Bee Patties

So something I didn't know about bees is how susceptible they are to many parasites and diseases. Every major and most minor beekeepers use a lot of pesticides and chemicals to keep disease down. These chemicals are so nasty it is actually illegal to collect honey for sale while some of them are being used. We are going to attempt to keep disease down in our bees without using anything toxic. Our neighbor uses this philosophy and his bees are very healthy. Many beekeepers would say this is crazy, but we are going to try. Hopefully we aren't just being idealistic, but it seems excessive to be constantly medicating them if you keep them healthy.
Tonight I made some bee patties made from Crisco, livestock salt, sugar and honey. The bees eat the patties and in the process they get greased up. This keeps both tracheal and varroa mites down because they can't get a good grip on the bee. We have a screen and sticky paper at the bottom of the hive to catch all the mites that fall off the slippery bees. A suspected benefit to this greasing is increased longevity in the bees - about a week. Soon we will also dust the bees with powdered sugar - this promotes grooming and again prevents the varroa mites from getting a good grip. They fall down on to the sticky paper and die.

Babies!

Can't wait can't wait can't wait to see this tomorrow!

Wax Glands and Waggle Dances

I'm glad you are all enjoying bee updates! (Well, my two faithful readers, anyway). To answer a few questions, the burr comb is real, they build comb wherever there is space. But when they build outside of the frames, everything gets stuck together and it becomes hard to manipulate the frames and later to extract honey. I need to ask our bee mentor about why beeswax is yellow - but I have a very good guess. It comes out of their wax glands white, they then chew it up and manipulate it, which makes it more white. However they are bringing in all sorts of pollen and nectar which I think stains the wax the yellow color. I'll update on this once I know for sure. I found this picture on the internet of the wax coming out of the bee's wax glands:


This kind of grosses me out because they look like fish scales. Which gross me out.

Anyway, I leave you with this amazing video of how they communicate food sources to each other.

OH! And we found out our beautiful black queen is rare! They are usually more honey colored. Which makes me love her that much more.

Queen Bee

We found our beautiful queen today. She is right in the middle of the picture below.



And blurry here

We did our first inspection today looking for eggs and the queen. We did not find any eggs - but they may be there, they are 0.4 mm x 1.7 mm, with the narrowest end pointed up. It's hard to see something so small with a veil on. The next time we do an inspection there should be larvae, which will be much easier to see. I couldn't believe how much they had built in just 8 days.

Looking for eggs


This is burr comb - where they have decided to make comb wherever they want instead of on the frames which already have a honeycombed pattern. The pattern is to encourage them to build on the frame. I'm not sure yet why burr comb is so bad, but the book says it is, so I removed all of it.


Here is the burr comb, it's gorgeous. They have begun to collect the sugar water we've fed them and put it into the cells. We definitely already ate all that was in the burr comb, tastes like honey! It's much lighter weight than you would expect by looking at it.


They build the cells so that they are opposite each other, three cells on the opposite side intersect in the middle of one cell on the other side. It's kind of hard to explain, but they have built the comb so that it is as strong as it can be. How they do this in a dark hive I have no idea. You can sort of see what I am saying here:

Here is a picture of what the drawn out comb should look like. There is also a drone in this picture, that is what we mistakenly thought was the queen last time. They are fun because they don't have stingers, so if you find one you can handle it without worrying about being stung.


That's it for Beekeeping 101 today. We will be doing weekly inspections for the next month or two and each time there should be new and exciting things happening!

Bee Watching

There's been a lot of this going on lately.


We have been reading all about bees at night before bed. How they organize the hive. What happens to intruders - they either get thrown violently out, like literally expelled from the hive, OR if they bring a bribe for the guard they are allowed in to take a small amount of honey. The stages of work they progress through and how the workers determine how many drones are needed or when a new queen is needed. They control this by the size of cell they build and by what they feed the larva. They are so complex and interesting that we find ourselves sitting outside the hive just watching how they interact. Yesterday was the first day they began bringing pollen back! That means they are settled enough to go out and begin foraging for nectar and pollen.


I found two bees the other day that were victims of our sugar water accident (we dumped several cups of sugar water down onto the hive being clumsy). I put them in front of the hive entrance to see if what I thought would happen would. It did, their sisters came to them, rolled them right side up and began cleaning the sugar off of them with their tongues. Unfortunately it was too late for these girls, but so cool to see that they are all looking out for each other. We will get to inspect as soon as it gets sunny for a good chunk of time. Maybe this weekend! Hopefully we will spot the queen and see the progress they are making on drawing out the frames with wax.

