Hive Robbers Have Honey!

 

Finally, after tending the bees for two summers, we harvested some honey!  It was so much fun, and so much more tasty than other food harvests.  Not that a mess of kale or garlic doesn't give me thrills too, but getting jars of sweet honey was exciting in a much sweeter way. 

I imagine that my prehistoric ancestors had a big day when they found a hive and could score so many calories, so robbing our hive must touch on some nerve in my crocodile brain that really enjoys stealing honey from bees.  Or maybe I just have an excitable sweet tooth. 

 

One of the best parts of working with bees is the cool equipment.  The smoker is a bit challenging to figure out how to light, but once Jamie gets it going I feel like a real bee keeper.  I'm not convinced the smoker does anything other than create an authentic ambiance, but at least it gives me an illusion of defence when opening a box filled with sixty thousand stingers.

We got the bees two years ago, and normally by this time of the year, we have been more involved with the bees; meaning we opened the hive more frequently and tried to inspect for disease, tried to find the queen, and do all the things that I read that we were supposed to do.  Since I really don't know what I'm looking for, haven't been able to find the queen anyway, and have been so busy with other projects this summer, the bees have been unmolested and I think they appreciate it.  There was more honey in the hive this time than ever before.

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Our goal was to see how they were doing and to add another box full of frames if they looked like they needed some room to expand.  Boy, am I glad we didn't wait any longer!  Every frame was loaded up with honey and almost all of it had wax caps, which means the bees had deemed it finished and ready for eating.

Last summer we noticed that black ants were living in the top of the hive.  The ants didn't seem to be near the bees and I was beginning to think that the ants weren't honey eaters but were just using the hive as a rain proof nest.

The ants are still there, but when we accidentally smeared some honey on the outside of the hive they gobbled it up, so they do eat it if they can, but hopefully the bees defend the honey in the main body of the hive.  I'm not sure what to do about the ants.  They seem to bother us more than they bother the bees.  They crawl up our arms when we are working on the hive, and get stuck in the honey.  They bite too, so you can't just let them crawl on you with out brushing them off.  I'm always nervous I'm going to drop a frame loaded down with bees anyway, so the last thing I need to be doing is brushing off ants while I'm trying to concentrate. 

Since there were so many honey laden frames we robbed the hive of one from near the edge of the box and replaced it with a blank.  

Jamie and I tried to gently brush the bees from the frame.  Our bees are very calm and gentle, and I was the only one of us that suffered a sting because I didn't realize one had landed on my shirt and I unintentionally squished her with my arm.  When we first got the bees I would completely cover my body, hands, and face.  The full body gear does make me feel safe, but it is also extremely hot and restricts mobility, especially the gloves.  So, over time, I stopped wearing the protective gear, except the hat and veil, because I thought that unless I was stung on the face or throat, any other sting wouldn't be of great concern.  But this sting on the arm swelled so much that I looked like I had Popeye's forearm.  It was red and hot for several days which doesn't seem to be a normal response to a single sting, at least based on other peoples reactions to stings and to my past reactions.  I may at least wear long sleeves from now on, just so I don't have to go around for a week with horrid red swellings.  We do know to tuck our shirts in, since dad got a sting on his belly when one climbed up his shirt. 

We sort of made up our honey harvest technique as we went, and we don't have any of the nifty gear that beekeepers use.  We started with cutting the wax and honey from the frame and collecting it in a pot.  It would be nice to be able to return the wax cells, minus honey, to the bees so thy don't have to spend any energy rebuilding the wax, and can get straight to work filling the cells with honey.  But, since we don't have one of those fancy frame spinners we just cut it all off, wax and all. 

I wanted lots of pictures of our first honey gathering, but it would have been nice, for once, to have showered and not be wearing yesterdays work clothes before I was photographed.  Leigh listed all the blog posts that I have made where we were obviously focused on the task at hand and obviously not focused on clean clothes or, in my case, had even thought of a hair brush.  She said "we blog nasty", and we do!  I'm going to tell myself that it adds "grit" to the story, not that I just always look gritty. 



Leigh squished the wax over a strainer basket with her hands to collect the honey in a crock.  This is not a job where anyone minds getting their hands dirty.  By the time we were finished everyone had "tasted" the honey so many times we wished there was such a thing as a salty snack tree that was ready to harvest too.  The strainer got out any squished bees or squirmy ants.  We laughed about how this was truly live food since it was still wiggling.

