Ready...set....harvest!

So I worked the Rochester fair bee booth yesterday from 2-6. Getting there was interesting. First, I had to figure out where Rochester was (it's sort of between Carver, Wareham, and Lakeville). The fair had a website but NO directions. I googled the directions (565 Roundsville Rd.) and printed them out. Halfway there, just as I crossed Rt. 28, there was a huge accident in front of a vegetable stand, and the police were rerouting traffic. Oh, crud. I pulled off the road and tried to use Navigator on my phone to figure out how to get to 565 Roundsville, and I couldn't find the road. I tried to remember the roads in the intersection where the fair is from online, and I did a pretty good job at figuring it out. I was only seven minutes late...that is, until the nice police officer made me turn left and park a half mile away from the fairgrounds!!! I schlepped my equipment up to the bee booth at about 2:20. Sigh.

After the inauspicious beginning, though, it was fun. It was RURAL, but it was fun. I mean, come on. Where else on earth could you watch a ride-on lawnmower race? Our discussions with our patrons were quite often interrupted by the lecherous blacksmith to our right, the lowing cows and goats at the petting zoo to our left, or the tub racing announcements at the main field in front of us. It was very funny!

As we were packing up, I finally got to meet Jeannie, a woman who I've emailed back and forth to. She's the education coordinator for the bee club. She told me a rather alarming story of her first year of beekeeping, when she kept the supers (they are the shorter honey collection chambers at the top of the hive) on until she was ready to extract, and the bees ATE THE HONEY!!! Like, ALL of it. Yikes!

So today, I decided I was taking off my supers. Or at least those frames that were ready. And boy, that was an experience. I'm chalking it up to one more thing I wasn't accurately prepared for.

First of all, I try not to do bee work anymore because of the daycare behind me. The last thing I want is to have agitated bees and kids walking around nearby. Secondly, and here's a newsflash: BEES DO NOT LIKE HAVING HONEY TAKEN FROM THEM!! They made it, they worked HARD to cure it, and they are not very happy when a big bearlike human dismantles their hive and steals it. Third, I had no clue what to do with it when I got it out and no equipment!!

In the end, I only got three frames off. There were seven full frames of honey, but four of them need a little bit more capping (that's when they seal the honey) until they are ready to be extracted. I ended up having to make three new frames to replace the ones I took. I'd been hoping to reduce to one super, but it didn't work out that way. There weren't enough empty frames to do so already in the hive.

I put them in a clear bag (Jeannie said to do this because the wax moths need the dark) and brough them in the house, but now I don't know what to do. I either extract (and therefore need access to an extractor) or I crush and strain (which seems like an awful waste of, well, everything...you basically ruin the wax on the frames and you surely don't get much out of them!! So I guess now I store them and hope that I get near an extractor before the wax moths get near them. I think I'll stick them in the freezer, I've seen that as a suggestion.




One thing is for sure...I am SO not taking honey off of Joel's hive alone. Those bees are what they call in the bee world "hot", and I am too nervous about them to even try. So I'm going to ask him to join me to remove his honey. And then hopefully all four of us "newbees" will be able to put our heads together and do the extraction thing.

Three bee tales

Greetings and salutations! I haven't had a lot to post for the month of July and into August because I haven't really been going into the hives quite as much. I figured let them do their thing while the honey flow was on, you know?

Last weekend, Joel and I made a foray into our hives. He had 2 supers on, I had one. His was ready for another super and mine looked like it was getting close!! Unfortunately, we didn't have the equipment ready, so I told him I'd take care of his on Wednesday and work on mine this weekend. I really don't like going into the hives midweek any more because of the whole spraying incident behind us.

