Friday 6 July 2012
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Stingers!
Today, I was surrounded by things that were just waiting to prick, stab, and sting me. It was pretty exciting!
This morning, discovered that violently ripping stinging nettle plants out of the berry garden is very cathartic. They seem to represent everything mean and nasty and painful in the farm microcosm, but donning a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves I went on the offensive in this weed battle. Unfortunately, while I was protected from the nasty prick of the nettle (which injects formic acid as a poison), my hair, jacket, jeans, and skin were snagged by thorny currant, gooseberry, raspberry, and blackberry bushes. Ouch!
Towards the end of my weed-thrashing session, I heard an ominous buzzing and looked up to see one of the beehives here swarming! It is truly a magnificent sight and beautiful sound that descends with a swarming herd of bees. It's soothing too - the bees are busy sniffing out their new queen and trying to set up a new colony so they are perfectly oblivious to people standing around watching. Swarms are also a golden opportunity to snatch up a queen and her posse in our own hive box and let them make honey for us!
The tricky part of the process is transferring the swarm - especially the queen bee - into the box and hoping they like it in their new home. Today, the swarm had converged on some currant branches on opposite sides of some netting making the situation a bit complicated. This afternoon, we tried two strategies:
1. We set up the hive - which stands on four legs a few feet off the ground - near the net and then wedged a wooden board from the hive "doors" (two holes in the box) to the ground under the swarm. We cut off a few currant branches and dumped the bees riding along into the box, then brushed many of them onto the ground near the board. Bees are remarkable creatures. Give them something to climb and a possible reward at the top and they parade up in a massive stampede. Exciting - yes. Effective - in this case, no. Apparently we left the queen behind on the bush so they marched up and then turned around and flew back toward her pheromones.
2. Attempt #2 involved bending the branches of the bush with the largest clump of bees over the hive (with legs removed) and shaking them off into the box. Then. we again set up the whole board arrangement again. It looks unlikely that we got the queen inside this time either because few of the bees could be bothered to climb up their ramp - most of them writhed and squirmed in a ball of yellow-black fuzz at the bottom. We left them to ponder a trip into the hive overnight - since it's raining hopefully they will find the prospect of a cozy, covered home appealing.
We are cruel, honey-greedy beekeepers here, so we took advantage of the forsaken hive to collect honey. A swarm occurs when a second queen in a colony attracts a body of followers and heads off to set up her rival castle elsewhere. The swarm today emerged from one of our existing hive boxes, which means that the box had been significantly depopulated. Perfect time for us to attack!
The hive boxes we use are V-shaped with a row of wooden slats on top from which the bees create their honeycomb. There is a "Queen excluder" slat, which prevents the big-busted queen (well, big-bummed queen) from accessing part of the hive but allows here minions to pass. In an ideal world, the bees would make straight, parallel lines of honeycomb along the wooden slats in a nice orderly fashion. Then, all the beekeeper has to do is lift up slats from the rear (away from the queen) and hack off a lovely, uniform chunk of honey-filled honeycomb. These bees, however, are more artistic - they make comb in all sorts of curvy shapes with varying thickness. I felt rather sad for this colony of bees. First, they lost many friends in the swarm, then giant monsters came in to fill heir home with smoke, steal their delicious food, and kill their brood (baby bees developing within honeycomb).
The feeling of pity was short-lived, forgotten as soon as I popped a piece of honey-laden honeycomb in my mouth. Delicious! We collected two very distinct types of honey today - which is totally dependent on the nectar available when the honey was produced. Honey from rape flowers (rape oil is considerately renamed canola oil in the US) is crystallized and more solid. It has a creamy, light yellow colour and fragrant sweetness. Honey from elderflowers (I think....) is much more fluid with a deep golden colour. This tasted more like the traditional honey from the store - with a rich, strong sweetness. The honeycomb filled with the crystallized honey was separated away for snacking - nature's candy! The other, more liquidlike honey was separated from the comb by mashing the comb and straining through a sieve to collect just the liquid honey without the wax.
