True Romance

Mead. The word evokes romantic connotations in my mind, but honestly, I did not know exactly what it was until last week. I did know that it is a drink, and an ancient one. I did know that it plays an important part in literature. After all, where would Beowulf be without the Mead hall?

Now, I also know that it is the ideal homesteader's wine, made from fermented honey, sometimes called honey wine. It is simple to make and offers endless flavor variations, not to mention health benefits. Does that not sound marvelous? I have dutifully added it to the long list of things to try when we finally get our bees established. By that time we will be well-practiced cheese makers, and we shall picnic in the hayfield, savoring fresh blackberries, raw-milk cheese, and mellow Mead. . .

I was surprised to find that Mead is gaining popularity. I found YouTube videos on how to make it, and Mother Earth News just featured it in this article.

In my research into its history, I saw several mentions of its possible use in wedding customs. About.com sums it up this way:

"In Celtic cultures, Mead was believed to enhance virility and fertility, while also contributing supposed aphrodisiac qualities. As a result, Mead quickly found its way into Irish wedding ceremonies. In fact, the term “honeymoon” is believed to have stemmed from the Irish tradition of newlyweds drinking honey wine everyday for one full moon (a month) after their weddings."

What a great wedding custom! If the goal is to promote fertility, this makes a whole lot more sense than throwing rice at the newlyweds. I wonder if there is a wedding registry with "A Month of Mead" as a gift choice?

Advent in the Bee Hive Too

Our bees are gone.

I have been dreading telling you this bad news, but moths got in our bee hive, filling it with nasty webby stuff, creepy cardboardy egg/nest thingies, and loathsome charcoal-colored grainy residue. It happened several months ago. When we saw it, we got so discouraged, we never went back.

Now it is Advent, and suddenly I am longing to clean the bee hive and get a fresh start. Maybe it's from thinking about John the Baptist living off locusts and wild honey. Maybe it's the whole idea of cleansing my soul of moths and nasty webby stuff to prepare for the coming of the Lord. I don't know, but I am filled with happy anticipation about the work to be done. I am hopeful, not discouraged.

After all, there is so much to look forward to in Bethlehem and in the bee-loud glade. The Prince of Peace is coming, dropping from the veils of the morning to where the angels sing.



On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry

On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
announces that the Lord is nigh;
awake and hearken, for he brings
glad tidings of the King of kings.

Then cleansed be every breast from sin;
make straight the way for God within,
prepare we in our hearts a home
where such a mighty Guest may come.

For thou art our salvation, Lord,
our refuge and our great reward;
without thy grace we waste away
like flowers that wither and decay.

To heal the sick stretch out thine hand,
and bid the fallen sinner stand;
shine forth and let thy light restore
earth's own true loveliness once more.

All praise, eternal Son, to thee,
whose advent doth thy people free;
whom with the Father we adore
and Holy Ghost for evermore.

--from the Oremus Hymnal

Sweetness and Light: Understanding Agave, HFCS, and Year-Round "Honey"

I started using Agave "nectar" earlier this year when I got serious about avoiding artificial sweeteners, refined white sugar, and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Once we had our own honey supply, I quit using Agave. Shortly after I did this, I read two articles that explained how Agave is a fraud as far as natural sweeteners go; it is not a true nectar, and it does not necessarily have a low-glycemic index. Read more here.

DON'T FEED THE BEES

This article in Nourishing Traditions explains why you should avoid HFCS and agave. Furthermore, it says that honey "whether USDA-certified or not, in various grades, is only produced in the mid spring to late summer, when the biological materials are readily available for bees to digest, convert and regurgitate."

Honey production the rest of the year comes from "feeding bees refined sucrose or refined crystallized or liquid HFCS during the months when pollen and nectar are not available. The bees then run the sweetener through their digestive tracts. The resulting product is labeled as honey but it may not have the same quality as natural honey. Higher levels of refined fructose in honey cause accelerated Maillard browning reactions when heated above 140 degrees F."