On Wednesday I had two bee experiences. First, my bee friend Sandy had a big issue with her "left hive" (she has two). Apparently, she lost a queen. The bees "made" a new queen, but she couldn't find evidence of the new queen in the hive. She saw no eggs, no larva, no queen (granted, hunting for an unmarked queen is like trying to find a needle in a haystack), and a dwindling population. Her right hive continues to thrive, so she was very concerned. She ended up getting a new queen from one of our mentors, Everett, who also runs an apiary supply business. Here's what he told her:

"Put the queen cage in your hive. Don't poke an opening into the cage (the queen cage is usually plugged up with "candy" which looks like nougat or a marshmallow, and you poke a hole in it with a needle and the bees eat their way through to release the queen). Instead, check her in five days. If the bees are attacking her and trying to kill her, your natural-born queen is alive and well. If not, release her, the hive needs a new queen."

Doesn't that just sound MEAN??? Not to mention, the new queen was an Italian queen, and very tiny compared to her hive, which is full of Carniolan Goldline workers. The Carniolan queen is a pretty big bee!

So she asked me to come help her on Wednesday. We opened the hive, couldn't figure out if the bees liked the new queen or not, although she seemed to be cowering in the part of the cage that wasn't open to the workers. But lo and behold! we found eggs in one of the deep chamber frames. That means that the queen that hatched is alive and well!!

So I guess she returned the Italian queen to Everett. I'll have to ask her what the fate of the queen was. Queen bees are expensive!! It can run you anywhere from $20 to a couple hundred bucks, depending on the quality and breeding of the queen.

Being that I was in the swing of bee-checking now, I decided to risk it and throw Joel's third super on at home. I figured it wouldn't take me more than 10 minutes to do so. I opted not to smoke them, which was a really big mistake.

Joel's bees, as I've mentioned, are way more aggressive than my hive, which may explain why they also have more honey. So when I opened them up, the aggression "scream" hit fever pitch almost immediately, and I had a bunch gather on my veil and start pinging my head. Things got worse as I dismantled the supers (I wanted to put the new super right above the first chamber to make them fill it faster, and I had to pull a frame from one of the full chambers to put in the new super to attract them to it in the first place). I wasn't too freaked out until I realized that there were several bees IN my veil. Apparently I had slit my veil somehow. Oh, the drama! I miraculously peeled one off that had attached on my lip, and I did a couple fast laps around the house, screeching like a banshee. I ended up with two IN the house after all that, and had to shoo them out after giving them a few minutes to calm down. And I STILL had to go put the outer cover back on after all that. Ugh. It was awful. I don't know how I didn't get stung.

Today, I had my kids help me put together ten frames so that I could put a second super on my hive if need be. I wasn't too psyched to go into a hive, but you know what they say about getting back on the bike....and besides, I was working with my sweet, gentle bees. And you bet your sweet bippy that I was going to smoke this time. And I borrowed Joel's (unpunctured) veil to do the job.

My older daughter ended up being an ace at putting the support pins in, so we banged out those 10 frames in no time. I lined them up in a new super and hauled them to the hive. Sure enough, they needed another super! Yay! I swapped out a full frame for a new frame on super #1 and threw the new one on top. I grabbed another full frame, swept the bees off, and brought it into the house to show the kids. There's nothing like bringing in a full frame from the hive to make people jump off your couch and run for cover! I made double sure, though, that no actual bees were on the frame when I brought it in.

As it turned out, I had made a small hole in one of the corners by accident, so I allowed them to dip their fingers in to taste it. Even my husband tried it. The verdict unanimously was "DELICIOUS!!" I wish I had tasted it now too!!! But I still had my veil on. I suppose I could have taken it off, but I was covered in honey and I didn't want to get everything sticky.

So....when you do the math, it looks something like this. If a medium frame is filled side to side, top to bottom, both sides, with honey, you get about 4.33 pounds of honey from it. If you have one super full of honey, then (as I do), you have a little over 40 pounds of honey. Joel has two supers full, and perhaps he'll get a full third one, and I'll get a little more, so let's assume we each get another half super. That means I'll get about 60 pounds and he'll have ONE HUNDRED pounds! Local honey is selling for $6-$7 a pound, which means that we'll have a decision to make. If Joel sells 50 pounds of honey, he can make back the cost of the hive startup, and keep the other half. I'd have to sell most of mine to make up the cost, but I don't think I want to do that. I'd like to sell some, but keep the most for Christmas presents and cooking use.

