Mike and I finally got to attend the “Homestead Beekeeping Seminar” in Waco last Thursday.  It was an 8 hour class – and it was only part one!  We didn’t go back the second day for part two- I didn’t know it was offered and it was full by the time we asked about it.  Well, if I feel the need later on – I know where to find the class.

We sat in class the whole morning and learned about the importance of managing your hive, the biology of the honey bee, pollination and importance of bees and on and on and on.  You think you just throw a box in the back yard, put some bees in it and collect the honey, right?  Oh heck no.  You have to learn to tell the bees apart – and I don’t mean like “this is Jane” and “this is Bob”- you need to be able to identify the queen from the drones and the worker bees.

After lunch, we suited up and headed out to the hives.  There were eight of us in the class and most of us were new bee owners. 

 

Here we’re learning how to start a fire in the smoker.  You smoke the hive to calm the bees before you open it.  When the bees smell smoke, they start eating the honey because they think there’s a fire and they’re going to have to relocate the hive.  When they’re full of honey they calm down and don’t swarm.  OK, that’s for the bees in the hive, but the ones coming in from the field were not smoked and they were not happy we were there!

 

Here are two of the five top bar hives we checked. 

 

This is Jacob who taught the class.  He’s been bee-keeping for 13 years and he’s got to be at least 22 years old!  What a really nice guy.  You see he’s only putting on the hat and veil.  No gloves.  No bee suit.  Show off.

The combs hang from the wooden bars shown here.  We pulled them out one at a time (that’s every bar on every hive)  and checked for the queen  (there’s only one in each hive.)  You should see on one of the combs where she’s been laying eggs.  The poor woman lives 2 to 3 years and lays 1000 to 1500 eggs a day.  The problem is - it looks like a small grain of rice in the bottom of a well.  I’m going to have to buy tri-focals.  If another queen hatches – they fight to the death.  You go girl!

 

You should also see drones and worker bees hanging out.  The worker bees are all female.  They are responsible for all the maintenance of the hive,  and feeding the babies, and collecting the pollen and nectar and guarding the hive.  She only lives about 45 days.  Please, I’m surprised she lasts that long! The drones are the male bees who do absolutely nothing but hang around to mate with the queen – who by the way only mates once and that’s it – it’s over.  They get to live a couple of months.

OK, class is over.  Walking back to the class room to take off the suit.  I felt like a warrior coming home from battle. Spending an hour with bees crawling all over you is nerve wracking – even with a full suit.  Nobody got stung – not even the crazy instructor who didn’t even wear gloves! 

We pick up our bees on April 27^th – I think we’re ready!

I like Daylight Savings Time.  It means I can come out of hibernation! I’m pretty much worthless in the wintertime.  It’s dark when I get up, it’s dark when I get to work, and when I home from work it's dark and cold.  I just put  my pajamas back on when I get home and go get in bed.  Makes me no difference that’s it’s only 5:30 in the afternoon.

But when the time changes – I get to work in the yard.  Oh yes, I did just say that.  Today, first day of the new time change – Mike had me out raking pine needles for hours.  I used muscles I haven’t used since last fall and I hurt all over.  HA!  I just watched Mike limp across the room – I feel better already!

Anyway, last weekend we had 12 tons of lime delivered to the farm.   According to the soil sample analysis from the Texas Ag Extension service, our PH balance was way too low –too acidic.  We sent in four samples and got eight pages of data back, so we called the agent and had him come out to explain.

It seems that weeds, vine and such like a low PH.  Hay and grass like a medium PH and you fix that by adding lime.  Ours required one ton per acre.  What????  2,000 pounds per acre?  That seemed like a lot to me, but who am I to argue with the experts.

12 tons required 2 trucks –and here they come.  

They sling the stuff out the back-end of the trucks.  Oh, I see why you need so much – half of it blows away into your neighbors yard.

Then one of the trucks got stuck in the pasture.

30 minutes later it’s all over and they’re headed back to the fertilizer store.   

Well, for what they charged, I’d better get a strong stand of hay this year.  I’m going to keep checking over the fence at Abner’s field – the wind blew half the lime into his pasture.

This is some really exciting stuff!  We're taking soil samples to see what will grow in our pastures.
We walked back and forth, up and down, digging holes and putting dirt in a bucket.