I don't see how honey produced from feeding bees sugar could help with allergies. That comes from them feeding on pollen. So it does seem to me that sugar-fed bees produce a different product from those that gather nectar and pollen from plants.

After three days eating our honey, Emma, who measures her sinus congestion by how far up the piano keyboard she can sing, added three notes to her range. So we will add hives until we are able to harvest enough honey to meet our yearly needs. Until then, we will supplement by purchasing raw honey from local beekeepers who do not feed their bees.

Great News for Houston-Area Beekeepers

Wabash Antiques and Feed Store on Washington Avenue in Houston is carrying a full line of Dadant Beekeeping Supplies, even brooders and supers. The general manager, who is a beekeeper himself and a member of the Houston Beekeepers Association, says that the store sends its own truck to Dadant to retrieve them. This is a great plus for the home beekeeper, because commercial orders are filled first by Dadant. This means that a small order could take 4-6 weeks to be filled, as it was in our case, and can also come with a hefty shipping fee if you are ordering a "get-started kit". The retail price at Wabash is slightly higher but there is an overall savings because of the shipping. Plus you get invaluable beekeeping advice.

The other good news is that the manager told me that the bee supplies are selling phenomenally well. The store initially placed an $8,000 order. In four months they have sold $100,000 worth. (All figures are wholesale).

I believe that people who would not normally consider a backyard hive will consider it when they happen upon all the supplies while visiting the store. I witnessed this yesterday when a dad got excited when he saw them and started asking questions. Unfortunately, his teenaged daughter quickly nipped his enthusiasm in the bud. You would have thought by her reaction that he wanted to start a tarantuala farm!

Checkin', Squeezin', and Eatin'

When Emma went to check on the bees the other day, she discovered ants were getting in the hive.

Nathaniel hunted up a trash-can lid to put under it, and Herb re-situated the hive in it.

Emma filled the lid with water. She said there aren't many bees inside, but the ones who are there are working. We still need to get another box to go under the one we have. To save time, we're going to go to a commercial beekeeper and see if we can buy one.

Though we're not making much progress toward living in "the bee-loud glade", we're enjoying squeezing the honeycomb. . .


and eating the honey. I've been making pancakes using a recipe that Pleasant Hill Grain sent me with my Bosch Universal mixer. I love it because you put the whole wheat berries right in your blender with the milk and process for four minutes before you add your other ingredients. Don't try this unless you have a Bosch or an equally-powerful blender. You get to eat the wheat before it's had any time to lose nutrients from being ground! I've been adding an extra egg and a handful of oats, making a pretty nutrient-dense pancake. No one can usually eat more than two. Of course, part of that is because I always serve them with some scrambled eggs from our dear hens.

A Heap o' Sun and Shadder

Thursday morning, after we robbed the bees, Mr. Keenon, Ryan, and I were sitting around a table in my backyard visiting. Emma and the Keenon sisters were sitting on the grass nearby while Emma showed them how her miniature loom works. Nathaniel had gone inside to get ready for work.

It was very peaceful. I was still on this kind of high from the excitement and wonder of our time with the bees. I saw our experience in a kind of golden glow--we had sucked the marrow of life, nourished the vital spark, approached the Light through our close encounter with His handiwork.

Then, one of the Keenon girls spotted a possum, and Emma ran inside to get Nathaniel to shoot it. This is normally the way we deal with possums, but Herb is always home when we do, because possums come out at night.

I was still deliberating over whether to have Nathaniel shoot the possum, when I realized that the girls had treed it; Nathaniel had appeared wielding a crowbar, and Ryan was shinnying up the tree armed with what looked like an old wooden shovel handle. Clearly, the teenagers believed in action and had taken the matter into their own hands.

Vastly relieved that I didn't have to make any gun decisions without my husband, I joined the circle around the tree.

Po' lil' possum!

