Thorny Brambles of Prickliness

No real news this morning, just a sobering thought. We leave for a 10 trip in 3 1/2 weeks. We have, of course the most fabulous housesitter, who will take excellent care of the furred and feathered, but she could not be expected to open the beehive and check for intruders.
I'll have her watch the essential oil and syrup supply, in case the bees need that (they aren't taking any of it presently), but apart from offering extra food, Beedicca will be on her own for that period of time. The intervening time is not enough for me to try rescue methods like introducing a new queen, or giving them a bar of brood from a healthy hive of the same stock--two things I have been considering, since I'm more and more convinced we have no queen.
It will be a sink or swim moment. When we get back, it will evident whether this hive will thrive or die.
The RIR teenagers are starting to behave badly. Binky can still shut them down with one steely glance, and the hens are still capable of chasing the cheeky punks off, but that won't last forever.
The boys--Jordan, James, and Andy--made a pact last week to take the roos over to Greg's sometime in October for a lesson in turning roosters into meat. I hope they will all do some research into humane killing, though, because Greg's a hunter; he knows how to dress a bird, but it's a bird he shot. Jordan is going to have to chop a neck or slit a throat himself.
I don't feel too good about the whole thing. It's not that I think everyone should be vegetarian. For one thing, I think the human relationship with domesticated animals is a beautiful thing. Or, at least, it should be, and can be. Like practically everything else modern people do, we've made a travesty of it with factory farms and cloned calves and such widespread use of antibiotics that the entire world is flooded with them; not to mention slaughter houses full of illegal immigrant workers who are exploited nearly as badly as the animals they process. But let's imagine a biodynamic farm where the animals have all the space, sunlight, and company they need to live authentic, comfortable lives. Where hens get to raise families, pigs can forage in oak woods, and calves can run around pastures. Where they come to their deaths as respectfully as possible after enjoying a pleasant life under the care and protection of kind humans.
A person has only to hang out with backyard chickens for a little while to recognize, we have a common language. Our inflections are so similar, even though they are tiny dinosaurs and we are jumped up primates. It's because we have evolved together. Just like dogs and cats, cows, pigs, horses, sheep, goats, camels. Of all the bazillion species of animals in the world, only a few are considered domesticated. We're symbiotic with them. They are symbiotic with us. We're symbionts. What could be more sacred than the interdependence of species?

I've always said: if you are going to eat meat, you should at least face up to where is comes from, and kill your own meals. Now that Jordan is willing to put this high-minded theory into practice, well, it's a test.

My opinions about diet are similar to those I hold about religion: it's your business, and I'll try to leave you alone about it. But now we've gone past theory and it's my husband, and my roosters.
And I'm uncomfortable.

Beedicca

There was another ant incursion this morning, but I caught it fairly early and was able to address the issue. The bees had successfully confined the ants behind the follower board, and there weren't too many casualties.
Examining the brood combs, I still see no bee babies, but there are far fewer beetles and larvae. I think freezing the combs is helping. The workers have cleaned up the two combs I returned yesterday, removing all the dead beetle grubs, and the floor of the hive is a great deal cleaner. I assisted by wiping out the back part again. Unfortunately, I'm now finding what must be wax moth webs, eggs, and larvae in some combs.
I looked at the front combs today, hoping to find the Queen. I didn't see her, but there is one section I'm unable to check without breaking two combs apart, which seems too much of an injury to bestow on this beleaguered hive. The vast majority of the bees are gathered at the very front of the hive, on the first two bars.
I've never seen the Queen since the day we set her capsule in the new hive, so I'm unwilling to assume she's gone on that evidence alone. But why are there no babies? I know there was a population spurt in mid-July, so she was there then. I have seen no pollen storage right now either, despite the fall bloom getting underway.
I'm beginning to look into the idea of re-queening.
We also bought materials to build a new hive. I'm thinking this might be a project I could undertake with my dad. He's just had surgery again on his thumb, another torn ligament. There is something amiss with his connective tissues: this is his third surgical repair in as many years.
It's time I spend more time with him, and my mom.

Vikings

Oh, my poor bees.

My poor little bees.

