Not a good beekeeper

The past 9 weeks have been stressful with hubby’s issues, many, many appointments, and responsibilities. We had a stretch of very cold weather, then a return to spring. This afternoon, I finally set out to add 2:1 syrup and put the newly purchased, assembled, and painted sugar block trays in place. Everything needed was loaded into the back of one of the cars and driven down the field to the bee yard.

Once there, a notable lack of bees moving about caused some alarm, but determined to see what was what, the suit was donned, the smoker prepped if needed and the cover of the first, formerly strongest hive was removed. There was no life at all in the hive. Upon disassembling it tier by tier, this was what was on the bottom board.

Moving on to the second hive, it was a repeat of the first and when I reached the third hive, one that had been weak and was combined with another hive and given a new queen, it had life, not as strong as I would have liked, but alive. The hive was broken down far enough for me to place a sugar brick tray right on top of the queen excluder, all of the honey I could get from the first two hives added to the honey super for this hive and it placed back on, and three quarts of 2:1 syrup added to an empty medium box, and the hive closed back up. All of the parts from the other two hives were brought back to the house and I am going to have to get some large bags to load the frames into and put in the freezer for long enough to kill off anything that shouldn’t be in them, but it will take several loads to accomplish as our chest freezer is very large. Once they have all been frozen and bagged for storage, the freezer needs to be defrosted.

The sole remaining hive. Son 2 entrusted me to this project and I failed hugely. I hope the hives he has at home are doing better and more knowledge on my part can be gained to try again come spring perhaps.

Week end Olio – 10/31/2022

Every morning that there isn’t extra family in the house, I prepare myself a protein/berry smoothie. As I only make about a cup, the equipment of choice is an ancient (more than two decades old) Magic Bullet. This morning it quit. The motor still runs, but the plastic cog that spins the blade in the jar exploded into many tiny shards, contained below the blender cup, but rendering the motor useless. I can’t say it owed me anything, but this morning’s smoothie was not stellar as the frozen berries did not get blended into the liquid, ground seeds, and PB2 powder.

When I told hubby of its demise, he suggested I should replace it. Yesterday while in the grocer, I saw a “smoothie” maker that was basically a plastic jar with an attached immersion blender. This morning as we were headed to town to try to get our daily walk before the rain resumed, a look at that tool was in order. As I was about to add it to my basket, sitting back on the shelf near it was the newer version of the Magic Bullet (twice the price of the immersion blender). I hope the new one holds up as long as the old one did. It comes with one less blender blade and one more blender container, but otherwise looks very much like it’s predecessor.

Though not a big fan of electric small appliances, this one certainly gets nearly daily use.

And today was soap making day for us, and to have a few bars available at the Christmas Bazaar at the museum in early December. A couple of batches were made and are curing. It is a messy proposition that even after cleaning up requires an additional day for the pot and tools to finish saponifying before they can be cleaned tomorrow.

With daughter available to check in on hubby, I was able to attend a Fall Festival at a local State Park on Saturday to be the demonstration spinner in Colonial Costume and sell some of my wares, the next to last event before the cottage business shuts down in December.

The day was gorgeous, a couple of hats, some fingerless mitts, and a skein of yarn were sold along with a few body care products. November’s spindle challenge is using some of the yarns that have been spun and a couple of hats and more fingerless mitts will be knit from some yarn that has been previously spun and made available at the Christmas Bazaar.

Another routine week ahead with two trips to “the city” for appointments. Today is rainy and no walk was done, but time to clean up from the weekend and make the soap that I have been putting off for a couple of weeks.

Success

Though I don’t generally share food after it has been prepared, you often see the results of the garden harvest and canned for storage produce. The success with the three sisters’ garden this year was poor, better than last year, but definitely not successful. The corn part of the long bed was initially planted with Bloody Butcher dent corn on one end, a short season sweet corn on the other end, covered with a long run of welded wire fence several inches above the soil surface to keep the crows from eating more than their share. Since a dent corn field is planted to the east of us, I had hoped they would go for the easy meal. Very little of the corn germinated, so it was replanted and a third white dent corn added, and again, poor germination and the pumpkins never did come up until so late in the season that they had no chance to produce. We got a few, very few ears of sweet corn that was not very full and mature, and this is all of the dent corn that the patch produced.

Once dried on the stalk, shucked and placed in this window sill in the utility room to further dry, last night it was slated to be ground. Years ago, hubby gave me this grinder for a gift at my request.

Until last night, it has only been used to coarsely grind whole corn for chicken scratch and it gives the right arm quite a workout. I thought about taking my few ears of dent corn to the museum with me tomorrow and using the corn sheller, but instead stood over the hopper and hand shelled all but one ear of the corn I grew. Played with the grinder settings and got the grind finer, but not commercial meal fine.

And I cranked, took a break, did other chores, returned and cranked some more until all of the corn had been ground. To my amazement, it ended up being enough to fill two quart jars with a cup left to cook this morning.

Last night, that cup of hand ground corn was set to soak in water in the Instant Pot in preparations to cook it as grits this morning for Son 1’s and my breakfast. Knowing that it would take at least 90 minutes on the stove top, the presoaking and Instant Pot meant it would be ready in about 35-40 minutes instead, including the pressurizing, cooking, and depressurizing. Much to our delight, it made a very good addition to a couple of scrambled eggs from my hens.

We each had a bowlful of homegrown, hand ground, fresh grits with a sprinkle of cheddar cheese and a good dollop of butter. Son 1 ate a second bowlful. The remaining two quarts of meal were put in the freezer to prevent them from turning rancid and more winter breakfasts of grits, and a few pans of cornbread will be enjoyed. So though I rarely show a finished meal, this one was homegrown (and enjoyed with a couple of slices of tomato purchased at the Farmer’s Market yesterday.)

Next year, more dent corn will be planted and hopefully produce more to grind. It is delicious.