How are the Bees Doing?

Right before we left for India and for quite some time while we were away the weather was bitter cold. Aside from the winter crop in the hoop house (all doing well), the weak spot on our property where cold matters is our bees.

I decided early on in the game not to medicate, feed or wrap the hive. We’re going to need bees that can thrive in this climate. If this colony does not survive, I will try another queen, or another breed of bee altogether, until I find the one that does. That will be the queen to breed queens from.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached my hive and saw the landing board strewn with dead bees. During winter there is no rearing of brood. The bees just huddle in a ball to stay warm and wait for warmer temperatures. If the queen and enough bees survive to get started up again in Spring, the colony has survived. Bees die before then, of the cold (if they’re on the outside of the ball), starvation and preferably just simply of age. Their fellow bees do not have the opportunity to rid the hive of the bee bodies. So they pile up.

But how to check if the colony is doing well? If I open the box, I’d chill them and stress them badly. So I put my ear to the hive box and heard…

a buzz!

There are some bees alive in there. It’s hard to know how many, what shape they’re in and how much food they have left and if they can reach it. That we will know in a couple of months, as soon as we are graced with a day warm enough to take a quick peek.

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While I was checking out the hive a bee clambered out, dragged herself to the edge of the landing board, keeled over and fell down into the snow. There she shuddered, then lay motionless. I picked her up and brought her inside, wanting to see if she had any deformities or mites piggy-backing on her. Soon after coming into the warmth, she revived and I quickly put a bell jar above her. I am now feeding her some honey (from her own colony). I wonder how long she will survive.

We’re Back

New Delhi street view

Well, we made it there and back again, but we’re not in good shape. The trip is 32 hours door to door, in 3 airplanes, through 4 airports and too many security checks. Disturbed sleep or near-total lack of it in my case (very light sleeper and insomniac), irregular eating of warmed-over food and, especially in my case, very little of it (mild but constant motion sickness), and the folding of time itself (Calcutta is 10.5 hours ahead of Boston), and the breathing in of the dense pollution of India’s big cities — all do a decent job of lowering one’s immunity to the billions of strange germs one comes into contact with.

Goofing around in front of the Taj Mahal

Long story short, we’re all of us down with jetlag, coughs and colds, and jetlag. It’s 4 am and Amie is watching How to Train Your Dragon and coughing incessantly. My nose is running and my ears are ringing and I want to go to sleep. DH, in Amie’s room (where her bed is but where she will not as yet deign to sleep) is awake too. Amie will miss school again tomorrow.

Rajastani apiary and mustard field

But it was worth it. We got to spend lots of time with family, including Amie’s great-grandmother, her grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles and countless friends and other family. We flew North for five days to see Delhi, Agra (the Taj Mahal had just been cleaned up for Obama’s visit) and Jaipur, and even made a short trip to Shanteniketan (Tagore’s town, a three hour drive from Calcutta).

Lake garden at the Amber Fort in Jaipur

I got to see lots of apiaries in Rajastan, but was also introduced to the sad story of Indian bees and agriculture by an eighty-year-old botanist and organic activist and a West-Bengal based NGO. The news is not good. The temperatures are unusually high for winter,  the rivers and ponds are dried up (and the rainy season only starts in June). The pollution in the cities is atrocious, there is trash everywhere – much of it Western, no doubt – and most shops don’t even sell coke anymore: it’s all diet Coke. That little detail says so much.

Along the road to Shanteniketan

There is a lot to tell, but let me recuperate a bit first.

NYC Finds

So, we made it to NYC, from our place to our friends’ place, in just 3 hours. Also the return trip, the day after, took exactly 3 hours. We have the route, the best times to travel, and the gung-ho attitude down pat. It was unfortunate that we had to take the car, but all three of us had to show up in person – otherwise I’d have jumped on a bus. It was also unfortunate that we didn’t return with the desired visas. They might still be forthcoming, and hopefully on time. We’ll see.

