Bee porn, slutty queens and vegetarianism...

We had three speakers at the fall Massachusetts Bee Meeting - a queen breeder, a researcher who studies queen quality among other things, and Harvard profession who studies public health.

What a great day! One of the speakers was late so we heard both talks by the Joe Latshaw (http://www.latshawapiaries.com/). While he produces queens for commercial beekeepers and works on a scale that is way beyond my wildest dreams, he explained to us - hobbyist beekeepers - how to use what he's learned and some of his techniques to become our own queen breeders on a small scale. What I took away from Joe's talks is that I need to think about the sustainability of my own apiary and I now have the tools (ok at least the directions) to select and rear my own queens to make that happen. Joe also stressed keeping records. This resonated with the scientist in me!

Our second speaker was Alex Lu from Harvard. He titled his talk "Putting your health in your hands" and was a great talk. I can see how much of what he spoke about being applicable to my hives - preventative care is way less expensive and more sustainable than treatment. I love the reminder to eat vegetarian before 6pm - save the world and your body by consuming less meat which contains high levels of chemicals and antibiotics.

The final speaker was David Tarpy from North Carolina State University. He explained why we need genetic diversity in our bee yards and that slutty queens are better. On average, honey bee queens mate with a dozen drones - but some will mate with that many in one day and still go out the next day for more! He showed us a great video of a queen on her nuptial or mating flight. Wow - bee sex is brutal and a one shot deal for the drone! Aside the idea that more is better for the queen, I learned a great deal about the reproductive health of honeybee queens. They are pretty amazing girls!

Bee meetings are great for socializing with other beekeepers too. I got to sit with two of the other beekeepers in Millbury - always a good time!

Final Harvest

We made our final harvest of the year and reaped maybe 25 lbs. This brings our total for the year just over 100lbs from two hives. This is really terrific and we are so happy with the girls.


This fall honey is much darker in color and deeper in flavor than our spring honey. As you walk around different parts of the yard or when I go in the hives, the odor of nectar is quite over powering. The bees are ON goldenrod like crazy. This is one of the most pungent flowers ever in my opinion. Until this year I had never really noticed that it had any fragrance, but now, I smell it all the time on the flowers.

This is a picture of our back deck and the tray is holding wax. The tray is covered with buttery yellow wax. But that is all brown you say - well yes, the buttery wax is COVERED in bees. The lovely girls are sucking out every morsel of honey from the wax and tucking it away for the winter. All the flying specks are bees coming to find a space on the wax. The sound of the bees and smell of the wax is intoxicating.

The other cool thing we noticed is all the bee relatives who have visited the honey. We have other kinds of bees and wasps of every flavor and color. This was best viewed from inside the house!

~Go bees!

Bee's Knees Brownies

1 cup butter, the real stuff
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cup honey from happy bees
1 tsp good vanilla
3 large eggs from a local farm
1/3 cup cocoa
1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup of pecans, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350' and grease a 9x12 pan.

Melt butter and chocolate in a water bath (for me that is a glass bowl nestled in a small pot with water it). Mix until very smooth. Add honey and vanilla and let cool. Whip the eggs until frothy and add a small amount of the chocolate to temper the eggs. Then add the remaining chocolate. Add cocoa and flour and stir until just moistened. Pour in to pan and top with nuts.

Bake 35 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting and use a very sharp knife when you do.

Best in Show

Our honey won not only a blue ribbon but BEST IN SHOW! Whooo hoo. Good job bees!!

We had a great time volunteering at the Worcester County Beekeepers Association booth. We sold lots of honey, honey sticks and S had a wonderful time making beeswax candles.

And now for the brownie news:

Now my friend Andrea is going to challenge me to do something else next year! I must say the brownies were popular with the judges - they loved the distinct honey flavor and the moistness. I will post the recipe this week.

Brownies for the fair

After much experimenting and many emails from the talented Andrea, I think I've got it. I changed a few ingredients, but mostly changed the preparation of the brownies. They are really good. You can see they are dusted with cocoa on top, but with the amount of honey in the recipe, it will be absorbed in no time!

As you can see, there are two lovey jars of golden goodness perched next to the brownies. I am bringing honey again this year. This will be our third year exhibiting honey and I expect to be in the light amber category. Last year our honey was much darker.

The honey this year is mighty tasty, but if you've been reading this blog for over a year, you might remember that the Spencer Fair is a beauty contest. A mere 10 out of 100 points are awarded for taste. The remainder is all about looks, baby. I've been polishing and banishing bubbles all morning. The honey looks great. Let's hope the judges agree!

Normally I'd say I had butterflies, but perhaps today I should rephrase that and say I have honeybees in my stomach. Judging is tonight after 6pm.

We are going to the fair to help with the WCBA Honey booth on Saturday afternoon. If you are in the area, come on by and say hello.

Brownie Batch #2

I cheated a bit and found a recipe that won a blue ribbon at another fair. I had high expectations; alas they were dashed. This batch tasted good, but more like a sponge cake than a brownie. The texture was rubbery.

Sooo, I am back to baking. I grabbed a new round of supplies and plan to make some changes to this recipe. I am going to add more chocolate to start with and bake it in a slightly smaller pan to make it more dense and luscious - more brownie-like.

Stay tuned...

Brownies

I am trying to make brownies with just honey as a sweetener to enter in the Spencer Fair. The fair is next weekend, so I've left it a bit late especially since I don't have a recipe that actually uses honey. My first experiment was going to be using three chocolates: unsweetened, bittersweet and cocoa. Alas, my lovely friend Andrea gently pointed out that bittersweet chocolate has sugar in it.

So in addition to switching the sugar out, I also switched out the bittersweet chocolate and substituted unsweetened.

Experiment #1 - total failure. The brownies are terrible!! They have the weirdest texture and are, believe it or not, too chocolaty.

Tomorrow will be Experiment #2 - I am going to actually change two things, which is generally one too many for most scientists, but this girl has a deadline and it is soon! I am going to jump ahead and I think this will be much closer to real brownies moist, rich and oh so sweet.

Now this is science I can love!