We've been battling together against the small hive beetles, and until today, I felt hopeful. the bees were collecting nectar, they seemed numerous and active, and they were trying their best to keep the beetles out of their space.
I've been removing brood combs one by one, inspecting them for bee larvae, beetles, and beetle larvae. There haven't been any baby bees. Today I went out to return a comb that had spent the night in the freezer to kill the beetle larvae and eggs. I asked Jordan to help so we could do it quickly with the least disruption.
When I opened the back of the hive, it was literally a battleground, littered with corpses. Carpenter ants, a wargang of them, inside the hive, battling bees. The dead lay everywhere, and I'm not sure the bees were winning, although they had mostly confined the attackers behind the follower board. We cleaned out all the ants and dead bodies we could reach.
We dusted the hive's supporting blocks with diatomaceous earth, and laid a ring of it around the base of each post.
I just did that two days ago, but it's been raining.
I returned one comb and took two more. After an hour in the freezer, scores of beetle grubs have crawled out to die. I'm going to keep the combs frozen overnight, to ensure any eggs are killed as well.
It's hard to say how many bees were lost. We found some crippled on the ground, wings and legs broken or missing.
If there is still a living queen, there may be hope. We are going to build a new hive box, with an open bottom, and re-site the hive in a sunnier place.
If the queen has perished, this hive probably won't make it. They've had such a difficult time.
Oh, the poor bees.

Chicken Parenting

Chickens pretty much know how to eat instinctively. If you hatch baby chicks in an incubator, they will start pecking at food within a few hours, and they'll do fine. But if you introduce some new food, say, a strawberry, or some crumbled bread--they might not know what that is. I've seen chicks huddle in one corner of their box for HOURS because they were scared of that RED THING!
Our old broody hen Hex, used to pick little bites off the apple core, or bagel crust, or corn cob, and put it in front of her babies. If they were slow, she'd peck at the morsel and coax them to try it. You could almost hear her say, "Like this. Just peck it. It's good." She showed her babies how to pick the corn kernels and peas out of the mixed vegetables first, and save the yucky carrots and green beans for later. Audrey was raised by Hex, and she will eat anything.
Maybe Hex did things that way because she was a bantam, and she raised other hen's eggs; her babies were full sized, often bigger than her by the time they were 5 weeks old--because Starboard does things differently. Jordan took some stale bagels out to share around yesterday. It's the first time the peeps have seen any food but scratch feed. Starboard started chuckling, "I found something good to eat." Two peeps ran right up and started tackling the bread crumbs, but two hung back. They were scared of that THING! Their mom called them again, and when they didn't still come over, she went and got them. She literally picked them up and dragged their fuzzy butts to the table, then demonstrated how to tear bits off. "Like this. Just grab it--child, I'll snatch you blind if you don't come over here and peck this bread. One bite. Try one bite. Don't make me come get you."
Starboard is kind of an intense mom.

Linda's Bees: Small Hive Beetle Trap Saga

Linda's Bees: Small Hive Beetle Trap Saga: "Yesterday I did all the construction for the Sonny-Mel Small Hive Beetle trap and put it on my three hives. I posted pictures of the proces..."

I created a similar trap, if a little more ghetto. (You know, I don't want to use that word anymore, even though it implies what I mean, which is that I used the materials to hand, that may have been junk before I turned them to a new purpose. I've resolved to do whatever projects need doing around the place with the junk I already have, as opposed to buying new junk. I'm a worse packrat than the packrat who stole all my pottery tools a few years ago. Anyone need some glass shower doors salvaged maybe 12 years ago?) In this case, I fished a plastic tub with a lid out of the recycling, and used that instead of the plastic sandwich tub Linda used.
I followed Linda's recipe for the banana peel lure, filled the trap with olive oil because I don't have any mineral oil, and slipped it into the hive behind the follower board. It was raining a little at the time, but the bees didn't get mad. Maybe because I kept up a steady murmur of "don't get mad, bees, I made you something cool, don't be mad..."
I took that larvae infested comb back out of the freezer, shook off the dead grubs, and hung the bar between the blocks below the hive, so the bees can check it out. I figure I'll just keep an eye on them today and see what they do with it. They might want the honey and nectar out of it. If they're indifferent, I'll probably keep the wax for candles (as opposed to face cream, for which I am keeping the new clean wax).
I've been on the computer a lot today and I think I should do something else. Don't forget to check out tonight's recipe, which is sprouted lentil & rice stuffed peppers with olives, tomatoes, and feta, with a crunchy vegetable side salad. Not sure what that will be until I dig around in the veggie drawer. Stay tuned.