But the good thing is we got to stay with our dear New Yorker friends, A and D and their daughter E. They even fed us a wonderful vegetarian Thanksgiving Dinner. Yum! There was an acorn squash involved, with honey… I’m growing that squash next season! Amie got to play with E, who is seven now, very bright and kind. They’ve known each other since Amie’s birth and are like sisters, giggling, playing and reading together. It is with this family that we want to start an intentional community (I’ve not written about that, have I? Later).

And we got to take home two things that they had been storing for us (in their tiny 500 sq.f. apartment, which is already crammed full with art works):

  • a grain mill
  • a spinning wheel

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The spinning wheel was a surprise. A, the dad, had picked it up off the street, along with a big, heavy suitcase that was locked. He brought these unwieldy things home (on the bus). There he opened the suitcase and found diplomas, certificates, prizes and photographs, many of them pretty old. A stashed these away until late that evening. When D was asleep, he quietly exchanged all their own photographs with these old ones. D woke up to a house full of strangers! But she became upset when she heard the story, because this was obviously someone’s life – so meticulously collected – thrown in the street as trash.  I’ve offered to help them track down family members to see if they want these things back.

The spinning wheel has some broken and possibly missing parts. We’ll figure out how to fix and work it once we get back from India.

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The grain mill was A’s in college. Apparently, sometime during his adventurous college career, A and a friend baked tens of loaves of bread every day, from scratch. His parents had this mill sitting in their basement in Michigan for over a decade, and so it made its way to NYC, then to us. I don’t know how it works yet. I has a heavy duty engine but I want to find a wheel for it, to make it manual.

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Do scroll down to see my new pots.

New Pots

Last session I simply made the same thing over and over again, modeled on a small drinking cup I had bought at a pottery studio on Cape Cod. It was good practice, of course, and instructive as well in that I could really see how pots shrink in the kiln. I’m not entirely happy with some of the glazing, but I am never really cut up over something that doesn’t come out like I thought it would.  They’re just practice, experience gained. If once in a while the outcome is just right, I am thankful but it won’t make me expect too much of myself. I really do this for fun, to get out of the house on Monday nights, and for more practical than artistic reasons.

What’s Growing in the Hoop House: Anti-Stress

Sorry to be so absent. It will get worse.  We are traveling to India on the 10th – will be back  on New Year’s Day. That is the plan. Thing is, our passports are still at the Indian Consulate without any explanation, or response to our emails, and no one ever answers the phone. If they don’t arrive today, we’ll have to travel to NYC to get some resolution. A huge hassle! And then, if we can’t make it, tons of money will be wasted, but mostly, we won’t get to see my husband’s family, and Amie’s great-grandmother will be extremely sad. It is too stressful…

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What I do when I get stressed is I go out into the garden. I checked on the lettuce and spinach int he hot box: they’re all doing well. I moved some more pumpkins into the Earth Machine in the hoop house and topped it off with shredded leaves (the aroma!). Then I peeked under the row cover to see what’s growing. A photo-essay.

Considering Our Shade

out of our living room window

Considering…

  1. that the house does not benefit a whole lot from being shaded by the trees to the south in Summer,
  2. that we could grow a more successful garden where it already is and expand it even more
  3. that we would make room for fruit, nut and coppice trees,
  4. that if we removed those trees we can put solar hot water and perhaps a small PV on our solar south facing and perfectly pitched roof,
  5. and that we would get wood to fire up the stove for a decade,

… we are now leaning towards removing some big trees on our property. These are two beeches – one of them quite huge – two big red oaks and one big white oak, one double-trunked pine tree (might be on neighbor’s property), a couple of smaller oaks and pines, and possibly two more  large red oaks on the west side of the veg garden (not in photo). All the roots will also have to be removed if we want to plant new trees.

