Short but Sweet

The latest project...

... and of course, blogger is being difficult with the photo. It's the right way on my computer, but blogger thinks you should enjoy it sideways. Sorry guys. 

Anyhoo, this is the newest addition to the decor in Mara's room. She and GG painted the rocks, and they were just lying around so I decided to do something with them.  They're hot-glued to a piece of paper, and that piece of paper is hot-glued to the back of the frame.

The only problem- there's no glass, so the back is super wiggly in the frame.  I think I'm just going to duct tape it in the back and call it a day. 

Another potential problem- it's kind of heavy. You know, because... rocks. So here's hoping it stays in the wall!

Grandaddy and Bees

When I told my grandparents that we were getting bees, my Grandaddy told me that they used to keep bees when he was young.  He grew up on a farm near Heber Springs, AR.

This is what he told me... writing it down before I forget!

-When he was a toddler, he crawled through the hedge around the bee yard and got stung all over.  They covered him in sulfur molasses.  He said that they would have covered him in chewing tobacco, but nobody in the house chewed.

-His job was to light the smoker, which was a rag on a stick, and keep the bees off of his dad while he "robbed" the hives.  He said the he couldn't run if he got stung!

-His uncle died of a bee sting.  He was out working in his fields, got stung and couldn't get to help fast enough.  Grandaddy said he died of a heart attack because of the sting.

-His dad used to find new bees by going to the creek, finding some bees getting water and following them back to their hive.  It was usually a hollow tree.  Then they'd cut out the tree-hive and bring the bees to their bee yard and put them in a box-hive.

-They kept 8-10 hives at a time.

-When I showed him the picture of our hive in the back yard, he said, "Don't let 'em swarm!" And told me that I needed to get another box to put them in if they did.


It seems like almost everyone who had family who farmed back in the day kept bees.  Even myy neighbor was telling me that her father kept bees at their farm.

Answering Some Bee Questions, and Our First Sting

This one's for you, Gina E.!  :)

Some questions about the bees answered...

Where is the beekeeping yard now?  It's out at Two Rivers park right now.  Near the community gardens.  The gardeners are happy to have us, and our teacher is planning on making that his "teaching yard". We'll bring them home sometime this week.

Once you bring them home to your yard, they'll know their hive because of their pheromones, I'm assuming? They know their hive because of their pheromones, and because they will start establishing foraging patterns.  When they are moved, scout worker bees will fly out of the hive, realize that things are different, and start flying in ever-expanding circles around the hive.  They'll recognize landmarks around the hive and remember their way home. The scouts will return to the hive and let the rest of the workers know where things are, and how to get there, with the waggle dance. Click here for a little more information about scouts and the waggle dance. 
While they are doing this, we will be careful to keep feeding them sugar syrup so that they can keep drawing out the comb, laying brood and being happy bees.
Incidentally, we have learned that you need to move the hive less than three feet, or more than three miles, otherwise they get confused and fly home to where the hive WAS, because they recognize the landmarks.

Do you have to do anything with the city to tell them you have a beehive? Do they regulate that kind of thing? The state has laws and regulations about beekeeping.  We have to register our hive with the AR state plant board.  When we register, we are entitled to free apiary inspections.  In other words, if we have or suspect a problem, we can get a little help in solving it.  We also have to have our hive inspected if we ever want to give away our bees, or a part of our colony.  Click here for more info on how and why we have to register our bees.


 In other news, X was stung the other day- on his palm, right through his glove! I wasn't there, but the story I got was that he was holding a jar of bees while his teacher was demonstrating a method for counting varroa mites. He probably squished one accidentally, and she fought back a bit.

Also, we have assembled another hive body to add to the hive.  The brood that was first layed by the queen has hatched, and they are starting to fill in that comb with honey.  I really want to bring the hive home before we add that second story, because it'll be lighter and easier to move.


I don't know if anyone who reads this blog would be interested, but our instructor, Jon Zawislak, is planning on doing a three part evening seminar in the fall, covering everything we learned in our class. It'll be free to the public, and I'll update with more information when I get it.  Also, I'm going to give him my blog address, so he'll probably come on here and tell me everything I'm telling you that is wrong. :)

And... one more braggy thing... We were in another paper, this time with an article.  Click here!

Expanding Our Family

Not so much happening in the crafting department, and this is why... We've gone from a family of four, to a family of 20,006.  That's four humans, two puppies and approximately 20,000 bees.

The bees are doing quite well.  Xander picked a lively package! We've found our queen, marked her, and the bees are gathering pollen, nectar and raising brood. We've been feeding them sugar syrup to help them as they draw out the comb and build their foraging patterns. We'll be bringing them home soon, which will be... interesting. So far, Xander's favorite thing is lighting the smoker, which he does with a little skill and a lot of enthusiasm!

We also got puppies.  Oh yes, puppies.  Brother and sister.  Biggest and runt of their litter.  Named Appa and Momo, after the animal companions on our family's favorite cartoon, Avatar the Last Airbender. (not to be confused with the movie, which, though visually striking, stunk. Big time.)