New Recipes Blog

I've started a blog just for collecting recipes, called The Book of Shallots.

http://thekitchenwitchscauldron.blogspot.com

Ah, Wendell Berry...

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection."
— Wendell Berry

Report

The bees are really active this morning, possibly even agitated. There's a bunch of zoom going on at the hive entrance, and workers are heading out at a furious pace up through the trees. They are not even a little bit interested in the essential oil-sugar syrup.

Pardon my Dust

Redesigning the blog, for shiggles. I haven't figured out how to link videos I actually want to share, so for now, please enjoy these random and generic car videos. Or not.
I'm also trying to figure out how to add a section just for recipes.

Hive manipulations

I noticed a whiff of something malty out by the hive. Beeks say one of the first signs of a serious smb infestation is the smell of fermentation, so I had a peek. Oh, damn. Bad things escalating. Behind the follower board there is some sort of excelsior, like shredded wood, and there are a million grubs in it, as well as a litter of mites.
I briefly considered putting on a veil for this, but decided to just talk to the bees. I did put on the big blue gloves, which psychologically armor me to reach inside the hive without fear.
What I really need for this job is a vacuum. The motor would have to be kind of far away to avoid making aggressive humming sounds near the hive, so there would have to be a long hose, and the suction would need to be controlled by a button on the handle, to make it nimble enough to avoid sucking up the bees who want to know what you're doing. A little jar you could prime with DE would be stellar.
I ended up using our hive tool, a stiff paint brush, and an index card to sweep, scrape and collect all the scurf, larvae, and adult beetles I could get. There really were a lot. There is a crawl space between the bottom board and the tilted sides that is apparently a perfect brooder for SMBs. I scraped and squished and swept all I could reach without disturbing the giant mega honeycomb in the middle of the hive. I dumped the sweepings into a pile and dosed it savagely with a DE/Pyrethrin combo--after failing to interest the chickens in it. The grubs immediately started humping for the ground but I think I exterminated them all. I also dusted underneath the hive, being careful not to get any in the air to hurt the bees.
Then I took a few deep breaths and started inspecting the brood comb.
The first comb--empty. There is some pollen, and what is probably water? I will have to research. It's shinier than honey. No brood.
In the third comb I found adult beetles and a fair number of larvae. In fact when I poked at what seemed to be capped bee babies, what I found was that excelsior scurf and smb babies. I first moved this comb to the back of the hive, behind the follower board, thinking I'd give the bees on it some time to vacate, but after a little thought I decided to take it out of the hive entirely so the beetles and larvae would not escape back into the box. I moved an empty bar into the brood space. Maybe fresh comb will help get things under control. Once the bees vacate, I'll inspect further and stick the comb in the freezer.
There are larvae and scurf under the brood nest, but not nearly as heaped up as it was behind the follower board. Do the bees carry that stuff out? Or do they just patrol better under the nest, and let things pile up at the back because it's a less immediate threat?
There were a couple bars with empty wax on them, so I took that wax and returned empty bars.
I'm debating whether to remove those bars (3 empty bars spaced for honeycomb), but by all accounts the fall nectar flow is coming and I hope the bees will be filling those bars with goldenrod.
There are a lot of bees, and they seem active enough. There were many mites in the detritus on the bottom board, and I saw three bees with mites, out of 10 combs inspected.
I didn't see any brood. None at all. Is this a seasonal thing? Is this hive failing? Did the new queen die? Are there just too many pests in this hive?
I checked out the Honey B Healthy at Dadant's, and it's a sugar syrup with lemongrass and spearmint oil, emulsified with lecithin, and preserved with some kind of sulfate. I can definitely make that myself. The questions are:
How much support/interference/treatment is appropriate to keep a hive going if it's weak?
How much of the trouble these girls are having is due to the structure, with its closed base and beetle hidey holes?