Jamie pointed out that the swirls in the honey looked like images of the galaxy.  I feel like we captured the universe in a pot of bee spit.

 

As the honey was poured through a filter into the jars we must have taken a dozen photos because it was just so beautiful.  The photos don't do it justice.  It was sparkly like liquid gold.

The honey tastes very good, and is super sweet. It amazes me that there is a giant box of deliciousness in the yard and nothing has eaten it yet.  Even with our less that efficient harvesting technique, we got over six and a half cups of honey from a single frame, and there are nineteen frames left just for the bees to use.

Mom put the ball of wax in a jar, and put the jar in some boiling water to get it to melt.  We have plans to use the wax to make something, but don't know what.

We put all the honey coated dishes out by the hive so the bees could clean it up.  I hope we didn't just feed the ants.

Natural (Light) Eggs

The eggs from moms chickens are lovely earth tones.  Tan, brown, chocolate, olive, green, speckles, and even blue.  I'm so impressed that chickens can make eggs in such natural colors.

Of course, mom's chickens live natural lives, and have the option to lay their eggs in a natural environment, like the recycling bin!  This silly hen seems to be confused about where the nest box is. 

Maybe it's more accurate to say these are natural light eggs.

Not only are the eggs naturally different colors, but they are a variety of sizes too.  This brown one is a whopper!  The tiny eggs are the ultimate solution to splitting a recipe that calls for one egg.  Just use a half sized egg!

Alien Abduction

I always imagine that the bats that are caught in my net go back to their roost to tell the other bats of their abduction.  They probably tell their buddies that they were just flying along, on their normal foraging route, when they were trapped in an invisible force field!  After struggling in vain against the force field, a blinding bright light approached from the distance.  They were taken up in a floating capsule, then measured, prodded, and violated by unseen beings with flashing lights and cold metal instruments before being released unharmed, but traumatized.  "Guys, seriously, do not fly down Stinking Creek tonight!"

The imagined force field is the net, called a mist net, because it is nearly transparent and made of extremely fine threads, similar to a hair net that the lunch lady wears.  I wear a very bright headlamp to keep my hands free, so I have a bright beam of light in the center of my forehead.  I see the poor bats blinking their eyes in the bright light, and most just close their eyes against the glare.  Working with other folks who are wearing headlamps makes me realize just how bright the light is.  When my netting partner looks at me in the face all I can see is the bright glow, so I know the bats can't see my face or know what has them.  After I untangle the bats from the net/force field, I put them in a paper bag to carry them back to our work station, like the big brown bat and the red bat in the photos above.  This must be strange experience for a bat, to be in a crinkly dark paper capsule that is floating through the air.   I weigh them while they are in the bag, take some measurements to verify which species, examine their breasts and private parts to see what reproductive stage they are in, look closely at their wing membranes to see if they are sick, take their picture with a flashing camera, then let them go.  It only takes a few minutes. 

I think I have finally figured out how to make youtube videos that I can post without giving my self an aneurysm as I strain my tiny computer brain muscles.   Check out the above video that I made last night of a big brown bat being released after he was caught in my nets. 

This video shows just how feisty some of the bats are when they are captured.  I'm holding him very gently, so he's not squawking in pain, he's fighting for his life.  Turn the sound up so you can hear the noises he makes.  Poor fella, he's not giving up though.  Some of the bats, like the red bat in the video below, just calmly bear the intrusion. 

 

I hope that the bats who experienced the alien abduction aren't shunned by their buddies.  Hmmm... maybe those human abduction stories shouldn't be ignored!  And who is a better candidate for some alien probes than a lone bat survey team out in the woods in the middle of the night...

Cabbage Worm Art

I was distracted from the task at hand by the intricate worm holes in cabbage leaves as mom and I visited her garden to see if we could harvest some garlic for a soup we were making. The garlic was ready, and because mom planted the cloves last fall by putting them on top of the soil and covering them with straw it was easy to harvest.  She just pushed the straw aside to reveal a perfect garlic bulb. 

The cabbages are being eaten by these little striped caterpillars.  

It is tragic that these lovely cabbages are getting marred, but it was fun to arrange worm art compositions with my camera phone.  

