Ve vant to pump (!) you up!

-Posted by Isaac

Silly bees, pollen is for kids.

Yes we take a little pollen every fall. And yes, the bees need it. So we don't take very much.

But it's so dang delicious and nutritious. And sells for such high $. And and it gives our crazy-like-a-fox three year old some moments of entertainment. ("I'm a wolf!")

Especially the post-cleaning pollen dust. She loves this stuff.

And if you mix the dust with a little sugar, you can feed it right back to the bees.

Just a touch of sugar.

Pollen is the bees' source of protein. They need it! More so than carbohydrates (nectar) this time of year. They are trying to build rapidly to catch the spring nectar flow and hopefully, instinctually, throw a swarm in May. They say the queen is laying some 1500 eggs per day. I've never watched to make sure, but it really does seem like she's busy. The March growth is amazing!

And when our queens get busy, we get busy. It's time to feed protein! Actually, this post may be a little late. It was time to feed protein three weeks ago. With the return of the warm weather, I'm seeing plenty of willow and dead nettle pollen coming in.

Unfortunately we don't have enough real pollen dust to cover our protein needs, so we buy a lot of artificial pollen dust. Here are the magic ingredients:

Cinnamon? Lemon juice?  Ahh.... the magic ingredients.

Plus water.

Some years I'm lazy and buy a lot of pre-made protein patties. They look a lot like the winter sugar patties, but are about twice as expensive.

This year I spared myself that costly convenience, and one fine rainy day I mixed hundreds of pounds of protein supplement.

When you mix, you need buckets or tupperware or something to hold all this sloppy stuff. I don't like to use our normal liquid feeding buckets or, heaven forbid, our nice honey buckets because of all the washing involved later. So luckily I still have some old condom buckets lying around.

(Even if you got that, please don't comment.)          (Hey, it says "All Purpose.")

So once this stuff is mixed and ready, we simply take it out to the bees. It can be squeezed between the brood boxes, or if your winter spacers are still on, you just put some protein on top in combo with the sugar patties.

It's not BRAWNDO, but it's got what bees crave!

Pump you up, short clip, audible as opposed to the other one one...

We're looking for muscle bees here!

The results speak for themselves.

Like my beekeeper friend Dan Williams said last week, "They're about to blow a gasket!"

(That was about his bees.)

Sometimes I think we pump them up too strong. Hives growing this fast in March just means we have to work that much harder and faster to keep up.

See all that burr comb on the cover? That will soon be solid drone comb.

And soon after all those drones emerge, we will be solidly into swarm season.

How to make a Ginger Bug

-posted by Jayne

Today I am sharing a honey recipe for a "Ginger Bug", that can be used to create fizzy fermented beverages sometimes called ginger beer or natural soda. These are great if you are trying to cut the habit of drinking pop and other unhealthy drinks. It is similar to kombucha, but the ginger bug is a wild ferment made from naturally occurring bacteria.

Ingredients Needed: 2 TB Raw Honey, 3-4 TB Organic Ginger Root, and 1 quart Filtered Water

Grate your ginger with the skins left on and mix it with the honey and water.

Add filtered water to top the jar.  Stir.

Cover with cheesecloth (I just used a thin kitchen towel.)  Stir the jar every day.  If fermenting longer than 2 days, add more ginger and honey to the jar.  

Part 2 Once the mixture has fermented, you can use it to make a fizzy drink. At that point, you strain off about 1/4 cup of the liquid, mix that into sweetened tea, fruit juice or a combination, and then you pour it into a flip-top bottle or mason jar and secure that tightly. At this point, you want it to be airtight because that is what's going to set the bubbles. Let it ferment for about 3-5 days after that.

If you're using a mason jar, make sure to burp it from time to time to prevent over-accumulation of carbon dioxide and other gases.

Weathering the weather

-Posted by Isaac

The first thing that needs said is that the bees are looking fantastic.

Hive after hive, just bursting at the seams. I've never seen them looking so good at such an early date. But maybe I said that last year, I don't know? It was our spring in February that did it, of course. A few 75 degree days can trick about anyone. Even maple trees and queen honeybees. The result: now we've got a lot of mouths to feed.

A week ago I made it around to almost everybody, checking and feeding, thinking about the splits to come.

And wouldn't you know it, old crotchety mother nature pulled another sneaky trick. A dirty trick. 

This morning I loaded up for honey deliveries with numb hands and stinging ears. Dark and windy and oh so freakin cold! The radio told me it was a negative two degree windchill.

Our pachyderms of Goodale Park welcomed the Ides of March with snotcicles.

"Et tu, Brute?"

We weathered the last cold snap with a hot tub. It was a nice February getaway. A quiet, romantic outing to the Hocking Hills. Hehe. Yeah right.

The warmth quickly came back and tricked the bees into brooding up early.

And then came the flooding.

Which was disheartening for me because I couldn't reach many of the bee yards for several days. However, Bridger weathered it like a champ. But some people will work through anything.