I think it's interesting to explore the honey available in grocery stores in England - there are so many different varieties! In the US, stores usually sell clover honey and possibly orange blossom if they cater to a more gourmet clientele. Here, there are always several types of honey derived from a range of flora. And, if you need another reason to indulge in some liquid gold, some people believe that eating local honey helps your body recognize pollen and other allergens in the air without producing histamines. In other words, if you suffer from red-eyed runny-nosed allergies in the spring, treat yourself to some local honey!
This morning, discovered that violently ripping stinging nettle plants out of the berry garden is very cathartic. They seem to represent everything mean and nasty and painful in the farm microcosm, but donning a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves I went on the offensive in this weed battle. Unfortunately, while I was protected from the nasty prick of the nettle (which injects formic acid as a poison), my hair, jacket, jeans, and skin were snagged by thorny currant, gooseberry, raspberry, and blackberry bushes. Ouch! Towards the end of my weed-thrashing session, I heard an ominous buzzing and looked up to see one of the beehives here swarming! It is truly a magnificent sight and beautiful sound that descends with a swarming herd of bees. It's soothing too - the bees are busy sniffing out their new queen and trying to set up a new colony so they are perfectly oblivious to people standing around watching. Swarms are also a golden opportunity to snatch up a queen and her posse in our own hive box and let them make honey for us!
The tricky part of the process is transferring the swarm - especially the queen bee - into the box and hoping they like it in their new home. Today, the swarm had converged on some currant branches on opposite sides of some netting making the situation a bit complicated. This afternoon, we tried two strategies:
1. We set up the hive - which stands on four legs a few feet off the ground - near the net and then wedged a wooden board from the hive "doors" (two holes in the box) to the ground under the swarm. We cut off a few currant branches and dumped the bees riding along into the box, then brushed many of them onto the ground near the board. Bees are remarkable creatures. Give them something to climb and a possible reward at the top and they parade up in a massive stampede. Exciting - yes. Effective - in this case, no. Apparently we left the queen behind on the bush so they marched up and then turned around and flew back toward her pheromones.
2. Attempt #2 involved bending the branches of the bush with the largest clump of bees over the hive (with legs removed) and shaking them off into the box. Then. we again set up the whole board arrangement again. It looks unlikely that we got the queen inside this time either because few of the bees could be bothered to climb up their ramp - most of them writhed and squirmed in a ball of yellow-black fuzz at the bottom. We left them to ponder a trip into the hive overnight - since it's raining hopefully they will find the prospect of a cozy, covered home appealing.
 |
| Unfortunately, the swarm (that blob on the right) is having nothing to do with our hive box. |
The hive boxes we use are V-shaped with a row of wooden slats on top from which the bees create their honeycomb. There is a "Queen excluder" slat, which prevents the big-busted queen (well, big-bummed queen) from accessing part of the hive but allows here minions to pass. In an ideal world, the bees would make straight, parallel lines of honeycomb along the wooden slats in a nice orderly fashion. Then, all the beekeeper has to do is lift up slats from the rear (away from the queen) and hack off a lovely, uniform chunk of honey-filled honeycomb. These bees, however, are more artistic - they make comb in all sorts of curvy shapes with varying thickness. I felt rather sad for this colony of bees. First, they lost many friends in the swarm, then giant monsters came in to fill heir home with smoke, steal their delicious food, and kill their brood (baby bees developing within honeycomb).
 |
| Bee chain! |
The feeling of pity was short-lived, forgotten as soon as I popped a piece of honey-laden honeycomb in my mouth. Delicious! We collected two very distinct types of honey today - which is totally dependent on the nectar available when the honey was produced. Honey from rape flowers (rape oil is considerately renamed canola oil in the US) is crystallized and more solid. It has a creamy, light yellow colour and fragrant sweetness. Honey from elderflowers (I think....) is much more fluid with a deep golden colour. This tasted more like the traditional honey from the store - with a rich, strong sweetness. The honeycomb filled with the crystallized honey was separated away for snacking - nature's candy! The other, more liquidlike honey was separated from the comb by mashing the comb and straining through a sieve to collect just the liquid honey without the wax.
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| Honey! |
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| Empty honeycomb - perfect little hexagons! |
Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. - Lindley Karstens
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