Ryan shook the branches and swiped at the possum with the tool handle. I don't know which measure finally effected the possum's fall, but it dropped on the ground in front of Nathaniel, and he gave it a mighty whack with the crowbar.

I shivered.

I hated that he had to die, but he did. Possums are horrible predators of chickens, and they don't even eat them. They just kill them and leave a bloody mess. Plus, I was worried about the reason this possum was out in broad daylight. Did it have rabies?

Because of this fear of rabies, we decided to burn the body. Nathaniel carried the possum by the tail, trailing blood, to one of our burn sites. He laid it down, and everybody piled sticks, leaves, and hay on top of it, followed by a "tee-pee" of small firewood. Mr. Keenon lit the straw. Five teenagers, Mr. Keenon, and I stood in a circle around the funeral pyre, waiting to make sure the fire started.

Although I was sure that we were doing the right thing, as I looked around the circle, I couldn't help thinking that this was really odd and that we should be making s'mores instead, singing blithely.

I didn't want our golden morning with the bees to have this dark shadow of possum murder cast over it.

But it did, and I have been bothered off and on since then with the odd feeling it gave me. Yesterday, the first verse of an Edgar Guest poem sprang into my head:

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,
A heap o' sun and shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam
Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye lef' behind,
An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind.
It don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be,
How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped round everything."

Though there is nothing mentioned of possums in this simple poem, the theme is that it is the combination of the good and bad things experienced together at home that makes home so dear.

And so the killing of a possum on a summer's morning plays its part in that. It is no less a thing than robbing the bees. Both events will become part of the "heap o' sun and shadder" in my memory. May God help me to embrace it all.

Harvesting the Golden Treasure of Our Bee Pastures

"We are getting near," said Gandalf. "We are on the edge of his bee-pastures." --J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, as quoted on page 47 of First Lessons in Beekeeping by Keith S. Delaplane


We all vibrated with excitement yesterday as we gathered around the bee man on the side of my parent's house. It was about 6:30 a.m. The plan was to remove a feral hive of bees, steal their honey, re-locate the bees to a box hive, and have a lot of fun. The plan was accomplished.

Lighting the smoker. It's stuffed with a piece of old denim.

Smoking the girls. It didn't calm them down a bit.

Finding the bees. We lucked out. They were right there under the house, not up in the wall.

Mr. Keenon gives Nathaniel instructions for working with the bees.

Nathaniel gets assistance from Emma in tying a knot for the headgear as he warns me not to take pictures of him.

Nathaniel and Ryan prepare to meet their destiny.

Mr. Keenon presents the girls with the first chunk of honeycomb.

Dividing up the delicious golden treasure.

They consumed it right speedily, though it presented a dreadful etiquette dilemma when it was time to spit out the wax.

Isn't it lovely?

Ryan passes Nathaniel a large piece of honeycomb.

Mr. Keenon points out the queen cells on the edge of the comb.

Ahh, the succulent beebread, sweet, with a slight hint of citrus.

The hive that Emma built is being filled with honeycomb and bees. It appeared that the hive had swarmed recently, so there weren't nearly the number of bees that we were expecting. Mr. Keenon said that it might not be enough to make a successful hive.

Nathaniel threatens me with a glare because I am taking too many pictures of him, but I bee not afraid.

I think Emma may be sampling the dark comb with last year's honey.

Time to clean up. Honey had drizzled all over Ryan as he lay under the hive, and he got stung 13 times. I was really surprised that the smoke did not calm the bees more. I have a theory, though, that since they appear to be Italian bees, they are most likely Catholic--which means that if we had incensed them instead of smoking them, they probably would have gotten down on their knees and prayed, rendering them amiable instead of angry.

Nathaniel gets help removing the gloves, which he borrowed from Mr. Keenon after he got stung through the ones that came with our bee kit.

After we brought the harvest into the kitchen, Emma picked off the remaining bees, put them in a jar, and returned them to the new hive. Mr. Keenon told Emma not to move the hive more than ten feet a day away from the bees' original home.