Mike dug the holes, I carried the bucket (you know I had the hard job!).

 We took 4 different samples and then today mailed them off to Texas A&M for analysis.  Had to pay to mail dirt. Somebody actually has a job that requires receiving dirt in the mail from strangers -opening the bags and running analysis on it.  I'm just saying, there are some freaky people out there.  All of a sudden, accounting doesn't sound so bad!

 Our hay is still in it's winter stage - brown and crispy.  In a couple of months it'll be 3 feet tall and we'll be spending hours on the tractor mowing.
 
 The nectarine tree is covered in blooms - I wonder if it will survive the next freeze?

 Well, that's all I have today.  It's kinda slow in the winter.  I just have one question:  does this look safe to you?

What constitutes a real dog?  Man’s best friend.   He’s a companion, a loyal friend, always happy to see you.  Maybe he’s a big dog that makes you feel safe when you’re home alone.  Oh, I know.  He’s a dog that you can take into the woods and he likes to hunt.  He likes to ride in the back of the truck.

Poor Mike – this is what we have - Frankie. Believe it or not, he’s 9 years old. Our neighbor’s dog tried to kill him because he thought Frankie was a squirrel.  It’s just almost embarrassing.  

But this dog is a people magnet.  Strangers come up to us everywhere and want to see him.  Mike took him for a walk at an outdoor restaurant in Austin and had a gaggle of college girls following him around wanting to take pictures with the dog. 

He’s not even our dog.  He belonged to our daughter who moved out and left him with us years ago.   Well, we’ve made him into a real dog – OK, that’s a severe exaggeration.  Look at this  -  he’s out in the woods – doing dog stuff.  We were out in the back of the property checking out the trees that got knocked over during the last storm and had to actually lift him over a couple.  And if the hay has grown up and needs mowing,  then we usually lose him out in the field.

This is a picture for you deer hunters.  This guy was standing in my driveway here in Magnolia.

At the end of the day is usually a domino game at my mom and dad’s.  Here’s proof - I actually won a game!  (You’ll have to take my word for it since the score didn’t show up in the picture.)

Someday we will get a real dog, but for now…..    At least he doesn’t take up a lot of room at the foot of the bed.

There's a reason my kitchen is a disaster area several times a week.  You'd think after being at work and/or on the road 12 hours a day I'd have better things to do.  But, I really, really like experimenting in the kitchen.
Yes, I went to Tractor Supply in Lufkin this weekend and spent my paycheck on the magazine rack.  Today's project was inspired by 'Hobby Farm Home' magazine.  Bean Soup Mix.

 Is this not the prettiest jar of beans you've ever seen?  You stack the beans, add seasonings and stick it in a jar.  How easy is that?  Beans, it's what's for dinner - with cornbread of course! Here's the seasoning pack: 1 TB dried parsley, 1 TB dried minced onion, 2 tsp seasoning salt, 2 dried bay leaves, 1 tsp garlic powder.

 Put the seasonings in a baggie and tuck into the top of the jar before you put on the lid.  Here you go - ready to cook.  Just put on the shelf and wait for a rainy day.

 I used eight types of beans.  Black beans, Navy beans, Lentils, Kidney beans, Cranberry beans, Pinto beans, Split Green peas and Black Eye peas.  (Can a pea be a bean?)
 
Cool, huh?  I cleaned the kitchen, then headed for bed to write my blog and look what I found!  Mike had made this awesome fire in the fireplace.  

Here's the directions for the bean soup:
Rinse beans, place in bowl and cover with at least 1 inch water.  Let stand overnight.
Drain beans in colander and rinse well with water.
In a pot, cover beans with fresh water and cook about 2 hours.  Drain beans and rinse with fresh water.
Place beans in large pot and cover with 6 cups water.  Open seasoning packet and sprinkle into soup.  Add 2 cups chopped tomatoes with juice. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.  Remove bay leaves before serving and season to taste.

Even if you never cook a bean in your life, this jar will look really cool just sitting on the shelf!  And if anybody is mean to you - you can give them a jar of beans for Christmas.  It cost about $1.50 a jar.  (I shouldn't have admitted that.  You will know you're on my naughty list if I give you a jar of beans for Christmas next year!)