Here's food for thought...I read an article yesterday that warns that we may have a HUGE sugar shortage building up over the next 18 months. There was too much rain in Brazil this year and not enough in India...and they are the two biggest suppliers of US sugar. I wonder how many people will turn to honey if that is true? Honey prices could soar if it is. Of course, we apiarists will be faced with a challenge of feeding them in the spring and fall (since you supplement with sugar). Huh. Something to think about.

One down, one to go

I began checking both hives today after a vacation and bad weather hiatus. I haven't really ripped them open to the bottom chamber in, oh, QUITE a while. Plus, I've heard several reports of swarming (heck, with all this weather, I'm ready to go to), so I figured I'd check on the status of things.

Unfortunately, I was only able to get to one this afternoon, my own. My dad is visiting later this afternoon, maybe I can rope him into doing the second one with me. Joel's hive tends to be a bit more aggressive (I swear, I'm not saying that because I'm convinced one of his girls stung me), they rush towards anything that moves in their hive, it's hot, I'm dehydrated, and man, those full frames are HEAVY. Oh, and I'm working on a big project at work. That was pretty much my lunch break.

So, the deal is that I put on a super before I left on vacation. They haven't done much with it, but I think maybe they're poised to, if we can manage a sunny rest of the summer. The bottom chamber still had empty frames on either end, so I switched them out a little, giving the girls something to do. The upper deep had, just as my friend Sandy was telling me yesterday hers had done, two full frames of honey on either end (as opposed to the textbook pattern of each frame containing "stripes" of honey on top, a thin band of pollen, and brood on the bottom). Full brood and/or honey frames are VERY heavy, and now with three on, it's hard to navigate them gently, so there was more squishing than in the past. Feel bad about that. Plus there are just SOOOOO many bees and SOOO much propolis (bee glue)!! It took a lot longer than normal to even chisel the frames out of the chambers. I didn't spot the queen...actually come to think of it I didn't spot eggs either. I wasn't really looking for either though as of about halfway through, although I should have been. I'm still a little gunshy on sticking my head too close to the frames. Ah, drat. I just realized I didn't sugar them either; we're supposed to sift powdered sugar on them every three weeks or so to treat for varroa mite prevention. Sigh. I guess I didn't do a great job. I have to get back in the saddle. I guess my next bee inspection of my own hive won't be too long in the future, and I will know better what to look for and perform with Joel's later today or this weekend.

First Sting 7/2/09

I'm a marked woman. Or at least my head is. I went into both hives between the raindrops on 7/2/09 because I needed to replace the syrup since we were leaving on vacation for a week and a half. We'd taken it off the weekend before, but were advised to put it back on due to the weather and the fact that they still had comb to build (we put on a super each, knowing we wouldn't be back in for a week). Because I was just doing the syrup, I went with my usual "eh, veil, schmeil" attitude. This was probably my first mistake, since I had grumpy, hungry bees, most of whom were cooped up in the hive due to the weather. But still, I got my sugar topped off just fine, half the job done. I went the long way around our yew tree so as not to get in the middle of the bee highway as they madly dashed to the flowers between raindrops, and stood on the "lawn side" (or between the hives) of Joel's hive. Oh, bother. His sugar can was on the OPPOSITE side of his hive. This time, I got lazy, and crossed the beeline. I think this was my fatal mistake. What I think happened was that one of his mad dashers ran PLUNK! into my unveiled head, got stuck in my hair, panicked and stung me right on top of my head, about 5 inches above my right brow. YOWZA. And off went the pheromones of the stinging bee, which may have accounted for the several more that landed on me. I could hear at least one still in my hair, and I stumbled into the front yard where my husband was performing some last minute repairs on the RV. I think I yelled every four letter word, and then some, so that the folks in Mansfield must have heard me. That finally got his attention, and he came to my rescue, brushing off the rest of the bees and disentangling the one from my head.