I have way too many pictures of holey leaves, but I couldn't stop myself!  Why don't they just start at one side and eat it all from there?  Because it wouldn't look as cool, that's why.  

In the wee hours of the morning, when we were all still enjoying some tasty beverages on the front porch, it was suggested that we examine the cabbages for snails.  Two in the morning may be a strange time for most people to garden, but to a group of second shifters and nocturnal bat catchers it seemed only slightly odd.    

What was amazing to me is that all of us had lights in our pockets at the moment the foray was suggested.  Each of us, dad, mom, Jamie, Leigh, and I, activated our cell phone illuminators.   We live in an amazing age.  Right this moment I'm sitting in the woods attempting to catch bats and writing about cabbage on my phone.  Please forgive my spelling and formatting, the bugs that are landing on my phone and face because of the glow is distracting.

Dad pointed out that if you put your light below the cabbage leaves you could see the slug's shadow from the top and find them.  Well, this made even more amazing worm art photos!

The soup turned out perfect, with garlic, asparagus, parsely, and sage right from the garden. 

Eat'n Weeds

Inspired by a tv show called Hot on the Trail which mom recorded for us to watch together, that featured a super model type woman, named Sunny Savage (I can't, being named Rain, roll my eyes, but feel free), prancing through the forest picking leaves and cooking gormet soups over a campfire, I dug out some books I have on eating wild foods which haven't had much attention, and decided to try eating some wild plants.  After all, I walk through weeds all the time at work, and know most of the them by name.  Since I've been focusing on eating and juicing more vegetables, what better way to save some money on groceries than to eat free weeds, right?  So, on our next field day, Joe and I picked a mess of several different plants.   

We picked garlic mustard, an invasive plant that I enjoy killing anyway, some dandilion leaves, which I remember my grandmother eating in a salad with tuna fish, some stinging nettle, stings and all, and some dock, which is in the photo above.  And, just like when I buy a bunch of parishables at the grocery and then get really busy, most of these are getting slimy in the refrigerator because I haven't taken the time to cook them.  Since I didn't pay for them, I think this is progress, and I like these weeds already!

I did, however, cook the dock, and have survived to tell the tale.  Not that I was really worried, but most of the sources I looked to for cooking instructions referred to Rumex crispus, which is called curly dock and is an exotic species and grows almost everwhere.  The dock I picked was Rumex verticillatus, which is called water dock, and is a native species that likes damp soil and wetlands.  So, does this mean that only curly dock is edible, or do most people only come accross curly dock, and all docks are edible?  I found one source that said all docks are edible, but it didn't specifically mention water dock.  I've never had this problem with spinach, so eating weeds is more complicated. 

I sauted some onions, garlic, and mushrooms in an iron skillet with the chopped water dock and then added some tomato sauce.  Once that was all cooked up, I cracked some of Helen and Mrs. Hall's beautiful eggs in it, and let them slowly cook through with some spices sprinkled on top.  Sort of a weedy ratatoulli with eggs, I guess. 

I debated with myself about whether I should tell Brandon that dinner had strange weeds in it, just so I could have a true guinea pig, but I was worried that maybe he would be the only concious person to call the hospital when we were having convulsions and so he would need to be able to tell them what we ate in case there was a water dock antidote that should be administered.  I casually mentioned that dinner had wild greens, but then I made him repeat the scientific name a few times, just in case.   

Brandon opted to have his weeds and eggs burrito style, with a side of fried bologna, of all things.  I just ate mine with a fork, bologna free.  The taste of water dock, when smothered in other things, as this was, is not very distinct.  Similar to putting spinach or kale in something; all the other ingredients over powered the taste of the dock, which is okay by me.  At least now I know I can put it in our food and it doesn't taste bad.  Dock is like other greens, chock full of nutrients and healthy stuff.  Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to try it plain and really see how it tastes.   Not only does it not taste bad, it also didn't make us sick.  This might not be a very high standard to hold my weeds to, but it's a start. 

Animals in Nets (PG13)

This lovely red bat is one of several that Brandon and I captured on a recent bat survey job.  I love red bats. They are one of the most commom bats we catch, but they have such bright color and such fuzzy faces they are one of my favorites. Most people think of bats as dark and brown, but these bright orange bats are a bit more flashy.

