A Humble Hum

Okay who put that frame together? This girl had a serious quality assurance issue she wanted to discuss (more photos of the lazy things here and no that super STILL has not been drawn).

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 5/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 5 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Cream butter and honey and add sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla, salt and baking powder and mix well; gradually add flour and mix until semi-soft dough forms. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and place them 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. You may want to stick the dough in the freezer for ten minutes or so and between oven batches so they keep a biscuity form and don’t spread thin. I keep a shaker of cinnamon & sugar in my spice rack so I sprinkled each ball of dough a couple shakes to add some visual interest :)
3. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until bottoms are light golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately remove from cookie sheets. Let cool and serve warm or cold.

Ey! Goddes mercy!” sayd our Hoste tho,
Now such a wyf I pray God keep me fro.
Lo, suche sleightes and subtilitees
In wommen be; for ay as busy as bees
Be thay us seely men for to desceyve,
And from a soth ever a lie thay weyve.
And by this Marchaundes tale it proveth wel.

– Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, 1386-1400

Well that’s not exactly the kind of busy I’ve been but you have to appreciate that since I’ve been “busy as a bee” I haven’t kept a good record of my bees. Here is what you’ve missed:

Saturday, April 21st it was pretty rainy, with a break just long enough for Jason & I to remove the newspaper from between the brood boxes and put in the couple of frames it was lacking from the package install (took them from the nuc). We only had time to peep a few frames since a storm was looming and the ladies were none too happy to have their roof removed. They were all staring at us. So we didn’t see any eggs but the queen cage was empty and there seemed to be a good population so I was happy enough with what I saw. We also pulled the little swarm nuc out of the yard since it had dwindled to only a handful of bees. I wonder where those little souls went in the hours after their home was stolen. We’ll never know! That left me with one frame of capped/uncapped honey to stick in the freezer in the house. Next to two half-gallons of Blue Bell.

Saturday, April 28th we cleaned out the garage and made a spot on top of the keg fridge for all the equipment that was SUPPOSED to be in the bee yard this season. What a sad reminder every time I pull into the garage! I can’t wait to see bees crawling all over the front of my chevron hive next year. If any swarm-minded bees are reading this: we have vacancy.

Sunday, April 29th we finally saw some glorious eggs in the hive! And bee babies (larva)! And a nice solid brood pattern! I say we’re back in the game now but still oh-so-behind. They had done almost nothing with the empty super on top which was disappointing (but eggs! at lease Gloria is doing her bit)! There wasn’t a whopping lot of bees in the bottom box but there were eggs both up and downstairs so we didn’t reverse the boxes. I guess I know better than to think the bees will build new comb when they have plenty of existing room – especially since I assumed the poplar flow was so grand that I didn’t need to stimulate them into wax production with 2:1 syrup. That was another dumb assumption. So later today I’m going to take a quick peek at that super which will likely show no progress and stick the feeder back on to see if that will get them to build it out. Next weekend we’ll do a more thorough inspection if we can steal an hour away from all the graduation festivities! My little sister is almost done with college. I can’t believe it.

[more hot bee swag! bee pendant from dear ol' Jen, I've worn it like 10 times already, and bee shorts from my Mom & Anthropologie. photos my own.]

4.29 INSPECTION AUDIO