people do, transfer it to a pretty bottle.

A common practice in bottling the vinegar is to 'label' it the old-fashioned way by adding sprigs of the herbs in the bottle to identify the type of vinegar inside.

I waited until the chives bloomed to bottle the vinegar because I wanted to add chive blossoms to the bottle. I love chive blossoms because they look like clovers :)

Even though I had artfully arranged the chive stems with blossoms in the bottle, it was for naught when I added the vinegar because the blossoms all floated to the top. Still, it's kinda pretty, and the blossoms will give the vinegar a faint purply-pink color.

I re-used the same bottle that held Bill Bebee's mead. You can't see it in this pic, but the bottle has a pretty raised floral motif near the bend of the neck. I think it is a lovely bottle for herb vinegar as well as sweet honey wine (read blog post about Bill's mead here.) 



Tomorrow I'll give ideas for using herbal vinegars :)

Marcheta *got that "Chive Talking" thing going again...

Flight of the Honey Bees

There's a lot of buzz in the air created by the wings of honey bees as they form swarms and leave their homes (hives) that have become too crowded. This is good way for bee keepers to "hire" more workers for their honey factories. :)

I don't know a whole heck of a lot about honey bees, other than we've kept them before,  lost our entire operation to foulbrood disease, and now Jim wants to keep bees again.

It's been years since we kept bees, so Jim is listening to the advice from bee keepers Bill Bebee and Bob Nelson. Both men are local hive keepers and honey producers. Bill is a supplier of bee equipment and Bob is pretty handy at capturing swarms.

A few days ago, Bob and Sue took Jim and me on a tour of their property, which borders a creek, to show us their various bee yards and the bee traps that they have placed in trees to capture swarms that come barreling down the water way each Spring. 

I took a few pics of traps only because when we were at the Nelson's the bees had not found traps yet. It was a case of bad timing, because later that day weary renegade bees spotted the temporary homes placed in trees and decided that it was a good time to stop over to rest their tired little wings. Sort of like checking into bee hotels :)

Sue took these pics and emailed them to me. One of these swarms is destined to take up residence here on Nazor Rd, where plenty of fruit trees will welcome them with open arms...I mean, limbs :)

 

 I took a few minutes to look up bee swarms on the Internet, and like this article from Growing Small Farms by the North Carolina State University's Cooperative Extension because it has plenty of pictures that illustrate the steps in capturing swarms.

 

 

Marcheta *staying clear of this "sting" operation!

Helping the Newbees

Buzz Lightyear ain't got nothin' on honeybees.

 

At least, that is what I think now that I've witnessed extreme co-operation from a swarm of wild honeybees that went from homeless status to adapting to condo living in less than a single day.

 

Here's the scoop:

 

Last week, Jim captured a swarm of bees at our cider orchard (located on our other property). He was prepared because of our earlier trip to Bebee's Bees for supplies. When Jim found the swarm, he came home to get one of the supers he has ready and went back to see if the bees would rather have a nice, comfy, wax-lined home or if they would prefer to toil and make one of their own in a tree somewhere.

 

 

They chose the ready-to-move-into condo.

 

Smart move!

 

 

Jim moved the super to the place where he is making a new beeyard; step 1 accomplished. He has several supers ready and as we get more bees, the apiarin neighborhood will expand.

 

 

The survival of the new bees hit a snag when the super-duper cold front moved in last week. We saw Bill Beebe at Bucyrus' Lil' Farmers Market on Saturday and explained the situation to him. Jim felt that the bees might die because they did not have time to start making honey and wondered if he should feed them. Bill informed Jim that his hunches were right on the money, and gave Jim instructions on an easy way to feed the bees.

 

 

When we got back home, I made a simple syrup of half sugar and half water and put in a zip-type plastic bag. I put the bag on a plastic deli tray for support.

 

 

At the super, with our cat D.C. assisting, Jim went to work.

Jim cut slits in the bag of sugar water and laid it on the top of the bottom part of the super.

 

 

Within seconds, the insects made a bee-line to the sugar water buffet.

 

 

 

Then Jim put the top of the super back in place.

 

 

 

 

 

Through communication that we humans haven't mastered yet, the bees inside the super summoned home the bees that had gone foraging, letting them know what the buzz was about and to come in from the cold to fill their hungry little selves with the newly found windfall.

 

 

 

 

 

Watching the bees take care of themselves AND their fellow honey makers is one reason that I love nature and the natural world. Can you imagine our world if humans worked so closely together to help each other, as bees do?

 

Marcheta *to infinity and beyond!

Sweet Honey Wine

The thing that I love most about setting up
at farmers markets is meeting new people who, like us, have a hobby that has gone wild.

We are not dedicated market growers like many
of the vendors, our business is landscaping. Our fruit orchard is more of a hobby business, being too many trees for even an extended family, but
not so many that it requires full time attention.

At the markets we set up at, I think about half the
vendors fit into our category; people who work
other full time jobs (for security and insurance), but love growing things and want to live in a
more natural world.

At the Bucyrus Lil' Farmers Market we became friends with Bill and Kathy Beebe. This was as easy as can be because they are about the most likable people I've ever met. The Beebes are appropriately named because they are bee keepers, as well as having a menagerie of animals, large veggie, flower and herb gardens. Their business is Bebee's Bees.

Last fall, Bill bought apple cider from us. Like his bees, Bill is a busy kind of guy and decided to make mead.

I first heard of mead in "Robin Hood", as it was the favorite drink of Friar Tuck. The only thing I knew about mead is that it is made from honey.

When we went to buy bee supplies from Bill (who also has a bee supply business), he gifted us with a bottle of the mead he had made.

I like the taste of it...for me it is a "sipping drink", very relaxing. But what I like more is the fact that it was made by a friend using his honey and our cider. Now that, folks, is about as local and organic as it gets!

Jim pretty much sticks to drinking beer, so I shared the mead with my social media mentor and now good friend, Violeta Chinni.

We did not polish off the bottle and it sat in the fridge for about a month. By yesterday, the amber liquid was pretty strong. Jim finally had his tasting and all I am going to say is that his eyes suddenly opened up about as wide as I've ever seen them. :)

I knew the wine was past its prime, but did not want to pitch it.

I decided to slow cook a pork roast with the mead.

Good decision!

Marcheta *hog-wild for honey wine

PS If you want to learn more about mead, Got Mead is a good place to start.