So, well, I guess the upside is that I know I'm not allergic now. And my kids appreciated that I couldn't raise my eyebrow at their antics for 24 hours. BOY did it hurt, though, and I think my veil will see a lot more use from now on!!

Gilsum Rock Swap weekend

This weekend, we headed to the Gilsum Rock Swap in Gilsum, NH. What the heck is a rock swap?
http://gilsum.org/rockswap.aspx
It's a place where crystals, jewelry, geodes, minerals, and everything geological are found. It's the next town south from my mom, so we thought we'd make a weekend out of it.

I never thought I'd finish packing and organizing the house to leave, but finally we limped out around 1:15 on Friday afternoon. First it was a quick stop at my grandfather's house. He's in his mid 90s and still lives in his house, but he has a caretaker. Mom takes a shift for the caretaker once a week so he can get a day off.

Then we drove to Marlow, NH. That's where my mother lives. It's a pastoral town of 747 as of the 2000 census. Mom moved there in 2006 or so, so I guess that makes it 749!! She lives on an old farm in a house that they've been building for a long time. Every time we visit they've made progress. In addition to the house, there's one big garden and several small gardens, and a barn and chicken coop housing three alpacas, a donkey, a geriatric horse, and a couple dozen chickens.







I cooked for the family on Friday night, chicken stir fry with farm vegetables. Yum!!!

Saturday morning, we headed to Gilsum for the Swap. What a cool place!

There were tons of booths with minerals and jewelry and everything "rock" you can think of. We watched a young girl pick out a geode and have the man crack it open with a heavy chain.

There was a collective gasp as we all heard the CRACK and then it was time to peek in. It was BEAUTIFUL inside!!


My little one took a shine to the egg-shaped opals.



At lunch we sat with these two older gentlemen, one of whom turned out to be a medicine man from a nearby Native American tribe. He offered my mother a stone and prayed over the stone - with her holding it. It was a magical experience!

After we were done, we had a treat at Walpole Creamery. Their ice cream is delicious!!

Finally, it was time to head back. There were farm chores to complete!





We discovered just how crazy the chickens are. You see, although they have this beautiful and spacious chicken coop with lovely nesting boxes, they don't use the boxes. Not a SINGLE one of 'em.


We had an old fashioned Easter Egg Hunt that afternoon, finding eggs in the craziest places...the grain bucket, behind the water trough, in the hay bucket, under the horse ramp...here's one of the hens sitting on four of them.


All in all, we got an even dozen.



Dinner by me again, my brother headed over. This time it was Southwestern style salad on Taco Pizza Shells. It was a big hit!! Later, we headed to my brother's house to socialize a little bit. He lives in Alstead, NH, a small town that was devastated by flooding in the fall of 2005. Mom lived in the house he now lives in, actually, when the flood happened. If you go to the following link, go to the link for #5 (Alstead) on the map, and look for pictures of the white church with the red brick bottom, the house is about five lots up the hill from that church on the other side, walking distance to the "village bridge." It was a trying time but boy, that little town is so resilient.
http://home.comcast.net/~heidi.quinn/AlsteadFloodPage.htm

This morning we headed back home, tired but happy. It was quite a fun weekend!!

Ooooh, that smell!

Last night when I got home from work, I went to check on the girls. I always do, make sure they're up and about, see what they're doing, see what color pollen baskets they've got on for the day :). Well, last night I was still a good five feet from the hive when the smell stopped me short. It was a VERY GOOD SMELL, the smell of fresh honey!! I was very surprised to smell it so strongly though. On Beesource.com, people say it's an indication of a good honey flow. They say to listen for the "roar" of the bees curing the honey at night. Could it be? One week of rain and now a good honey flow? At any rate, it took every fiber of my being not to crawl in there and sample. Goodness, it smelled exquisite. I wish you could post smells on the web, I'd love to share it.

