Hidden Opportunities

We lost one of our hives early in December and since there's really nothing to do with it until things get warmer, I just covered the entrances and let it be.  But when my sister and her family came last week, I realized that a winter deadout is a fantastic hidden opportunity to teach people, especially kids, about bees.

First off, I knew for a fact the middle hive was a deadout because Lily and I had already opened it to make sure a few weeks ago.  We thought the nuc was a deadout too and had opened it only to find that not only was it alive, but defensive.   On this day, we left the nuc completely alone and opened only the hive I knew was already dead.

The day was cloudy and in the lower 50s.  We did see a couple of bees from the big hive come out for exercise.  I had the boys put their ears to the back of big live hive and then I knocked so they could hear the hum.  

Then we opened the deadout.  We showed them propolis and how the bees had sealed up all the cracks. 

We talked about how winter bees are all girl bees and how they kick the drones out when it gets cold but the queen lays more when it starts getting warmer.   We talked about how drones don't have stingers. 

The boys got to hold dead bees.   They thought that was really cool.  I showed them how fuzzy they are and where the stingers were and that an insect has three parts:  a head, thorax and abdomen.   

We showed them how the cluster was arranged like a ball in the hive and then we pulled out a frame with bees on it and show how they were arranged in the cells and over the cells to make the cluster.   We looked for the queen but couldn't find her.   We did see dead brood and showed them the capped brood under the bees.

Eric explained how when bees are born they start out as nurse bees, then progress to foragers and finally water carriers.  

I pulled out a frame of honey and cut some off so everyone could taste it.   The wax was crispy from the cold, but the honey was gooood.

We showed them the pollen stores and some unfinished nectar and the capped honey and a couple of places where the caps were shredded and honey must have been robbed out.  We talked about how bees make honey from nectar.

They wanted to know what killed the bees, so we talked about varroa and Eric pulled the bottom board so we could show them a few.   We talked about how a varroa on a bee is like a tick the size of your fist on you, passing on diseases like Deformed Wing Virus and that those things will weaken a hive so it won't make it through the winter.  

We talked about where the hive entrances are and how you stay in the back of the hive when you check things.   They asked tons of questions and it was one of those times when you can see learning happening.     I think from now on, whenever I have a deadout I'm going to make a point of inviting people over to look it over.   It's a great way to teach people about bees.

Sweet Feet

My adorable little K2 loves pink. 

She doesn't love to stand still so I can take a picture of her adorable pinkness. 

But once in a while, I catch a pic of our whirling, twirling little fairy in action.

This is she on her pink scooter, that she bought with her own money that she she worked for, with her fabu pink sparkly shoes that she found in perfect condition at Goodwill, no less.

I love her so much it takes my breath away.

It's a wrap!

but not the kind of wrap you can normally expect from me.  

Here's a link to my bit on the Weekly Special on fiber art that aired last night.   

And here's the page with the other bits on the fiber arts.

As a fun bit of luck, K1 and K2 appeared in the piece on the rooing day at Wee Sheep Farm - Pam is a friend of ours and we happened to be there helping that day.   And K2 is in the first part of the segment on me.    They deserve some limelight since they worked so hard taking all the photos for our piece on the behind the scenes action when The Weekly Special crew came out here. 

We're famous! Sort of...

This story was on the front page of our local paper today.  No, our kids names really aren't K1 and K2.  We're still negotiating the internet vs. privacy stuff.


PATHWAYS  - Herald Times, Bloomington, IN
Syrup from the fog
By Monty Howell 331-4380 | pathways@heraldt.com 
March 21, 2011

K1, 15, stirs maple sap, moving it along to the right in a maple syrup arch, as it simmers and boils down to becoming maple syrup at the end. This Greene County family pitched in with friends for 10 days of loading firewood and pouring sap into the homemade boiling system, or arch. K1 and her family netted 3 gallons for their time and trouble.

For 10 days, the Jenness family piled and split firewood to feed a homemade syrup arch. Boiling maple sap removes the water and fills the air with a sweet-smelling fog that warms the body in the cool night air, like no ordinary campfire can. The boiling usually ran the course of eight hours per day.

The cold nights and warming sun brought out the spring peepers in a chorus in front of their rural farmhouse near Newark.

The sap was flowing up the trunks of the maple trees as well. But this sap was carried here from about 20 miles away, from the Hinkle-Garton Farmstead on East 10th Street in Bloomington. Those trees delivered about 35 gallons per day during the best flow recently.

Making maple syrup takes time, heat, a lot of effort and about 43 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup. This was a good-weather day, without rain, and the firebox made enough heat to evaporate off about seven gallons per hour.

This was a group effort shared by K1, 15, sister K2, 12, father Eric and mother Robin Edmundson. The family had the aid of Michael Bell, who made the arch and gathered the raw maple sap.

Bell periodically drew up several ounces from the final stage using a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of the boiling sap. This indicates the sugar content of the final stage, which becomes syrup when it is 66 percent sugar. Sap normally flows at 2 percent sugar. The rest is mostly water.

This day had a campfire atmosphere near the back door of the busy household. K2 sat just out of the maple fog with a telescope, ready for the clear night sky. The sisters maintain a strict study routine at home, but their days can be broken up into real-life science experiments, such as how syrup is made.

The family enjoys knowing where their food comes from. They try to be as self- sufficient as practicality allows and grow much of their food at home. The family knows where this maple syrup was made and what went into making it. For their share of the work, they netted three gallons of dark amber syrup. They report its flavor is a 10 on a 0-to-10 scale, with 10 being the best possible.

Moving to the Country - more things to think about

 A friend of mine is contemplating a move to the country and asked me about the pros and cons.   So I sat down and made a list – in no particular order.  Forgive me if some of this seems obvious.   In the end, it’s not really about pros and cons, but about how much of country reality can you tolerate.   We and our neighbors tolerate this stuff pretty well – we just wish there were more hours in the day to get everything done.