One more bee story I meant to tell:
I was out in the yard and a bee landed on my shoulder, which was unusual. I started to walk towards Aaron so he could coax it off of me when she flew on her own and then collapsed on the hive. She was exhausted! It took her a few minutes of rest before she made it to the entrance. They are such hard workers and only live for 6 weeks once they become a worker bee.

Plate Lunch

Aaron made Hawaiian food the other day. Macaroni salad and Kalua Pig. The pork turned out really good, but it was a little too salty. I would cut back quite a bit on the liquid smoke and salt. Easy and good!

Garden Update

Here Amber, this is for you:


He's been wearing it like crazy since it came home. Today he modified it to fit under the bee veil, we just saved $16!

Two weekends ago it was super nice and we got the garden all tilled up and composted.


I'm so thankful we did because this is what it's been doing for the last week:



I caught it at an especially bad time this morning. The poor bees just want to work! Every sun break they come out, but it's usually short lived.

I took these yesterday during a short sun break. Radishes - I love their sweet little butterfly leaves.

Beets



Carrots


The potatoes are going strong


So are the onions


The corn is up amazingly, and so are the few other things that I've planted. I still have lots of space, but I may keep some of it open for successive crops.

Party Hat

Holy crap it's been a long week. Sometimes you just need to go the Dollar Tree and buy junk food and a sombrero. I spent 45 hours at school and 25 hours sleeping this week. The sombrero actually serves a purpose - hopefully it will be a functional alternative to the $17 bee hat.

They're Here!

Our neighbor keeps bees and suggested we get some hives and get some bees from him. This time of year bees will swarm when their hive gets too full. They make a new queen, kick out the old queen and some of her loyal followers go with her. They are really docile when they are swarming, even though they look scary.
We visited GloryBee in Eugene and stocked up on everything we needed. They were so nice and helpful there - even though we didn't know much. Seriously the best customer service I've experienced in years, I highly recommend them.


Aaron put everything together.


We painted it all. Here is Aaron putting the bottom screen together.



Yesterday I had a 15 hour day at school. It was the second of 4 Tuesdays we are there past ten cleaning migrant worker's teeth. It's exhausting. I got a call from our neighbor that he had some bees for us. We didn't exactly have it all set up. So we got 4 hours of sleep and got up at 5 am to go and seal in the bees and bring them over. We were at Home Depot by 6 am and building the foundation by 7.


Our nuc in the middle.


Aaron carried them home.


He painted honey along the bottom of all the frames to encourage them to stay, give them a food source and distract them from the commotion.



Getting ready for the transfer - neither of us have actually been around a bee hive. We had to just watch a lot of videos to figure it out.


Our first look. They really are pretty mellow if you move slowly and carefully. They got a little agitated by the second frame, but it really wasn't bad.



Disoriented bees.


I am SO disappointed this picture is blurry! I couldn't see what I was shooting through the veil, so I had to just point and guess.


Pouring in the sugar water - their food source until they get up on their feet and there is more nectar available to them.


All done! They buzzed around for about 20 minutes, then calmed down.


We weren't sure how many boxes to put on, so we put two in. Then we found out there should only be one. So we suited up again to take it off, but the top section has a big flat feeder filled with a gallon of sugar water. Some of this dumped all over into the hive when Aaron lifted it. Argh! I think it was okay, but it was just frustrating learning as we went. We also are worried about the queen - we looked for her as we went, but it's hard to find her. The drones are also large, and we are inexperienced. At the very end we saw a large bee that had been smashed - I went to take a picture of her, but she went down into the frames before I could. We have to wait a week to find out if our queen was killed :( Chances are that she didn't and we are being paranoid, but again we are dealing with a learning curve here.

OH - I'm sure some of you are wondering if we got stung. Aaron did get stung once on his palm through his glove because she got pinched. Other than that, no stings!

My Seed Addiction

The first step in any addiction is admitting you have a problem. I think I am stabilized now, but for a while there I couldn't even enter a garden section without buying something. I took a trip down to the Territorial Seed store - did you even know they had one?? It was pretty small, but adequate. They sell all the seeds that are in the catalog, plus they have a green house. I bet they had 25 or so different tomato starts, different kinds of peppers, tomatillos, cabbage, etc. They also have a good selection of nice gardening and composting books along with some gardening supplies.


I tried to be very selective and only get what I NEEDED. I also got four red cabbage starts, which are now happily growing in the garden!