Pictures! (some of these were taken by me, and some I got from the Cooperative Extension Service's Flikr. You can click here to see their whole set.)

Looking at the bee packages.  Each package contains about 10,000 worker bees, one queen in a queen cage, and a can of sugar syrup.

Bees in the package! That's RJ, Xander and Mara in the background.

Xander and his buddies.

Xander installing his bees. The queen is placed, in her cage, between two frames, and the workers are shaken into the hive. The workers will eat through some candy to free the queen, and by the time they've done that, they have accepted her as their queen.

Our hive after installation. Most of the bees have been shaken into the hive, and the rest are left to find their way. By the time we left that day, the workers were already carrying out dead bees (it happens!) and marking the hive with their pheromones.

The Beekeeping for Beeginners Beeyard.

Beekeeper.

Xander and his friend, working on a hive.

Marking the queen. Once you spot her, you can grab her by the wings and then hold her by the hind legs to mark her abdomen, or you can put her into this nifty thing that holds her gently while you mark her.

We were in the paper!

Xander is officially a beekeeper!

More puppies! They look so small in this picture!

Puppies! Appa is the small, spotted one, and Momo is the big, solid colored one.

Body Wash Update

The other week, I made body wash.

I couldn't wait to try it out, so that evening, sweaty and stinky from the gym, I poured some out into a cleaned out ketchup bottle. (Recycling! It was plastic- one of those with the lid on the bottom and a silicone vent thingy in the spout.)

Only it didn't pour nicely like I thought it would.

Some dribbled out, into the totally inadequate funnel. I had to pause to sort of push the soap through the funnel.  Then, I hefted that gallon jug of soap again, but it didn't pour.  I shook. I squeezed. I'm sure I did some damage to my wrist.  Finally, the soap sloped towards the opening and I tried scooping some out with my fingers. Only that glob that I scooped did not want to separate from the rest of the soap in the jug. I had to scrape it against the edge of the jug opening to get it out and into the funnel, where I had to push it through into the ketchup bottle.

It took me a good 10 minutes to get my bottle filled.  Heft, scoop, scrape, push. Heft, scoop, scrape, push. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally, my little ketchup bottle is full. Off to the shower!

Like any good hippy, I rinsed my hair with apple cider vinegar, scrubbed my face with baking soda and neglected to shave my pits.

Then I grabbed the body wash.

I squeezed a bit out onto my scrubbie. (ok, truthfully, in our house, we call it a pouffy thingy.  Which is not elegant or grown-up at all.)

The result: Lovely scent, more bubbles than I expected, squeaky clean feeling in the shower, soft skin after shower.

I've noticed, in subsequent showers, that the soap wants to gel back into one solid mass after being left to sit for a while. It helps to shake it up really well before using.

And now, for a more scientific approach to soap reviewing...

Pros: Vegan, organic, free trade body wash for cheap!
          I love DIY stuff
          Easy to make, once you've got the kinks worked out
          Skin feels super soft and moisturized
          Squeaky soap-cleaned feel in the shower (if you're into that)
          Makes more than a gallon of body wash (this version cost me about $7- two bars of soap plus a few tablespoons of the glycerine)
       
Cons: Trial and error method of making, depending on what kind of soap used
           Squeaky soap-cleaned feel in the shower (if you're not into that)
           Texture
           Difficult to manage- decanting and shaking and trying to separate portions
           Messy. If you're like me, it is a little bit of a messy process, what with the spilling and sloshing during the cooking and decanting phases. At least it cleans up easily, and leaves the place cleaner than before!

Tips:
-Pay attention to the soap you use! Soaps with moisturizers are probably right out.  Soaps with oils are ok.
-Don't be afraid to water down the final product.  I think I should have added a lot more water when I was mixing it up after the overnight gelling process. A LOT! I was so afraid that I would get soap soup again that I was too cautious.
-Don't get a shower bottle that can't be shaken.  (and stay away from glass! Glass, soap and shower tiles are a bad combination!)

What I will do differently next time:
-Add more glycerine to the mix.  I think that may help with the squeaky-clean shower feel.

My final impression- I like it! Like I said, my skin is feeling super soft and moisturized these days, and I LOVE the scent.  Now I've got to convince my husband to let me make some for him! 

Baxter Bees

We're getting bees.
Right in our own backyard.
And they'll be delivered very, very soon!


Here's how it happened.  We are friends and neighbors with the state beekeeper.  Yeah, that's right- the state beekeeper.  They home school and so we see them all summer at the pool, and all the rest of the year at the park.  They are part of our beloved Tuesday playgroup.

So Jon gives classes on beekeeping. And this season, he's giving a Youth Beekeeping Class that we enrolled in.  It's a 16 week class that includes lectures on honeybee biology, beekeeping, honey, bee pests and diseases, how to inspect hives and keep a beeyard, etc... It also includes workshops in building the beehive and frames, and, once our bees are delivered, it will include several weeks of hands-on help in working with our bees.  We'll install them in a collective bee yard, but we'll bring them home to our house once the class is over.