I was going to wait to check them until next week, but now I'm wondering if I should just lift off that inner cover and make sure they've got enough room to grow. I am itching for that first super to crown my deeps!!

What on earth? 06/19

Do bees get sick of the weather?

I don't know, but I had a moment of panic a couple days ago. It was one of those rare moments (as it seems lately) where the rain stopped and it was actually pretty nice. I was in the back yard with the kids and the dog, and my husband walked in to the yard using the gate by the bees...and stopped to look at them. He called me over. "What are they doing?" he asked.


Yikes. I had no idea, but they looked for all intents and purposes like they'd had enough of this weather, they were packing their bags and heading for LA.

My next door neighbor calmly told me they looked like they were swarming. I think it shaved five years off my life.

I ran into the house and started to post on beesource, a forum that is dedicated to beekeeping worldwide. But wouldn't you know, this guy from Philadelphia posted pretty much the same question!! He had the same issue, bees in three hives crowding the bottom boards. Several people had responded with different theories and asking questions. Had he seen supercedure cells? Did they have room to grow (empty frames) in there? I started to feel better...most people thought it was the weather, and he IS on the same coast.

The next morning, he'd posted again. Two of his hives had swarmed. I don't think I'd ever suited up so quickly.

I proceeded to rip apart both hives (carefully, of course). No evidence whatsoever of supercedure cells and plenty of room for them. I felt bad...they were pretty crabby, as though they were saying "Look lady, I don't know what your problem is but we have ONE day of sun in a week with no more in the foreseeable future, so move it...we have honey to collect!" I've actually never seen them that crabby. I still don't know what they were doing, but I didn't like it one bit!!

Brad's inspection 06/17

Brad is another friend we met in bee school. He actually lives two minutes from my house. I've not been able to catch up with him since he hived his first beehive, a nuc. I was very eager to see how his hives were coming along. They seem to be coming along quite nicely, although Brad reports that his nuc can be rather ill tempered compared to his package bees.

Here's a nifty dark drone we spotted alongside the ladies. Aren't they just so different in size and shape from the girls? This one was very striking with his dark bands.
Because the nuc came with existing frames, he's got five frames in his bottom chamber that are more weathered than any of the package frames. Here's a good picture of some propolis, that gluey tarlike stuff that the bees like to paste everywhere to fill cracks and spaces:


Here's another frame with a good pattern. Can you tell this frame is a new one? Isn't it amazing, the difference between this one and the one above it?


This section of comb was hanging from the bottom of the frame. We both kind of said, "What is THAT?!"


I think the answer is that it's drone comb, but just the fact that it's below the frame makes me a little nervous. That's where the bees build any supercedure cells (as in new queens).

Here's a closeup of that weird chunk. See the larva they are just about to cap?


Here's a great closeup of the larva. We believe they're drone larva.



His bees were making me laugh, because even when the cover came off, they were clambering to get into the little hole on the inner cover. Seriously, girls, you can use the bottom OR the top, it's much easier!!

Bring out your dead!! And other bee hygiene facts

Someone at work a couple weeks ago asked me if my honey was FDA approved. I tried to keep a straight face. And then someone else asked me if it was safe to buy farmstand unpasteurized honey. It's a legitimate question!!

No, my honey will not be FDA approved. Why? Read on...

Yes, it's safe to buy honey. Why? Well. There are many reasons.

First of all, honey lasts forever. Sealed honey has been found in Egyptian tombs, still in edible form.

Secondly, honey is fungus and bacteria resistant. Some people actually use honey to swab on cuts, much like Neosporin or Bactine.

Thirdly, honey isn't processed. It's spun out of the frames using a centrifugal force, allowed to settle so any sediment (bits of honeycomb, etc.) falls to the bottom, and put in a bottle for your consumption. It's pure.

