merry everything!

I wish I could go on and on about how special the holidays are but in reality it stresses me out to the max! I usually make all my gifts, and I am a natural born procrastinator and I like to take on many overambitious projects just to make life interesting! this is why it has been a little while since my last post. My family and I went to Boston for Christmas eve and saw the Nutcracker, it was the most spectacular show I have ever seen. Ballerinas dressed up in elaborate costumes with glimmering tutus and fancy updo's and shoes laced tightly, I was in awe. After we saw the show, we decided to do a little window shopping in china town ( my favorite place to shop in Boston) My brother and I discovered this great Chinese herb shop, where I found this great tincture it is ginseng and royal jelly ( a super protein secreted by female bees and fed to larve during the first stages of development, however the queen is fed exclusively royal jelly which helps her fully sexually mature and grow bigger than her worker bees) I couldn't believe it only cost four dollars!!!

my grandmother the bee queen

This is my grandmother I have her to thank for my love and curiosity of these little creatures isn't she beautiful! she is holding my father as a newborn and my aunt peggie is playing with her new brother.  As you can see bees respond to her lovingly.

swarm cells

http://www.beginningbeekeeping.com/SwarmingHoneyBees.html 

I found this great picture of swarm cells today There are 7 cells in this image! 

When the colony begins to feel like their home is becoming overpopulated the workers begin to create these swarm cells ( for a new queen) so essentially they are waiting for the cells to emerge a virgin queen, if there is more than one virgin they will battle to the death until there is only one left to rule, however just before this occurs the old queen will flee the hive taking with her a SWARM of her most loyal attendants and they will leave in search of a new home together. This tends to happen in the beginning of May. Hopefully if this is your hive that swarms you can find and catch the swarm and acclimate it with a new unoccupied hive, because before these bees swarm they first fill their little bellies full of nectar to prepare. And when bees have bellies full of nectar, it means they are ready to draw lots of comb, which they secrete from a series glands on their abdomens. And this is why it is so great to start as a new beekeeper with a swarm as apposed to a package of bees ( who are all pissed of from their long journey, and malnourished) 

You might ask how do I find a swarm. If you feel like you don't have the time in your life to go hunting for swarms to catch there are other ways, for instance if you live in Maine, we have a swarm list you can sign up for through the Maine Beekeepers Association. So when someone finds a swarm in their yard and wants nothing to do with it, they call the town and the town calls the next person on the list. Its a Win Win!

 If the idea of catching a swarm of bees sounds frightening to you, there are always plenty of beekeepers who would love to help out!

Catch a Bee Swarm

I found this beautiful vase today made completly of beeswax it took over 40,000 bees to create!


“I have been interested in contradicting the current consumer society (which is interested in slick design) by choosing to work with a seemingly very vulnerable and ephemeral material – beeswax.
To give a form to this natural product it has occurred more than logical to choose a form of a vase as a cultural artifact. Beeswax comes from flowers and in the form of a vase ends up serving flowers on their last journey."

http://www.dezeen.com/2007/04/19/studio-libertiny-at-droog/

My lifes been sweetened with honey!

Couldn't be happier.....In a sugar coma heaven......Pure BLIZZzzZZZZzz.
    
      About a week ago I finally was able to borrow an extractor from an old boss who is a beekeeper. The extractor I borrowed from him was a hand crank operated spinner, and it held three frames at a time. as you can see in the photo it's a large piece of equipment. So I called my parents around 6pm and told them I was on my way with all the honey. They were both thrilled! (little did they know how messy and time consuming this project was about to be.) So I showed up with one honey shallow one extractor and a bucket.

          Ideally if you had all the snazzy tools that all the beekeeping books tell you to have, you would also be prepared with a heated knife tool however that's hogwash, your should always be resourceful all that fancy equipment will cost you a fortune and lets face it this is an expensive hobby, and one we do for the love of the bees. long story short i used a fork and scored the wax capping (over the basin) you can score both sides before placing your frames in the extractor however i've found its much less messy if you do one side at a time facing the scored side facing outward.
     
              Once you have three frames in your spinner....... Well? Start spinning! This is the fun part,at first anyway then your arm starts to go numb so get helpers. Make a party out of it. Get a bottle of mead cheese and crackers people will come!

            You'll know when you've drained the honey from your frames they'll still glisten but the honey wont pool up.Score the other side and repeat the spinning. Caution don't try and be Hercules with this. My dad thought he'd show off to us all by torquing on it so fast i thought it would start hovering. When I finally got him to stop so we could take a look , the other side was begin to sort of implode due to cylindrical force. It was pretty funny to watch though .

            So as you're spinning the honey and wax capping begins to pool in the bottom of the basin. This is where you need a clean bucket! place under then honey gate and here we go!! YUMMY I couldn't wait I stuck my finger in the sticky stream of honey it was tangy like citrus!