We have learned so much!  Jon's a great teacher- I take pages and pages of notes each lecture, but he's still teaching to a youth level, so X is understanding just about everything.

As of this week, we've got our hive ready to go, we've got all of our safety equipment, we've got our tools (smoker, hive tool, bee brush, etc...) ready to go! We're just waiting for the delivery of our bees!

Common questions answered:
-Yes, in our yard, in the city.  It's legal! We do have to register our hives, but it is free to do so, and it entitles us to free apiary inspections.  So if anything is going wrong, we can call and they'll send out an expert to help us diagnose the problem.
-No, I'm not worried about stings.  Honeybees are not aggressive, unless defending their home. I'm sure we will get stung, but I'm not super concerned.  I'll probably keep a bottle of Benadryl on hand, though.
-No, I'm not worried about the neighbors.  Honeybees fly up and away from their hive when they go foraging, and we've got a big backyard, so the bees aren't up in anyone's business.
-We won't get honey this year, but if our bees survive the winter, we'll be getting honey next fall! It takes time and energy to draw out the combs (they have to eat a pound of honey to make 2oz of wax!) and build up the brood, so we'll just let our bees go about their business for the first year.
-We're getting bees because they are good for our environment, because bees are struggling for survival.  We're learning to work with the bees, and help them as they follow their natural instincts. Also honey and beeswax!

I'll be updating and probably blogging about bees and honey and stuff.  Future topics: Ethics of Beekeeping, The Awesomeness of Bees, The Amazingness of Honey, What the Heck Have We Gotten Ourselves Into?!, Involving the Kids in Work, The First Time I Get Stung.


Some pictures...

Putting together the deep super that we'll be using to house the bees and the brood.

Priming.

Putting frames together.

Painting. Bright orange.  Not the color to put the neighbors at ease, but it makes us happy.

Putting the foundation into the frames.  It's a wire-reinforced peice of wax, it helps the bees make their combs straight and gives them a little bit of a head start in making comb to fill with brood, pollen and honey. The comb that the bees make is used for several years. The wire-reinforcement helps the comb stay strong when it's filled with honey.

Saftey equipment.  His gloves. My veil.

Mara trying out the saftey gear. X showing off the hive- you can see the frames in the box, and he's lifting off the inner lid.  There is another, aluminum topped lid that goes on top of the whole thing.  The inner lid is used to help regulate humidity and temperature.

Updating

We've had our couch pillows for so long, what was once pretty blue and green have faded into greenish bluish greyish yuck.

By the way- what do you call pillows that are on your couch but are not the couch cushions.  Accent pillows? Lounging pillows? Decorative pillows?

Well, no matter what they are called, they sure weren't decorating anything anymore.

I got one of those packs of fabrics at Hobby Lobby.  Pre-matched, pre-cut and just the right size for what I need.

I sewed them up, and stuffed them with the old pillows.  Pretty quick and easy update!
(sorry for the crappy quality photos.)

The Fabrics. Yellow, black and grey.

Mara approves.

What a stinker.

Lessons Learned

I've been making my own laundry detergent for a while now, thanks to my amazing Cousin Jill and her recipe. Love it! I've only made one batch that I disliked.  I made it with a bar of Dove soap that had been lost in the depths of a bathroom drawer.  (I usually make it with Ivory, but used Fels Naptha on this last batch, and while it irritated my throat and nose while I made it, I've loved it for the laundry soap.)

So, when I stumbled across this recipe on Pintrest, I was intrigued. I hate buying bodywash, because the expensive stuff is... expensive. And the cheap stuff, while ok, never lasts as long as I'd like it to.  PLUS, I always get the dye and fragrance free stuff for my kids, because of their sensitive skin, and it'd be nice to make something a even more pure for them.

Well, I tried it out.  I used... Dove.  And I made very pretty, yummy smelling soap soup.  PINTEREST FAIL!  The lesson I learned- Dove bar soap stinks for making other soaps.  Learn from my mistakes, friends!

I did, by the way, save the Dove soup.  I read the comments (should have done that in the first place!) and I think maybe it needs to cure for a while.  Or I will get one of those foamy pumps and use it with that.

So, moving on, still determined to make body wash.  (Plus, I'd bought the bottle of glycerine and didn't want it to go to waste!)  I found myself at Whole Foods, for a Lady Beekeepers of Arkansas meeting. (more on that in another post!!) I bought coffee while I was there, and decided to look at the soaps.

I bought Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap.  Almond flavored.  Fair Trade. Organic. Vegan. It's got coconut, palm, olive, hemp, and jojoba oils.  And it smells divine!

The verdict: It worked!

Proof:

The texture is a little... gross and slimy. We'll see how that is once I actually use it in the shower. I got out my hand mixer and mixed it up with a little hot water to thin it out a bit, then poured it, little by little, into a milk jug that I saved. When I've finished my current bodywash, I'll rinse out the container and re-fill it with this. I'm going to report on the results after I start using it.  I'm also curious to see how long it lasts!