I eventually did manage to make it around to most of the yards. But March always brings other fun distractions.

For instance, we have a couple birthdays.

And there is always the annual Westfall Science Extravaganza.

For the really tough questions, we had an expert on hand.

And finally, finally.... today after deliveries, I made it to the last two bee yards. By afternoon it had heated up to a balmy 20 degree windchill.

More sugar patties and a shot of protein. Yes it's time once again to give the girls some protein.  

Which is good. They're building up.

And it gives me something to talk about next week.

The Best Honey Latte

-posted by Jayne

I've found it.  Hands down, the best Honey Latte on earth.

One Line Coffee, in the Short North- uses our Summer Honey in their honey latte recipe.

Since I only find myself in Columbus, on average, once a week- I needed to try my best to replicate this honey latte at home.  I searched online for several recipes.  They all seemed pretty lame.  Make coffee, add honey- something to that effect.  The owner at One Line actually gave me a run down of the ingredients in their honey latte, and it was a complex mixture of herbs and spices that accompany the honey.  He did it so quickly I couldn't even begin to remember half of it.

Today I am going to share my recipe for an iced honey latte that keeps the honey RAW by adding it to water that is not heated over 100 degrees F.

I use beans from One Line Coffee, and grind them myself.  I used to use the Krups grinder pictured here, but have since upgraded to a burr grinder (also purchased at One Line).  I love love love the burr grinder!  It was a Christmas gift from Isaac and I think the burr grinder produces a better cup of coffee.  But the Krups one worked fine for several years.

I add the ground coffee to a class jar and fill it with filtered water.  

This is what it looks like all mixed together.  Into the refrigerator it goes, for 24 hours.  

After 24 hours (minimum) I use my AeroPress to filter out the grounds from the water.  You could also use a simply coffee filter and allow it to drip out.  But I use my AeroPress daily, whether making hot or cold coffee and it works really well.  

On the left is my new burr grinder, on the right is the AeroPress, I use to press the grounds out of the water.

After the grounds have been filtered out, you can add milk to your liking, and I add my honey at this time.   To do this, I gently warm a little water in a pan (under 100 degrees) and add the honey to dissolve.  This goes into my coffee/milk mixture.   And there you have it.  A pretty awesome honey latte.  

Return of the Seth

-Posted by Isaac

Me again. Were you wondering what's happened to Jayne on these blog posts? I wondered the same thing for a while. I think there has been an unspoken compromise. She'll handle Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, email, magazine advertising, promotions, contests, give-aways and all the social correspondence that goes along with catching the interest of the vast majority.

For the very few of you fogies who still like to read something, I'll handle the blog. (Thus the title of this post. I thought maybe I could capture some of the nerd/geek/beek, Star Wars/Star Trek market.) 

I'm sure you'll see Jayne again if there's something important to say.

And let's get real, calling this reading is quite a stretch. Not that I'm apologizing for myself. I'll admit, I'm no Hemingway. But this is the best I can do. I'm apologizing for you. What are you thinking? Trying to broaden yourself with a bee blog?? The shame! Go pick up a book for Christ's sake! If you want to get a feel for commercial beekeeping, 'Old Man and the Sea' would be a good one.

And that brings me to this week's adventure. To save on shipping, I needed drive down and pick up a thousand deep frames in Kentucky-

But the darn GPS overshot Kentucky by 600 miles and landed this old man by the sea.

Smack on the Florida Emerald Coast to be specific. This is where I stayed.

If you look closely at the picture, behind the big ugly hotel and about a mile down the beach, there is a little green tent nestled in the pines. This is where I stayed.

The Emerald Coast happens to be the present residence of our long lost Seth. Remember bee man Seth? He's in the Air Force now. Defusing bombs.

At Eglin Air Force Base they have an armory museum with dozens of planes, helicopters, tanks, bombs, guns, and so on.

Seth demonstrated his expertise and politely explained that this bomb wasn't real.

"Not real."

And he also politely took me around the base. Here you see an SR-71 Blackbird. The fastest plane ever flown, topping 2000 mph. I had a model of one as a kid. Seth brought me to the real thing.

Home in half an hour?

But we didn't have time to mess around with the Air Force forever. After all, we were in the Sunshine state. And that called for a fishing trip.

We slayed 'em.       (mmm... not reallly)

Wait, did I say I'm no Hemingway? I take that back.

Now kids, I realize I'm not the most wholesome role model with that fat stogie between my teeth. But if you'll forgive me just this once, I only smoke cigars on special occasions. The special occasion being that it was offered to me.

That's right, kids. Your body is a temple. Remember that. 

And you can bet my temple is squeaky clean. I apply the same stringent guidelines to hard liquor and drugs.

So we spent two days defending our coastal waters against the insurgent threat of red and white snapper. On Monday it was back to class and drill sergeants for Seth. For me, if the GPS could get it right this time, I still had chores to attend to in Kentucky.

Darn GPS. It's expensive when they don't work right.

And expensive when they do.