Poor Emma! She didn't have time to shower before ballet and realized as she tried to brush her hair in the car that it was dotted with honey where bees had landed.

Today we will squeeze the honey out of the combs, filter it, and put it up in jars. We'll save the wax to make candles!

The Bee Man Cometh

I find it terribly embarrassing that we have still not completed the bee hive project that we started more than a year ago, but maybe our difficulties will prove inspirational for some.

To recap, back in January, Herb found some more of the nails that Emma needed to finish putting the frames together. She finally got to it a couple of weeks ago when Herb was home sick with the flu. It's always inspiring to have dad home, just in case you need project guidance!

Then she sprayed on another coat of paint, and I called Mr. Keenon, our county's bee expert and a member of our homeschool group. He came out yesterday with his wife and daughters and looked at my mom and dad's bee infestation on the north end of their home. He told us that he gets some of his best bees from our area. They originate from a feral hive under a mobile home nearby.

He recommended that we place the hive under a pecan tree in the backyard, facing east, adding that it's good for it to be close, so that you can check on it regularly. I saw Emma's face light up. Those bees will never have a moment's privacy.

He is coming back Thursday morning, at the crack of dawn, with his two daughters and Nathaniel's friend, Ryan, who has helped Mr. Keenon before with bee removal. Throw Nathaniel and Emma into the mix, and it ought to be quite a party! Maybe I'll have a loaf of bread ready to come out of the oven, and we can slather it with fresh honey.

What I Hate About My Blog

I hate looking back and reading about projects that were actually underway and realizing that they were never completed. Ugh!

On the top of my ugh! list is the beehive. Emma was almost finished with it when she ran out of the little finishing nails. She asked her dad to get her some more. Every time he tried, the bin at the hardware store would be empty. He tried several stores. None. Then she went to camp; we had a couple of hurricanes, and we all just kind of forgot about the beehive.

The other day I remembered it and asked Herb to check again for the nails. The bin was still empty, but he looked in the picture-hanging supplies and found a package of the precious nails. Yippee! We'll be back in the beehive saddle again.

Building the Bee Hive at Last

A week and a half ago we returned from the 4-H Fashion Show just in time to receive the long-awaited Honey of a Hobby beginner bee kit. I had been counting on Nathaniel to put it together, but something else arrived on the UPS truck with the bee kit. . .new golf clubs. Golf won over bees, and Emma stepped in to take up the slack.

First, though, dear husband tried on the hat and gloves.


He helped Emma get the tools that she would need and supervised her first frame-building.

After that she took off. First she marked drill spots with pencil.
Then she drilled the holes
and glued the pieces together,
being careful to wipe off the excess glue.

Next she nailed the pieces together.

She did call her daddy at work for tech support one time.

Working diligently, she got proficient in the steps needed and had about five frames done when we had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Haught. Magically, hive-building became a multi-generational affair.

On the downside, now there was lots of free advice. After that Emma couldn't hammer a nail straight.

So Nathaniel joined the project.

Even Grandpa Haught succumbed to the lure of building the bee hive.

Now Emma is painting the box. We can check off some more things on Mr. Burger's list.

I Bee Happy: My Bee Kit Arrives Thursday

http://inhaughtpursuit.blogspot.com/2008/06/restore-christendom-order-your-bee-kit.html

Now what do I do to prepare? Follow Mr. Burger's list!

Mr. Burger is a Houston bee expert. I found him through Leisure Learning. He offers a one-day beekeeping class. From there I went on to find his website. He has lots of good information, including the list I copied below. It looks like I can schedule the bee removal from my parents' house for four weeks from Thursday.

Oh, boy! I get to check off the first one on the list.