We’ve not decided yet because we need a couple of quotes, an equivalent amount of savings, and a lot more thought about the alternatives and, if we go ahead, the replacements. I’m just saying we’re leaning.

I was very adverse to such drastic measures. The wooded feel of this place  and neighborhood is what we fell in love with, and that strong, majestic beech in particular is such a joy. But we won’t be cutting them down for a lawn, and there are a great many more trees on the property. Still, it  is the thought of making solar hot water possible that brings me this far. What with the stove and solar hot water we would need to rely very little, if at all, on the oil burner.

The Skinny (1) on Honey: Antioxidants

(Oh no, it’s another series!)

Amie and Mama and their first honey harvest

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I’m so sore from my workout yesterday. I was shredding leaves for two hours and also moved the contents of one (full) outside  Earth machine to the Earth Machine inside the hoop house. Going by last year’s experience, this compost won’t freeze  and will keep going if I turn it once in a while. It’ll absorb, retain  and even create heat inside the hoop house, and make compost, of course. The moving had to happen with buckets, because the wheelbarrow doesn’t fit through the hoop house door, and so I’m sore, and so today is a day of book learning.

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I’ve been benefiting tremendously from honey – nipped two colds in the bud with it so far – and am on the lookout for a good book that tells me all about honey, pollen, propolis and other so called “products” of the hive. Everything, that is, about how the bees use and make it, what it consists of, how to harvest it, how to cure it if it needs curing, extract it if it can be extracted, and how those foods and medicinals work. I haven’t found that book yet, but I did find some pieces of the puzzle in this little book by C. Leigh Broadhurst (Basic Health Publications, 2005). Each of  its 85 small pages is packed with nutritional and medicinal information. (Warning: If you are upset by animal testing, expect this text to refer to some horrendous scientific tests on animals.)

I’ve gathered and digested some interesting data from this  book and Wikipedia for you. Let’s begin with honey.

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  • Honey and phytochemicals

Honey, when capped by the bees, is ready for consumption by the bees and by us, containing only 15-21% water (by weight). Uncapped honey as yet contains more water – the bees haven’t cured it enough – and will ferment if extracted. Besides water it consists almost entirely of carbohydrates: mostly simple sugars like glucose and fructose, and some sucrose, maltose and other sugars.

A small percentage of honey consists of phytochemicals. These comes from the  nectar source plants. These phytochemicals give (raw, unprocessed) honeys their distinct taste and aroma. They also confer medicinal benefits, because the plants made them to protect themselves from the bad effects of excess free radicals. These phytochemicals survive in raw honey and are passed on to us when we eat it. And what works for plants, works for us, because we too can suffer from excess ROM.

  • Reactive Oxygen Metabolites or Free Radicals

Reactive Oxygen Metabolites (ROM) – a type of “free radical” – are  naturally created as byproducts of metabolism. The cells in plant and animal bodies are composed of many different types of molecules, which in turn consist of one or more atoms of one or more elements joined by chemical bonds. When cells metabolize (convert of food into energy), there occurs a chemical reaction that transfers electrons from a substance to an oxidizing agent. This reshuffling of electrons often results in ROM, oxygen molecules with an unpaired electron.

ROM are unstable and highly chemically reactive, attacking the nearest stable molecules and stealing an electron from them to gain stability. The attacked molecule then becomes a free radical itself.

  • Out-of-Control Immune Response

Sometimes this process is  a desired one, actively created by the immune system, for ROM will also attack harmful bacteria and viruses and other pathogens. They also prompt enzymes that sterilize wounds by inflaming, heating the damaged tissue (making it swell) and thus flushing tissues of toxic substances.

However, the chain reaction of radicals creating radicals can get out of control, cascading into excess ROM. This inflames when inflammation is no longer necessary, causing chronic inflammatory conditions, like asthma, arthritis, tendonitis and ulcers.