If only they wouldn't bare their fangs so much so they would be easier to love.  Although, the vicious expression does make it easier to resist rubbing their adorable fuzzy faces on my cheek. They don't like that.

This is an evening bat. Not super commom, so still fun to catch. When I learned to tell the different bats apart, I was told that I would always know when I had a male evening bat because they have the biggest...um...well, they are, as they say, "well endowed".  Well, I didn't really think I would be able to tell a distinct difference in bat anatomy in that way so I didn't think much about it until I caught the first one. Ohhh...so thats what they mean.  Geeze.

This big guy is a Big Brown Bat.  Not a very exotic name for sure, but very descriptive.  Of the common bats that we catch regularly, big browns are the biggest.  And when I say big, I mean that, for example, this one weighed fifteen grams, which is about as much as two quarters and a nickle weigh.  Big is relative. 

I always decribe the nets we set up for bats to fly into as giant hair nets.  They are very hard to see, even if you know they are there, so we frequently catch other animals besides bats, which can add some excitement to the survey.  This is a southern flying squirrel.  It's very hard to see these guys unless you are out at night in the woods.  My first encounter with a flying squirrel was as a child, when one came in the outhouse one night.  That's a vulnerable feeling situation to learn that squirels can fly, believe me - but that's a different story.  This poor guy was minding his own buisness when he got caught in my net. 

As much as I struggle to post videos on this blog, due to my mostly luddite attitude, and because the computer secretly enjoys torturing me, this video is worth sharing, just so I can watch it and laugh when ever I want.  Poor Brandon is the filmographer, and I'm the one getting the flying squirrel out of the net.  Don't worry, my phone survived.  Make sure your sound is turned way up.  For some reason we are wispering even though I'm pretty sure the flying squirrel has realized we are there. 

Camping Carpenters

With the help of our good friends, we were able to tackle two major, and majorly exciting, projects at the farm house.  We brought enough food to feed an army, and tents and bedding and spent two great days playing camping carpenters. 

 The first big job was to install a beam and posts (to become columns) to support the second floor where the termites had devoured the wall.  Our plan is to create a room divider instead of a wall between the living room and dining room, inspired by the arts and crafts style columns with cabinets at the bases. 

 

The fun part of this job was using house jacks to level the ceiling and get everything braced. Hopefully my friend will be able to sleep now that we have everything shored up and her house collapse nightmares can subside. 

 Once the posts and beam were installed, some time was spent designing the stairs.  Real design, with measuring tapes, computers, and everything. I barely kept up with the math, but had absolute confidence that whatever we came up with would be great. Or at least be better than the crooked stairs that were there. Or at least be better than nothing, which is what we have now. It's gonna be great, I'm sure. 

 

 Most of my design energy went into the smoking of three of our home butchered chickens along with foil packets of vegetables and mushrooms and skewers of stuffed peppers.  There's never any danger of starvation when we set out to do a job. 

 The photo above shows the first challenge faced when the stair construction got under way. What started as a nice straight board ended as a very warped stringer once it was cut.  Stupid wood. 

No worries though, we just bolted this one to the wall and straightened it out as we bolted it on. The other two didn't warp in such an extreme way. 

We attempted to get the upstairs floor even more level by using the house jack to hold the floor up and bracing the new stairs against one of the posts that attach to the big beam we installed. The guys raised the floor several inches, put the stringers in place, and then removed the brace. WHOMP!!  The floor fell only an inch, but what an awesome thump. At first we were disappointed because it was so much work to get everything propped and reinforced, but then we realized that we still gained an inch, which will make a big difference. 

 

And the stairs, even though they aren't finished, are looking really nice, especially the way they are going to tie into the columns of the room divider.  I can't wait to finally get to walk on them.

While our friends wisely stayed in a rodent free tent, Brandon and I put up a bed in the midst of the construction zone. We woke in the night to loud rustling in the other room where we had the coffee pot.  Brandon took a flash light to investigate and when he returned he reported that it was "just a mouse drinking mini moos".  Sure enough, the mouse chewed holes in all our little coffee creamers and drank the cream. I'm taking this up with Carlos- what's the point of a house snake if we still have mice drinking our mini moos?