I'll do some further reading today, but for now, I think:
a. weekly or bi-weekly cleaning. This mimics the bees' own immune behavior--the physical removal of pests--and should reduce the beetle population.
b. weekly DE applications under the hive.
c. research hive placement for its relationship to pest populations.
d. Consider feeding lemongrass/spearmint syrup periodically to make the brood more mite resistant.

I'm really tired today, and not too inclined to work outside, even though there a number of tasks pressing. It was an exhausting week at work. Here's what needs doing on the Sanctuary:
1. Storm blew down my fern and orchid cable, breaking all the orchid pots. I need to bleach the new pots, and purchase some orchid potting mixture. And string a new cable, dammit.
2. Continue clearing brush and weeds so the yard is presentable and hospitable for our upcoming full moon events.
3. Clean the clerestory windows.
4. Prep the sparkleberry sprouts for digging up later this winter, so they can be transplanted.
5. Clear under the tomato trellis and stir up soil for planting sugar snaps.
6. Give Starboard and brood a dish of dry sand to bathe in (finding dry sand is the issue...)
7. Wash and doctor Camille.
8. Figure out where to plant the red anise trees and the silverbells sapling.
9. Bring home enough blocks to make another bed for planting out back--for greens and lettuces this winter.
10. Clean the goldfish.

But first, breakfast. Broccoli, mushroom, and onion omelet with amarillos. Not very local, today, I'm afraid, but at least the cheese and eggs are.

Cooking in August

Baba Ghanoush Salad

Roast some tasty eggplants and peppers from the farmer's market. Don't over cook the peppers!
While they roast, thinly slice some onion, dust it with salt and sprinkle with fresh, pulpy lemon juice.
Chop some kalamata olives, a handful of basil or oregano, and crush a couple cloves of garlic. Add to the bowl. When vegetables are just right, chop and add them to the bowl. While everything is still warm, squeeze in the rest of the lemon juice, and stir in 2-3 tbsp tahini. Grind sea salt and black pepper to taste. Before serving, when everything is cooled off, add some chopped juicy tomatoes.
Serve on a heap of whatever salad greens you have, with a few slices of fresh mozzarella, and maybe a quartered hard boiled egg. Drizzle with olive oil for extra lushness.

Edible Gourd Casserole

I got this green pumpkin-looking veg at the farmer's market last week (it was only a dollar), and it took me a while to decide what to do with it. It had a tender skin, soft, mild insides, and slightly nutty seeds. I think this casserole would be delish with any kind of squash, gourd, or really any high moisture vegetable.

4 cups diced edible gourd or random vegetable
2 carrots, diced
One onion, diced
a few cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup plain yogurt
2 eggs
1 bouillon cube, crumbled
1/2 tsp ground brown mustard seed, or a spoonful of prepared brown mustard
a liberal sprinkle of thyme, and maybe just a pinch of cumin
2-3 slices stale bread, cut into small cubes and toasted
1-2 cups cheese (your call)
Saute the carrots, onions, and garlic until browned and fragrant. In a large bowl, mix the saute with the chopped gourd. Sprinkle the herbs and seasonings over the veggies and let them stand while you whip up two eggs in the yogurt and grate the cheese. Mix together all the veggies, the eggs and yogurt, the breadcrumbs, and about half the cheese, then spoon it into a baking dish. Top with the remaining cheese and bake about 30 minutes or until the veggies are tender (the smaller you chop, them the less time this will take).

We had gourd casserole tonight, accompanied by a suprisingly good improvised salad, which I liked almost more than the baked veggies. The raw broccoli stems add a nutty crunch to the soft beans and juicy tomatoes.