I read in the ‘The Backwoodsman’ magazine that folks in the old days made bannocks.  That’s a quick bread that you make over a campstove and either bake or fry in a cast iron skillet.  Every article says it’s the best bread they’ve ever had!  So, I thought I should learn to make it in case the world comes to an end and I need to eat scraps from my pantry.

That stuff tastes like hard no-flavor biscuits.  I tried it a couple of times and it never got any better.  I actually felt guilty feeding it to Mike for dinner.  So, my next plan was to find a bread recipe that was quick and easy and you could actually eat it with a smile on your face.  I kept thinking about the cherry/chocolate boule bread I  bought at Hubble & Hudson in The Woodlands.  The kind of bread you wanted to lick before you ate it.

My solution?  You Tube.   I have learned so many things on You Tube – but that’s another story!  I looked up boule bread recipes and found a great one called “Artisan Bread Master Boule Recipe – Part 1 & 2”.  There are only 4 ingredients:  water, yeast, salt and flour.  I like simple.

 (pretend you're seeing one of the really cool pictures I was trying to upload - but blogger.com changed something and I can't include ANY pictures)

I mixed the ingredients according to the directions but with the last cup of flour, I added a cup of chopped dried dark cherries and a cup of mini milk chocolate chips.  Yummm.  You’re supposed to let the dough sit in the refrigerator over-night before you bake the bread – not gonna happen.  Mike and I pulled out a fourth of the dough and let it rise for an hour then we baked it.  He wanted to eat it the second it came out of the oven, but I convinced him to wait 20 minutes so it could breathe.  Ha!  I was really praying that it would taste really really good and not like that nasty bannock dried up no flavor biscuit thing.

Not able to put him off any longer, we sliced it up (of course we put lots of butter on it) and took a bite.  Awesome!!  My only change would be to add more cherries and chocolate.  I wonder if you could stuff it till it looked like fruit cake?  Too much?  Mike wants walnuts in it next time.  Maybe next, next time.  Next time, I’m going to try apricot and white chocolate.

But first, we have to eat the other 3 loaves waiting to be baked.  That recipe makes a lot of bread!  Eating half a loaf of bread a day is a bad idea.   I better go buy some bigger pants this afternoon because this is not going to be pretty. 

I am officially a honey bee owner!  I am so excited!  OK, they won't be ready for pick up until April.  They only give out bees in the spring - although you have to order and pay for them in November.  That's "bee"cause they have a better chance of survival in the spring when all the flowers are in bloom.
Here's a picture of the bee house.  (a hive).  It comes in two boxes, the bottom brood box and the honey super on top.  The bigger box at the bottom is where the queen lays the eggs, the nurse bees tend the brood (that would be the bee babies for you non-bee people) and they store food for the winter.  The upper super (honestly, I don't know why it's called that) is where the excess honey is stored.  That's what you get to keep for your biscuits.

 Here's a view of what's in the brood box.  There are 10 frames with a sheet of hexagonal cell shaped foundation boards.  The bees build  in that shape, so it kind of just gets them started. This box will be where the new bees come from. You think your life is hard.  If you're a female bee, work 24/7 to feed more bees, then die.  Awesome.

Anyway, here's the top honey super where the bees store extra honey.  They store extra honey for winter when they can't find pollen on flowering plants. But, if you own the hive, you steal the honey from the bees for your own use. So, what happens to the bees?  You feed them a sugar/water solution that they think is a flower supplying what they need.

Here are the gauntlet gloves and smoker.  The purpose of the smoker is to calm the bees so you can steal their honey.  Actually, what's happening, is they think there's a fire that's threatening the hive, so they gorge themselves on honey - thinking they're going to have to flee.  Fact is, they're so full of honey they can't move fast and chase you. Whatever it takes to keep them away from me, I'm OK with that.  They can think there's a fire.

Here's the netted helmet hat. Can you see me wearing all this stuff?

Well, I'm getting ready to paint  the supers some really cool colors.  They don't have to be white - so I've read on the internet..........  We'll see if the bees stay in their cool home I'm making or run for the hills.  I'm picking up a box of bees and a queen next April.  They're going to show me how to get the bees out of the  travel box and into the brood box. Once you get the queen in the box, the other bees will follow her anywhere.  I can relate to that.  Do they have princess bees?

I'll be selling honey in a couple of years so ya'll just remember that when you go to the store to buy honey that my honey will be the BEST!
I can't wait till April :)