There are warnings not to feed honey to babies, but that is for the same reason that you shouldn't feed them peanut butter or strawberries; they could develop an allergy or have an allergic reaction.

Finally, honeybees are VERY hygenic. They don't like anything to be in their hives except themselves and their honey and pollen. Sandy says that she put in some sweet fern fronds (which is an organic way to combat the ants which sometimes lurk around the hives), and witnessed the bees carrying it out the next day!! They don't even poop in their hive. They take it outside. My kids are amazed that bees are "potty trained." If you see evidence that bees are going in the hive, there is usually a problem. Winters are tough for them. YOU try holding it for weeks on end!!

I snapped a photo to illustrate this the other day. Another thing that is not allowed to lurk around the hive is carcasses. I've seen bees pick up their dead comrades and fly them out of the hive a few times, but I was messing around in the hive and actually got to snap two of them finagling a dead bee into one's grasp so they could move her out of the hive. First, they actually cleaned off any pollen she had on her (recycling!).


Then one of them got underneath her to grab her and fly her off. Look at her poor little tongue hanging out, she's dead...

Disaster in brood chamber #2 06/07/09

Today was a disaster. Well, nearly a disaster anyway. At Sandy's inspection last week, she had thrown her second brood chambers on already. Joel put his on a week ago. Mine hadn't gone on until the 3rd of June, four days prior to when this post occurred. When I threw on the second chamber, I couldn't find the staple gun to finish the frames (you have to lock the foundation in), I couldn't find the pins you use to attach the foundation to the sides of the frame, and I was in a hurry so I wouldn't be late to pick up my older daughter from school. Even though you're supposed to go at LEAST a week between inspections, I decided I wanted to peek into that second chamber just to make sure things were going ok.

I'm glad I did.

Apparently, the tacks I used in lieu of staples were NOT a feasible substitute. I was missing pieces of frames, the foundation was all mangled and warped, and completely out of the frames in several instances.


Problem was, the bees were now in the second chamber and working on a couple of frames. Egads.

So what was supposed to be a short inspection lasted about an hour and a half with my fixing the frames as best I could. I located the staple gun and the pins and pulled the frames one by one, shaking the bees off it as much as I was able to before working it.

In some cases the bees actually tried to fix the problem themselves by fusing the foundation to the frame. This had mixed results. Half the built frames had burr comb on them.



These are the pins that go in the sides of the frames. They are kind of a pain in the neck to put in (especially on frames where the bees and/or cells and/or honey are already plentiful), but they do keep the foundation in place much better.


I thought this was cute...it was a solitary pollen-filled cell in new comb.


In the end, it was fixed, I didn't get stung, and I felt much better about the second chamber. But boy am I glad I went in to inspect!!

Bristol Bee Workshop 06/05

We weren't sure it was going to happen due to the weather (ugh, has it really been awful weather all month!?) but we had our first workshop at a fellow beekeeper's house. Her name is Beth, and Joe, one of our instructors in class (the one that scared the bejeebers out of us when he announced a "quiz" based on our reading...he was kidding!) led the inspection.

Beth is NOT a first year beekeeper. She's got several hives, including a new package and a nuc, but the most impressive hive was the giant hive!! Check out the little gadget to the left of the hive Joe is working. It's this frame holder that you drape over the side of the chamber that holds the frames you pull. I want one. It would make life a LOT easier.



Joe worked all the hives, saving the big one for last.
He pointed out the drone comb, which was enlightening and comforting because Joel has the same thing on his hive (I haven't seen a single drone cell yet).


Joe also showed us a frame with a good "pattern" on it. You're supposed to see capped honey on the top, then a band of pollen, then brood (or empty cells if they have hatched and the queen hasn't filled them yet).

Then, because the hive is obviously giant, he taught us how to perform a "walkaway split." I will not be able to articulate it well because I don't remember the whole thing, but basically you are splitting the hive in two so it doesn't swarm, so you can create a queen, or so you can build another hive. Joe basically pulled a bunch of frames with fresh eggs, larva and honey, brushed off all the bees (to make sure the queen was NOT on the frames), and stuck them in a chamber on top of this screen gadget called the queen excluder (because the queen can't go through it).