Butter Bean and Tomato Salad

1 can Eden butter beans, drained
some leftover broccoli stems, peeled and diced up small--not cooked--
juicy ripe tomatoes, in chunks
fresh basil
salt & pepper
lime juice
olive oil

Coop de Grace

We're kind up up to our asses in chickens, at the moment. And at least 4 of them are not really chickens we want.
For example, the two adopted black chickens still seem a bit lost. Ying has recovered well from her fall--bit of a crooked leg, but she's totally mobile--but neither of them seems to know how to roost.
That goes for the teenagers, too, those two RIR boys. One of them is currently sleeping on the floor of the new cage, because whenever his feet touched the perch he flipped out and flung himself away from it.
On the bright side, at least one of the black hens is laying, and the vicious one hasn't attacked me lately.
On the other hand, we have at least two roosters that will need to be dealt with.
We recently met a couple that lives near here and is farming a piece of land, with greenhouses and chickens, so far. The woman is a folk singer named Kathy that I've actually known a long time, though not well. I think I bought some plants from her once. She told me that she was a vegetarian for a long time, but had started eating meat recently and felt the better for it, though it was still an ethical dilemma for her. She and her partner--husband--consort? Andy decided the solution to that was to raise their own meat.
There isn't room for all the roosters in the world. They fight, they distress the hens, they attack things. (All except for Binky, of course.)They crow a lot, and even more if there are several in hearing distance.
So, while pounding down glasses of red plonk at James's house, I proposed to Jordan that I might give the clueless RIR adolescents to Kathy and Andy, for eating. James said, you know, if you want someone to eat your chickens, I'd like to get in on that. At which point Jordan said, yeah, if it's our chicken, I want to eat it too.
I can talk about this in the abstract well enough. When I think about the idea of it I can be detached, and it doesn't really bother me. I even wonder if I might like to eat some rooster and dumplings, or coque au vin.
It's not until I picture how the killing will actually happen, the boiling and beheading (not necessarily in that order), see in my mind's eye those legs like an ostrich with strong yellow feet always running around our land chasing toads, or think of the way they grasp my finger when I carry them to their coop every night-- sort of scaly, warm and dry, reflexive like a baby when you put your finger it its hand--the though of ripping that leg or a wing off to gnaw it--that's when the idea turns on me, and the fact of death, deadness and death, of stolen life, the slack slide into decay, all of that is what I do not want in my body.
All of that feels like poison to my soul. And if that sounds melodramatic, well, it is. I recognize that. And I recognize that only the sheer ridiculous wealth of food in our culture makes my diet at all reasonable: after the revolution, we'll be glad of a few roosters to stew up with our lima beans and okra. It still stands that when I ask the spirits for guidance they very strongly say I must not eat animals.
The next part of this thorny issue is that IF we decide the Jordan is going to kill and eat our chickens, where will her do it? It's hardly practical to do it in town at Trish's house, and I REALLY don't think she'd like that.
And I can't let it happen here. I don't want that to happen to an animal in my care on my land.

Headcount

four live babies, one with brown stripes down its back, three solid orangy brown
1 dead in nest (looks like mom maybe sat on it)
2 unhatched green eggs
1 unhatched brown egg

Cleaned out nest, put in fresh hay. 4 survivors up and about. Attempted to candle the three eggs, all looked solid inside. Gave them back to Starboard and she settled back down on them, so all hope not lost.

Starboard's a mommy!

She actually did it, even with all that up an down and last Monday's two or three hour dereliction (somebody needed a dust bath). We lifted her to peek last night and all the brown eggs had hatched, 5 or6 little brown peepers. She's being a good mom so far.
I wonder if the green eggs were fertile? I'm planning to wait until she's up and about then clean the nest, which is full of hatching detritus and poop. Very stinky, but as I understand it, that's one way a baby chick picks up it's mom's immunities--symbiotic bacteria in poop. Peeked in on her this morning and she warned me off, but a couple little fluffy heads popped up to see what was going on. Cute! At any rate, the eggs hatched right on time, Saturday August 14th, 21 days.

Had a very distressing few moments when I got up to let the birds out this morning. We were so distracted by baby chicks last night that we failed to close the three mini-roos' cage, and there were black feathers everywhere, with two of the mini's standing nearby. Oh noes! It's no tragedy for the Sanctuary--we're presently seriously rooster heavy--but I do like those adorable little guys. (I don't know if I ever mentioned it but last week, the one we always thought was a hen began to crow: three mini roos.) Fortunately--the third emerged from somewhere when I started strewing the morning food.

