To Feed or Not To Feed

27 May 2011

Bees At Work

After two weeks, we took a peek inside our hive boxes to see how our bees were doing. Both hives have started "drawing" comb. That is a good sign. It means that they have established some food sources and are making cells to manufacture and store honey. It is essential that the bees have sufficient honey stores before winter comes - that is what they will rely on to sustain them through the cold winter months. However,we were disappointed that they hadn't drawn the quantity of comb that we were expecting. I contacted our bee expert - Bill the Bee Guy and he advised installing an internal feeder to supplement them with a sugar water formula.

Cover and "ladder" for internal feeder

Feeder

The "ladder" inside the feeder is used by the bees to walk into the feeder without drowning. We installed the feeder and in a couple of weeks "we" will go back inside and see how they are doing.

My Beekeeper At Work

(notice he isn't wearing his bee suit or gloves???)

Getting Ready For Our Bees

08 May 2011

Preparing for the arrival of our bees required getting their new hive box ready. The large bottom box is called the "brooder" - this is where the queen lays her eggs. There are ten "frames" in this box for this purpose. Before eggs can be layed or honey produced, comb must be "drawn"on these frames. Many beekeepers use commercially manufactured comb cells to help the bees get started. We chose to let the bees begin their comb from scratch as they do in nature.

individual frame with rectangular cardboard inserted in frame

Melted bees wax is painted on rectangular pieces of cardboard that has been inserted in the frames.

melted bees wax

These frames are then put back in to the brood box. The queen bee will then lay her eggs in the newly formed cells. At the same time cells are being formed for the storage of honey which is food for the bees. When the bees have a surplus of honey then the beekeeper is able to harvest this excess - always making sure to leave sufficient supply for the bees.

close up of frame with "painted" beeswax

brooder box with frames in place

Finding God in Segovia

30 April 2011

There are many beautiful churches that we have seen in Spain. Some are a little worse for wear - but I can't imagine the cost involved of maintaining these enormous structures. The oldest we have been in so far is The Church of St. Martin in Segovia, dating from the 10th Century. This church has existed through conquest of Spain by Moors, the Crusades, wars with France, and Civil War. The Church of St. Martin still holds worship services here on a regular basis.

As I walked through the sanctuary, I tried to imagine the people that have come here over the years seeking hope, solace, calming fears and looking for God. They weren't any different from us. They prayed for safe return for husbands at war, sick or dying children, good crops and prosperous futures for themselves and their children.

Even if they could read or write, they didn't have access to the Scriptures. Their experience with meeting God was through hearing His Word during Mass and visualizing what Heaven, Salvation and Judgement were through the art and architecture they were surrounded with.

They weren't very different from us.

Charolais

06 April 2011 Some days we are favored with the site of these beautiful cattle on the property behind our house. There is nothing more exciting then looking out my kitchen window and seeing these cattle grazing. I had never seen this white breed of cattle and had to ask someone what they were called.

The breed traces its origins to southeastern France. Records dating to the year 871 A.D. mark the presence of this breed of cattle in the old French provences of Charolles and Nievre. They were selected for draft, milk and meat.

Following the First World War a Mexican industrialist, Jean Pugibet, imported two bulls and ten heifers to Mexico.

In 1936, the King Ranch in Texas bought two bulls "Neptune" and "Ortolan" from Pugibet. The bulls are large and can weigh from 2,000 to 2,500 pounds and cows from 1,250 to 2,000 pounds. They are stocky, well muscled.

The bull that I have seen, must be at least 2,000 pounds - he is as big as a truck! This season one of the cows had twin calves - they are a beautiful milky white. In doing some research, I found that twins born (open range) rarely both survive. The mother cow usually can't produce enough milk for both and can abandon the weaker of the two.

I hope they make it. They are so beautiful.

First Day of Spring - Two Days Later

23 March 2011

It was a snowy morning on Monday - and yet it was Spring. Annie the d.o.g. (she doesn't know she is a dog) and I decided to give the snow shoes some use and took off on a walk. The daffodils were covered by snow . . .

With 3 to 4 inches of snow - it truly is a "blanket" of quiet. The only sounds we heard was the snow lightly falling from the trees as we took our walk. Snow shoes force you to pace yourself as you take slow, purposeful steps - always looking ahead to where you will place your foot.

We've had six days of snow this winter - so we take advantage of these opportunities when we can.

The air was invigorating - and it was a great way to start the morning.

19 March 2011

"Of Sacred Bees, the Muses' Birds" Charles Butler

-Bees, beehives, honey bees, queen bees, wax, honey - if you care to follow this adventure with me. You read that right, just picked up the beginnings of two bee hives. If you've paid attention to the "bee" news in the last few years - you might have read about the threat to honey bee colonies that are dying due to a mysterious bacteria. Sometimes called, "colony collapse" - it has decimated bees across this country. Many people have taken up the challenge to start hives - thus genetically strengthening the bee population. On the plus side, your hive will produce honey for you as well as bee pollen, propolis, and beeswax (candles). All we need is to provide them a warm, safe place to live with access to water.

Picked up our bee hive boxes today along with a bee suit, hat, veil, gloves, smoker etc. As we get further along we will go through all of these one by one.

We have ordered our first two "starter" colonies, due for pick up in late April, early May. Stay tuned!

Baking Bread

6 November 2010

Baking bread sounds simple - the staple of life, right? Even though I enjoy baking cakes and cookies - successful bread baking has always eluded me. In my many blog travels I stumbled on a book entitled, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day". The pictures were beautiful and I thought "why not give it a try". I should digress to explain that I absolutely love bread - white bread, rye bread, squaw bread , challah bread, wheat bread and rolls, popovers, biscuits, muffins - you name it. The explanations seemed easy enough and since I don't like fear to dictate my life I had to give it a try. Of course I first had to enlist the help of my sister C. - We carefully measured out our ingredients and checked the temperature for the water as not to "kill" our yeast - mixed our dough per instructions - then we served ourselves margaritas and waited to see it our dough rise.

And - it did - rise that is. The technique for the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is to make a large batch of a wet sticky dough, store it in the refrigerator and pull out enough to make a loaf as needed. Our first try certainly looked good and the smell of warm, yeasty aromas coming from the oven was certainly irresistable - we couldn't wait to try it. Because we are at a higher elevation (4400') we also have to adjust baking times and temperatures whenever we bake.

My two loaves actually morphed together as you can see. I'm still working on the temperatures - they were slightly uncooked inside. The texture was good - and after toasting - butter and jam, it tasted good.

If you feel the urge to try baking bread - here is the link that got us started: http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/