Getting Ready for Your Bees
compiled by Donald Burger, Attorney at Law
http://www.burger.com/beeindex.htm

Four weeks before bee pick up:

_____ Order hives and equipment.

_____ Buy two bags of Quikrete and a mixing tray for same.

_____ Buy two 2 x 4's for foundation frames.

_____ Buy lattice materials for beeyard fence

_____ Buy at least four foam paint brushes (two inch size) to paint hives.

_____ Buy a two inch nylon paintbrush for feeding package bees.

_____ Buy the paint for your hives.

_____ Build and paint hives.

_____ Glue and nail the frames.

_____ Begin to think about decision about surface of beeyard: grass or mulch.

Two to three weeks before bee pick up:

_____ Pour concrete foundations for hives.

_____ Fence in the beeyard.

_____ Make final decision about surface of beeyard: grass or mulch.

_____ Buy and spread the mulch for beeyard

_____ Finish up building and painting hives.

_____ Finish up gluing and nailing the frames.

One week before bee pick up:

_____ Place hive stand, Rossman SHB trap, one deep, inner cover, telescoping cover, Boardman feeder with empty jar and fully closed entrance reducer in the beeyard at its permanent location.

_____ Practice lighting smoker.

One day before bee pick up:

_____ Make up two gallons of 1:1 sugar syrup and bottle in one quart jars.

Just before leaving to pick up bees:

_____ Bring receipt or confirmation as to bee order.

_____ Bring clean nylon brush to brush off stray bees.

_____ Bring newspaper-lined cardboard box(es) of sufficient size to hold the package(s).

Things to take with you to the beeyard to hive your bees:

_____ Small pen knife.

_____ Ice pick or small nail for queen candy.

_____ Jar of 1:1 sugar syrup with Boardman jar lid in place.

_____ Package of bees.

Last revised March 12, 2008

mail comments to burger@burger.com

Essential Oils and the Varroa Mite

In researching local bee organizations, I stumbled across information on experiments that used essential oils like wintergreen, spearmint, tea tree, and patchouli to combat varroa mites in bee hives. The varroa mite problem is one of the main reasons I didn't start beekeeping several years ago.

So I was really excited to learn about the essential oils remedy. We use tea tree oil a lot on ourselves. Most recently we tried it on Emma's thumb when she got stung by a bee. She was trying to get a picture of the pollen sacks on the bees' legs. They did not want to be photographed. Anyway, tea tree oil didn't help in this case. Neither did holding a penny on it. She read that toothpaste would help, but she never tried it.

The essential oils treatment works by feeding the bees a sugar syrup with the right essential oil. It is left at the entrance to the hive and is eventually passed on to the larvae by the nurse bees. It doesn't hurt the bees, but it disrupts reproduction in the mites.

There is another method whereby the mites are killed by direct contact with the oil. I didn't read up on how that is done.

Some researchers at West Virginia University came up with their own essential oil mixture to feed the bees. They used lecithin as an emulsifier to mix the essential oils thoroughly with the sugar syrup. If the oil is not mixed well, it can kill the bees. They determined that spearmint worked really well in reducing parasitic mite sydrome, but the bees didn't find it tasty. Experimenting further, they hit upon adding lemongrass oil to the oil of spearmint and syrup. I'm guessing the lemongrass oil masks the spearmint flavor. Their recipe is called Honey-B-Healthy. Here's a link to the information. http://www.wvu.edu/~agexten/varroa/honeyBhlth.htm

For more information on the Varroa mite, here's the entry from Wikipedia:

Varroa destructor can only replicate in a honey bee colony. It attaches at the body of the bee and weakens the bee by sucking hemolymph. In this process the mite spreads RNA viruses like Deformed Wing Virus to the bee. A significant mite infestation will lead to the death of a honey bee colony, usually in the late autumn through early spring. The Varroa mite is the parasite with the most pronounced economic impact on the beekeeping industry. It may be a contributing factor to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) which is threatening hives throughout North America.






I have never done much research into using essential oils for human healthcare, but this information on how it is helping the bees prompts me to start.