The nurse bees (the "babysitters") make their way back to the brood, you move them with one more frame of fresh eggs from the old hive, and they make a new queen from those eggs.

After a while the bees started getting very irritated in the big hive, and they started to beard. What a sight!





It was very informative. One of the big things I noticed was the speed and efficiency with which Joe worked. I am always trying to get through inspection without killing any bees (go ahead, ask me how many times that's happened), but he just didn't worry about it. Another thing I noticed was that he didn't worry so much about a little bit of burr comb. I usually scrape every last speck out of the hives when I'm in there. He just lets it go unless it's really an impediment.

Sandy's Bee Inspection 05/30

Today, Joel and I went to our friend Sandy's house to see her work the bees. She has 8-frame beehives, which is another way to combat the heavy weight of the brood chambers. Even an 8 frame deep weighs significantly less than one with 10 frames.

We joined her husband and older son on the inspection. At first, her husband didn't even wear a veil. He's VERY brave!!

The first thing Joel and I noticed about the hives was that she has a LOT of burr comb. Burr comb is pretty much comb put where you don't want it to be - below the frames, between the frames, sticking sideways out of the frames...etc. The class leaders kept telling us that burr comb should be removed at all costs because it "causes problems" later on. I suppose those problems are that the bees will lay in it, put honey in it, and of course if you have a big wedge of burr comb holding two frames apart, the bees will fill up that space with MORE burr comb. Ugh. But yeah. Poor Sandy had a LOT of burr comb, both in her hives and that she's already taken out during previous inspections.

In the second hive was the biggest burr comb I've ever seen. Her husband pointed out that as she tilted the frame, it hung from a small strip at the top, so she decided maybe we'd better remove it. Unfortunately it had brood (babies) in it, capped larva (which means they're three weeks or less from emerging) but it was still better to remove it.


It was at this point that I got this sudden surge of courage and I helped her take it out and lay it on the ground. It was kind of sad, because her older son pointed out the bee that was trying to hatch (and most likely did not without help from her family). Those of you that know me know that I HATE killing most things, so it was difficult. But her death wasn't a complete loss. I was able to snap some pretty cool pictures that look like an emerging adult bee.


Those capped cells to the left, by the way, are what honeycomb looks like with capped larva in it.

Thanks, Sandy, for sharing your hives with us!!

Plato's Harvest Volunteer Day 05/23/09

I may have mentioned that I belong to a CSA. It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It's my second year of splitting a share with a friend and I LOVE it. Dave Purpura owns Plato's Harvest in Middleboro, MA, and it's not only organic, delicious and plentiful, it's a beautiful place to go.

This year Dave's renting a piece of farmland on the Soule Homestead property. It's a historical piece of land in Middleboro. It helps him expand his size and variety of crops. Only problem is, there's no electricity or running water, and it's literally in the middle of noplace, so they have become very creative.



Shareowners were invited to a volunteer planting day on May 23rd. I had my African sister Joanita visiting us for the weekend, and she came along too. We hiked to the plots, and proceeded to plant tomatoes all morning. Dave plants his in a way nobody had ever heard of before. He digs trenches and lays them on their side, covering most of them with soil and bending up the top carefully. This way there are more roots grown, which makes for a stronger plant.


After we planted the tomatoes, we watered them. How do you water a large farm in the middle of noplace with no running water, you ask? It was the coolest thing to watch!! Dave loaded up his tractor with cisterns of rainwater. He attached hoses to them, laid the hoses flat, and then hoisted the bucket to start the water flowing with gravity. Voila! Instant water pressure!

After we watered, we were treated to a delicious roast pork (roasted on the grill while we planted) with lots of homemade fixin's. We sat in the grass next to the field and dined like kings. It was a really neat experience!!