• learning,  neat tricks

    teeny tiny hive

    Here you see the hands of Ken, adjusting the frames of his little model beehive. The wee box is resting on the much larger, normal-sized beehive. Ken is going to leave the small box on the larger box – there’s an opening in the bottom so the bees can come up into it – so the bees will draw out the honeycomb a bit. He doesn’t want them to store honey in the little demo hive, but he does want them to show what they can do in building up the wax in preparation for honey storage. He brings this hive to places where he talks about bees, so people…

  • recipe

    something delicious

    Take some runny honey and softened butter in roughly equal amounts and blend together with cinnamon. That’s it. If you love cinnamon, add lots. If you like it in moderation, just put in a pinch or leave it out altogether. One word of caution – don’t blend it too long or the butter will separate and give it a really weird texture. If you take this and mix it one part honey butter to two parts peanut butter, you will have what tastes like the inside of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Oh baby. I foresee some xmas goodies in my immediate future. I’m sure it can’t bee too hard…

  • learning

    cleanup

    A few weeks ago, I noticed that the bees in my observation hive had all died. This is not surprising, due to the fact that there are not that many of them and they are not able to huddle in a large enough mass to actually survive the winter. That’s what my regular sized bee colonies are doing right now – huddling together in the middle of the hive to stay warm; and, most importantly, keep the queen warm. She’s the one who will kick off the growth of the colony in the spring with her egg-laying, so it is vitally important to the colony to keep her alive. But…