Restore Christendom; Order Your Bee Kit Today

Last Friday, I ordered Dadant's M58101 HONEY OF A HOBBY BEGINNER KIT NO 1, (for background, read http://inhaughtpursuit.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-dream-of-hidden-treasure.html) which "contains everything necessary for the beginner to start that first colony of bees except the bees themselves".

I received this response via e-mail: "Due to an increase in seasonal orders, we are experiencing longer than normal shipping time for our orders."

O happy day! May bees increase and prosper. May flowers bloom, pollen proliferate, and honey flow thick and heavy. May we learn God's order, understand his plan, and restore Christendom.

Whew! I feel better now. Just had to get that off my chest. In the meantime, you may want to read Robbing the Bees by Holley Bishop. It tells about bees in a charming story format. I tried the "textbook" approach and was bored, bored, bored. Robbing the Bees is delightful.

Here's what I'll get in my Dadant kit.

Hobby Kit No. 1 . Unassembled. Bees not included. • 1 - standard beehive • 1 - all purpose hive tool • 1 - reversible entrance reducer • 1 - bee smoker to calm bees • 10 - 9 1/8'' wedge top bar frames • 1 - protective bee veil • 10 - sheets plastic based foundation (Plasticell or Duragilt) • 1 - pair sting resistant gloves • 1 - book First Lessons in Beekeeping • 1 - assembly instructions As your colony grows we recommend the Hobby Kit #2 for the additional items needed to produce and package a honey crop. Ship Wt 39 lbs.

I Dream of Hidden Treasure

My Mom and Dad have a bee problem. The bees are flying under the house and crawling up the side of a pipe that serves as an air intake for their fireplace. It appears that they are inside the wall, behind the fireplace. It's hard to mow and weedeat in the yard on that side of the house because of the heavy bee traffic. Nathaniel and I have gone over to observe several times, and the home-focused bees actually bump into us. It's an odd sensation.

This is the second time that my parents have had this problem. The first time they called an exterminator. Since then they have become concerned about the ongoing threat to the honeybee populations, and they decided that they would like to have the bees removed this time instead of exterminated. I found out that a gentleman in our homeschool group is our county's bee expert, so I called him to inquire about his removal services.

He told me that he had an extra bee suit and that he could teach Nathaniel everything he needed to know to get our own hive going.

It is really too bad that you can't hug people over the phone.

He asked me whether the exterminator had removed the honey or just killed the bees. For some reason it had never occurred to me that there was a hidden cache of honey, liquid gold, inside the walls of my parents' home. This revelation kindled a little flame of pure greed in my soul: It would be nice to have that honey; I want that honey; I MUST have that honey.

At odd hours a little picture of the hidden honey treasure flashes into my brain, re-directing my thoughts into a sweet detour where I ponder such things as the nuances of flavor that these bees transport back to the hidden hive. Blackberry and Dandelion? How would that compare to Tupelo, Clover, or that favorite of the Greeks, Thyme?

Would I look fat(ter) in a bee suit?

How much mess will Emma make when she starts producing beeswax candles? That thought gives me true pause as I remember Emma reading me a story just two days ago from one of her Threads magazines about using wax to batik fabric. I sense danger on every side.

Oddly, Herb brought me back a new honey dispenser last week from his trip to San Antonio. The book I requested two weeks ago, Gregor Mendel's Experiments on Plant Hybrids: A Guided Study came in this week, and it said that Mendel not only experimented with peas, he also hybridized bees and had a beehouse built behind the monastery. He loved bees so much that he had a barren hilly area planted with flowers for them. He had a beehive painted on the ceiling of the monastery's Great Chapter Hall.

I think of the similarities between a monastery and a beehive. I see them as part of God's plan. I see the good, the true, and the beautiful.

I contrast this thought with the fact that bees are actually extinct in parts of China from pesticide use. All pollination is done by hand. The Communists believe man is God.

Save the bees!