Life as Art Before a Flat Tire and Freezer Fire

On a recent late night drive home from a day spent at my parents house, I was trying to keep Brandon awake while he was driving by showing him the photos I had taken during the day.  Normally, when he is looking groggy at the wheel,  I just pick a recent political hot topic issue and start a debate - we get home before he knows what happened.  It's probably not the best thing for his blood pressure, but at least he's alert to drive.  This time I was trying to entertain him by forcing him to say nice things about the photos I had taken during the day.  What could be more stimulating to a man than quick glances at cell phone pictures of flowers and kittens, right? 

Mom and I were quite pleased with an arrangement we made using peonies, wild flowers, and sage blossoms.  Brandon is always a good sport and was darting glances at my phone as I bragged about our flower arrangement.  He said it reminded him of a Glen Brown painting. 

Really!?  Our flowers make you think of famous art?  I'm not surprised.  Of course, I didn't know this artist, but being excited that my flowers were reminding him of famous paintings I googled Glen Brown and started a game of "is it this one" while Brandon took quick looks at my phone.  Finally I found the one he was thinking of, above.  I was impressed, and just found a new game to play with my phone while in the car. 

 

So, next he took a glance of the photo I took of Curly and Beardy, two of the chicks that I hatched in the incubator, which now live at moms house.  What artwork does this bring to mind, Brandon?  

He said a it made him think of a Marc Chagall painting of a blue chicken.  Well, it didn't take long to find that image either.  I like that the subject matter is the same, and both images use blue, but it's transposed from the background in the photo to the subject in the painting.  They both have a sort of sad vibe too. 

Mom's kittens are so much fun to watch.  They cuddle together for naps, and spend so much energy chasing their mother's tail.  

For some reason the photos of the cats made Brandon think of a Modigliani painting of a woman on a couch.  When I look at the photos with the painting, I can see a relationship with the white of the woman's dress and the white of the momma cat.  They are both images that seem relaxed, and the colors of the calico kitten are similar to the couch in the painting. 

Mom has a silly chicken that likes to roost in a tree instead of the coop.  I worry that this chicken may not make it long, considering all the predators that live in the surrounding woods.  A coyote recently got mom's good rooster, and raccoons have taken a few chickens in the past.  Foxes, possums, and skunks are also there, and they can all eat chickens.  

When I flashed the chicken in a tree photo at Brandon he immediately said a painting of plants and leaves by Lucien Freud.  At first I kept asking him if he was sure because I expected another painting with a chicken, but he said it was the first thing that came to mind when he looked at the photo.  I guess the chicken in the photo is sort of hidden, and the green of the tree is more prominent, especially when viewed from a cell phone while driving at seventy-five miles per hour. 

 

My game was cut short when the trailer we were hauling, which was loaded with swimming pool parts, blew a tire.  The tire disintegrated and we spewed sparks from the rim until we could get off the highway.  And, as is expected, we had no jack, tire iron, or spare tire.  And it's the middle of the night.  So, we left the trailer in a Cracker Barrel parking lot while we found a twenty four hour Wall-mart.  I was afraid someone would pull up to the trailer and drag away my pool, which would have been tragic, but Brandon wouldn't leave me there to guard it.  He doubted my ability to defend the pool, but I really want this pool so anyone intent on stealing it would have been sorry they tried.  

Fortunately, you can buy anything at any hour at a wall-mart, but unfortunately we bought a jack that was too small and had to borrow landscaping stones from shrubs around the Cracker Barrel to make it tall enough to get the tire on.  The tire is also a little bit smaller than the other, so I was sure we were going to crash before we could get home.  

Then, just because the universe was trying to punish us, when we got home, after one o'clock in the morning, I noticed a weird sizzling and snapping sound from the refrigerator and saw an orange glow in the bottom of the freezer.  I said "Brandon, the freezer is on fire."  He just kept repeating this phrase while I frantically tried to pull out the drawers and figure out what to do.  I flipped the breaker and, as exhausted as we were, we dragged out the coolers and emptied the refrigerator and freezer while we griped about how much a new one would cost.  The next day, after some inter-web research, I found that the freezer was not on fire, but was actually in the midst of a defrost function, that obviously we have never witnessed in the eleven years we have owned this refrigerator.  Numerous people online had the same fear and response that we did.  One person, after getting a response on a chat forum that informed her of the defrost function of this model, after she had unplugged hers in the middle of the night, said "I feel stupid."  Yeah, I understand the feeling.