The highlight of the day by far was finding 5 color silverbeet seeds from Abundant Life (also based in Cottage Grove, their seeds were sold at Territorial and also at a nursery on Hwy 99 just south of Corvallis). Look how beautiful they are!


Territorial is my favorite seed company because of their selection, quality and because their seeds are specifically grown for this area. I have bought cheap seeds in the past only to be disappointed. Many of them don't germinate, and those that do never seem to flourish. Another brand I just stumbled upon this March when Aaron and I went to California is Renee's Garden. We were in this middle of no where town called Felton when we stopped in a natural food store to get a few things. I got some of these and some of these and when I got home I realized they are actually from Felton! Apparently my mom really likes these as well, I found a store in Corvallis that carries almost 200 different kinds of their seed packets. The really cool thing about the ones that I got is that there are 3 kinds of seed in each packet that are dyed so you can tell what you are planting. Genius!

Last spring some of my starts didn't do that well. The room that is sunny and open is also still very cold in February/March when I am starting seeds. Sooo I got this:

And it is awesome! I can heat two flats at a time and my seedlings were up in less than 3 days when it normally takes 7-10. I think my peppers might actually do something this year - if they don't I'm just going to starts next year they are so slow growing.
Happy gardening everyone!

Something's Buzzing Around Here

There is something very exciting brewing around here (besides Aaron's beer). I'll give you a clue:

Oil Spill

Hearing about the latest oil spill literally makes me feel sick. What can you do about it sitting at home 3,000 miles away? I know I feel helpless. This website takes hair donations (they prefer large donations) to make mats to soak up the oil. After the oil is absorbed they release a microbe to break the oil down and the by product is fertilizer. Tell your hair dresser, teacher friends, etc. Anyone who may be able to round up large amounts of hair or fur. It's a little thing in the grand scheme of things, but sometimes little things add up to big things :)

Rich

Last week my good friend Rich passed away due to complications with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. We were lucky enough to be able to visit him in the hospital just before he was headed home to be on hospice. Even though it was difficult for him to speak and difficult for us to hear him with his oxygen mask on, he talked to us for 45 minutes. He still had his sharp sense of humor and knew what was going on. I've never lost anyone that I was close to. Saying good bye to him in the hospital, knowing that I would never see him again was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Rich passed away peacefully in his sleep two days later at home, surrounded by his loving family. The service was yesterday, and was very nice. His family (mother, step father, father, step mother and step sister) went to the front of the church and shared stories of his life and from his final days. It was reassuring to hear that he had been taken care of so well, not that I had doubted that he would be, but I couldn't get the image of him laying in the hospital bed all alone as we left out of my head.
Once at home, he had Alia (his step sister) make a sign that said "You're Fired", and anyone that became excessively weepy or depressed at his side got the sign. At one point during the service one of the speakers began to break down crying and someone from the audience yelled "You're fired!", lightening the mood and getting everyone laughing.
The day before he passed away, one of the hospice nurses was getting him ready to shower, an exhausting process for him. His mother was in the other room doing laundry when the nurse came to her and said, "Rich needs you". She rushed to the other end of the house, thinking something was wrong and when she got there he sang to her, "I just called...to say I love you..." He stayed true to himself until the very end.
The church was packed with 4-500 people. He touched so many people with his upbeat attitude, his sense of humor and his loyalty.

Some things I want to remember about Rich:

• He almost always wore a suit
• He loved NYC and spent 3 summers there on his own
• He always remembered birthdays and he would call and sing to you on your special day
• He loved to play the piano
• He had traditions with so many people, I didn't really realize this until the service. I knew that we had things we always did together, but he had a lot of friends he kept up with regularly and they all had a special restaurant, an event they attended together, or a certain food they ate on certain days.
  
• He generally either loved you or didn't care for you much at all. Either way you knew it.
• He adored his mother
• He had expensive tastes and was a classy guy
• He loved Hugh Grant
• He loved his hair

Of course there are so many things that I wish I could ask him now. Even little things that don't really matter, but only he knows the answer to. And there are things I wish I remembered better, or had listened to more carefully. I wish I had taken more time for him in my rush to get through school. I think all of these things are normal, but all in all I'm thankful that I got to see him one last time. That I got to tell him how much I loved him. That he didn't suffer long. That he lived a relatively independent life until the end. My heart hurts and I miss him terribly, but I do know that he is in a better place now. Love you Richie.



Here is an old post with Rich in it.