We visited Dadant yesterday and picked up two veils and a smb trap. I've made a frame for the trap to rest in so it can sit in the top bars and do its job. The frame is long enough to hold two traps, although we only bought one. We're going back on the 21st for a Alachua County Beekeepers party, and I'll get another one. For now I'll just cover the open side. Sources say to fill it with apple cider vinegar or mineral oil, although I don't know why you couldn't use vegetable or olive oil. I thought I'd start with vinegar.

I've bought myself a new bonsai, a little juniper, from the Tony the crazy orchid guy. It's a pretty little tree and so far I've been following his incredibly fervent and explicit care instructions: "Never leave your tree alone! When you travel you give your tree to your mother or a friend!" "Two cups water per day!" "Always have tray, very good, never dry out, never die!" "You mist, like this...!" "Take outside at night, inside everyday!" "You like that fisherman? I make that myself."
There's a bridge and a fisherman in the pot with the little tree, which is a windswept shape with several well grown branches. Tony set a little pool made of blue glass stones--at least one of which is heart shaped--under the bridge. I have a couple ideas about how to proceed, but the great thing about bonsai is that they benefit from long contemplation. No need to rush their process. Just daily attention, daily care, and slow decisions.
The little tree is getting some mold on the dirt around her roots, which I don't see as a great sign, but she looks well enough. I set her out in the rain yesterday afternoon, and just brought her back in now as I write. I'd kind of like to re-pot, maybe easing a piece of limerock under her more exposed roots, maybe replace some of the pea gravel (which Binky declared "tasty food, ladies, come and get it!" when he came across it...) with some pads of moss. But I won't rush that. She's not all that stable in the pot, which suggests a rather recent transfer before she came to me, so I won't move her her again for at least several months.
I'm also imagining a bonsai pot--more of a pan, maybe, made out of that concrete tufa material my mom showed us how to make. Like a rock ledge. I can anchor some copper wire inside to help anchor the tree.
Time to dress for yoga class.

Encouragement

S. paid a visit to the store today, and inevitably we got to talking bees. When I described what Beedicca went through at the beginning of July, his first response was, I bet they swarmed.

He should know. Their bees have swarmed 4 times this year alone, and the most recent one was about two weeks after Beedicca's population crash. We talked it over a little more and he still thought that sounded like a good explanation.
> all that honey was gone: before swarming bees depart, they gorge on as much honey as possible, to get them through their journey.
>The bees were lethargic and faded-looking: the older bees stay with the hive and raise a new queen.
>it was raining a lot, which might have kept them from foraging: we can't find enough food here, so we better move.

He made me feel a little better, less anxious, because Beedicca is thriving again now, and a swarm is not a failure, it's a success. We sent some bees out into the world.

He said he's just come to understand that the bees have reasons for all they do, reasons that may or may not be visible to us, and they do things in their own time and when they need to. All we can do is support them and celebrate their success. And enjoy the honey :)