An out-of-control ROM chain-reaction destroys cell membranes, reprograms DNA, forms mutant cells, causing  cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, stroke, diabetes, even schizophrenia.  And the older we get, the more our cells suffer from such “oxidative stress”.

  • Anti-oxidants

Now plant and human bodies can generally prevent this with chemical compounds called anti-oxidants. These terminate the chain of oxidation reactions by being oxidized themselves without in turn becoming free radicals. So, Broadhurst writes, they “act like chemical sacrificial lambs,” neutralizing ROM before they can irritate our cells. (p.9)

Human bodies make their own  antioxidant compounds, like bilirubin, uric acid, superoxide dismutases, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, etc.  But luckily, many of the antioxidant compounds in plants, especially fruits, vegetables and herbs also work for us. We can ingest their carotenoids, tocopherols, ascorbate, bioflavonoids, etc. directly, or indirectly by eating honey.

It is no wonder, then, that certain substances are the opposite of these beneficial foods. Polluted air and water, radiation, cigarette smoke and herbicides come with free radicals. So do refined foods, like hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, most other heated oils, table sugar (sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup) and white flours. None of these contain antioxidants, so the disastrous chain reaction is unchecked in them. When we ingest these, we  basically flood our bodies with ROM.

  • Antioxidants in Honey: Phenolics

Water tupelo, Hawaiian Christmas Berry, and sunflower honey have a high antioxidant content, but they are well outmatched by buckwheat honey.  Buckwheat honey has a dark brown color  and a distinctive taste and aroma, imparted to it by a type of antioxidant called phenolics. All flavenoids, for instance, are phenolics. So, the darker a honey, the more phenolics it contains.

Other antioxidant compounds in honey are vitamin C (ascorbic acid), malic, gluconic and cinnamic.

All these antioxidants also give honey its incredibly long shelf life and make it an excellent preservative for other foods.

Broadhurst warns that honey should not be thought of as a substitute for fruits and vegetables. It is a “processed product,” processed by the bees, and thus contains fewer antioxidants than fruits and vegetables (as well as much more sugar).

Heating and processing honey will destroy the vitamin C and the other antioxidant contents of honey. So eat honey raw and unheated.

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That’s not all that honey does for us, but you’ve guessed it… TBC!

Biomass! Leaf Shredding

I shredded a leaf pile today, the one in the back. Here I am dropping leaves into the shredder (best Freecycle ever!), which you can’t even see for the pile.  There are more piles, some even larger, on the property, and of course still lots of leaves not in piles (yet?). As you can see from my previous post, we have lots of trees, a mix of pine, beach and oak. Plus I let my neighbors dump their leaves on part of the front garden. I think I’ll let that pile compress on its own.

done!

This work makes you sweaty, tired, dusty and stink of gasoline fumes (which some like but that’s not me). Yet it is also very satisfying to see that huge pile of mostly air reduced to this compressed, moist, lovely smelling mound of biomass.

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Meanwhile, at the bottom of the hill, more pumpkin orphans were being dropped off, bringing the total to 36! I didn’t have the wherewithal to weigh each (any) of them, so I’m not sure of the tonnage, but I am sure of the neighbors’ enthusiasm for this project. I keep saying: Ah, the last pumpkins, but they keep on appearing under my mailbox.

(Mostly) Homegrown Split Pea Soup

I love it!

Scarf wound ’round, hat down on over ears, zip up coat, grab the harvest basket and run out.

Loot: celery, leeks and pea shoots

Rinse, chop, sweep into the pot, add homegrown chopped onions and carrots, as well as split peas (bulk, dry) that have been soaking overnight, water, pepper and salt and simmer until the house smells divine and the peas are soft. Blend in blender, add more salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with lightly chopped pea shoots – they melt right in. Enjoy with home baked bread.

Daily Bread No. 14 has come and gone and No. 15 will have come and gone soon enough without their pictures being taken. It matters not, because the plan worked. We are now free of store-bought bread!