Hive check

Opened the hive today. About a week ago, I stopped offering the sugar syrup because one refill (about a quart) lasted the girls more than 4 days. I figure that means they've found nectar flow somewhere. In the Sanctuary, plants seem to bloom a bit later than they might in full sun or a little further south. So in the bee grotto, our devil's walking stick isn't flowering yet, but driving around the region I see plenty of it.
At the back of the hive, behind the follower board, the floor is littered with varroa corpses. I saw bees moving them around, and I didn't see any at all on a bee, nor did I see any workers with damaged wings. In the hive proper, at the back where there are unfinished honeycombs, I found several hive beetles, most of them under savage attack by a bee. I dislodged and/or crushed 5 or 6.
The bees are beginning to fill those rear combs, but I wouldn't say we have a surplus, just yet.
In the brood area, I found: no beetles; plenty of fat larvae, and far fewer varroa specks on the floor. The bees in general were very active, responsive, and curious about me.
By the way, I am still working without a veil, and have abandoned our improvised smoker, as well as the long sleeve shirt and long pants. I have been wiping Beat It over my face and shoulders, at first just because the mosquitoes are really fierce this year, but I think it influences the bees too. Guard bees certainly check me out, even hang out on my hands, but they don't get aggressive.
There were far fewer other pests like cockroaches, spiders and ants--in fact I didn't see any at all. I attribute this to the shims Mark cut for me, to replace the bamboo sticks I was using to space the honeycomb bars. The new shims are a much snugger fit and I don't think as many pests can squeeze in. Also, of course, the bees are clearly feeling much better and are doing a better job of defense.
One of the women who got a hive the same time we did reported that her family harvested about 2 quarts of honey from two combs a few weeks ago, so apparently not all the hives ran into that dwindling problem. Her hive is also in town where there are many more ornamental plants providing nectar.
I have an idea that I'm not sure how to execute. In our house, to control roaches, we use common sense techniques like keeping the kitchen clean(ish) and I strew diatomaceous earth around baseboards and under the stove. If things get out of hand I buy those little roach motels. They contain bait, and a poison, and are sized for the bug you want to trap. Pets and everyone else are not exposed to the toxins. I can't help but imagine a SHB sized trap with DE or some other mechanical bug killer inside. The opening would have to be too small for a bee, but the beetles could be baited in with honey and trapped.
At any rate I plan to construct our next hive with a mesh bottom, so those varroa corpses and SHBs will fall through to their deaths onto the DE treated ground below.

In most of the natural world, infection, predators, and parasites are most attracted to vulnerable organisms: the old, the starving, the weak, the already ill. A healthy creature, whether it's a well-nourished human, tomato plant, or bee will have worthy defenses to keep attackers in check. So our goal as beekeepers must be to keep our bees healthy and strong, and not dependent on chemical crutches.
As I battle to rebuild my own immune system, damaged by pollution perhaps, or over-medication, or genetic weakness--it seems to me the bees of the world are on the same path. And although chemicals--medicines--may keep an individual alive, they are no path to a stronger species.

Adventures in Frugality

We live a fairly indulgent life, in our own small way. We're vegetarian, but we make terrific food and there's always plenty of it. However, this week--okay--this month--we've overspent a bit. It's in a good cause: we paid for our cruise and our passports. The expense is right at the edge of our ability to pay--very nearly too much. So I find I need to get a little creative in the kitchen, to use what's in the pantry rather than bring home my usual basketfuls of whatever strikes my fancy.
It's not all bad. For breakfast I fried some leftover cheese grits and baked an omelet with sweet potato greens, a red chili, and basil--all from the garden, with a couple eggs courtesy of the ladies.
Tonight I'm using up a bag of spotty marked-down tomatoes, some leftover cheese, and a batch of hoe-cake style cornbread to make tomato pie. Here's the recipe:

Tomato Pie

Make a half recipe of hoe-cakes, and prepare it like southern cornbread. That is: pour the batter into a hot oiled frying pan, and move it to a 450 oven to bake. After 15 minutes, turn down the heat to 350 to complete baking.

While that's going on, slice 2-3 lbs of tomatoes, not too thin; the tomatoes don't need to be pretty--just ripe.
slice one large onion very thin;
grate a cup or two of cheese, and blend 2 (cheese) to 1 (mayo) with mayonnaise for the topping. This sounds dangerously wierd, but Paula Deane says it's okay, and I trust Paul Deane.
Pick some basil and slice it into ribbons.

When the cornbread is done baking, cover it with layers of tomato and onion, sprinkling each layer with sea salt, a grind of pepper,and some basil. You may need to slice away the top to make a flat crust-- if you do, be sure to save the top. You can eat it for breakfast with butter and honey, or save it to make carrot-jalapeno stuffed something. Spread the mayo-cheese topping over all and return the pan to the oven to bake another 1/2 hour or until the top is golden brown.

This cries out for something alongside, and I opted for Savory Carrot and Spinach Salad. Because I have carrots and the last quarter of a bag of baby spinach. I think the flavor contrast is going to be...piquant.
Grate 4 carrots
crush 2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp dijon mustard
balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste
Toss in 1 or 2 cups rinsed baby spinach leaves.