PT. 2: BABIES, BEES AND BUG SHELLS

My family is gigantic. So gigantic, in fact, that I have absolutely no clue how many of us there are (I could count but I'm lazy). Growing up, my sisters and I were the oldest cousins and there were always babies around. Even now a family outing includes babies like my niece, Miranda!

Anyway, to continue with the bee story line... after we harvested all of the honey it was time to put the frames back into the hive. I would have loved to have the courage to do this but knowing me I would have gotten stung out of pure squeamishness. My aunt Meg and cousin John were the lucky ones to don the attractive bee suits. John opted for the gloves while Meg went bare handed; she is brave!

We also had some clowns trying on a bee hat.

Aunt Agnes and Mom

Before heading over to the hives a magical smoke machine was made! Smoke calms the bees down so they don't get wacky and sting you. Obviously, I don't remember the real name of this contraption but magical smoke machine works.

While we watched Meg and John work with the hives the spectators tried to stay out of the "flight path" of bees. They don't like when you get in their way flying to and from the hive. While I watched I got a bee on my neck and in my armpit - both times I did a little mini-freak out - but didn't get stung. If I did all the fun of bees would have been over for me.

John carefully smoked himself for protection while Meg gets crazy pulling bee frames out with no gloves!

See the bees flying around his pants?

And let's not forget that my mother held a bee; doesn't she look so pleased with her bravery?

(shh, it didn't have a stinger)

At the end of the day, we had a chilled out barbeque to offset the sugar highs from eating honey. While everyone ate I thought I'd be super-cool and play with locust shells. I remember growing up and chasing people with these things or putting them on clothing like broaches (which is exactly what I did).

Happy beekeeping!

NO BEES WERE HARMED IN THE TAKING OF THIS HONEY

Nothing says delicious like fresh, unprocessed honey straight from the hive.

My grandmother and aunt started beekeeping quite a few years ago and it has since grown into a small business for them. This past weekend they invited the whole family to come over and help harvest the honey from the hives. Personally, bees make me a little leery but I learned throughout the day that if you're working with 50,000+ bees you can't really be afraid because the odds of a sting are pretty high.




Inside of a movable frame bee hive



The night before the harvest the hives were emptied of bees and moved to the garage. You can't harvest the honey out in the open because the bees will swarm back to the honey. While I'm open to being around bees, I wasn't too thrilled thinking about a swarm flying after me; picture cartoon characters with the giant black cloud chasing them except I didn't have a pond of water to jump into and hide.

Each frame from the hive is removable for easy access. The frame has a honeycomb made from beeswax which protects the honey inside each comb.

To start the processing of extracting the honey from the comb, you get a hot knife (we used an electric one) and slowly melt off the wax covering each comb. This leaves the honey combs open for delicious business. During the process my aunt provided us with crunchy pretzels to dip in the honey while we worked.

Yum! Eating fresh honey straight from the comb!!

You can see the honey just waiting to come out!

As you sawed off the wax, you had to be careful not to hit any of the bees who hadn't hatched yet. I'm sure they got severe whiplash from being in the centrifuge though.

The lighter brown combs are unhatched bees.

As each frame had the wax cut off it was loaded into the "extractor" which is more or less a centrifuge. Here the honey was spun by a strong, strong man, my cousin John (good thing he was invited). During the spinning the honey gets thrown out of the combs and pools in the bottom of the extractor.

The strong, strong man himself.

Before the honey gets too high in the extractor and hits the frames we decide to empty it! Stop looking so worried, of course it goes into a sanitary bucket!! The extractor has a valve at the bottom and my aunt positions the bucket underneath along with a sieve to take out some of the bits of beeswax still in it.

While the extractor emptied I figured it was a great time for eating beeswax covered in honey. I highly recommend trying this if you ever have the chance. The honey is so much sweeter and stronger than something you find in a honey bear. However, be forewarned... I did sort of cough from all the sweetness because the comb had waaaay more than I expected. :)

I also decided it was a great time to complete something on my bucket list, so... I licked a honeycomb.

Okay, okay. I don't really have a bucket list but I really just wanted to lick it! How can you not!?

Harvesting honey wasn't something I grew up thinking I would have the opportunity to do. But my family is so eclectic and does the best outdoorsy and "real" types of things. I'm pretty lucky I can have the experience without all the bees at my house.

To be continued in...

Part Two: Babies, Bees and Bug Shells

LONGWOOD GARDENS

This past weekend I spent a day at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA with my cousin, Madeline. Longwood is host to over 1,000 acres of gardens, woodlands and meadows plus a few waterfalls and towers. It's an awesome place to go and take pictures to enhance your skills; also, it was a great place to be since I found a 50% Groupon and only paid $9.00 to get in! That is always exciting!

Towards the front of Longwood Gardens you find this awesome treehouse. You're able to go upstairs for a tour inside and it smells delicious in there; like fresh cut wood! Up at the top you have a few wooden dragons guarding the place. It's very fairy tale-like.

Madeline and I couldn't decide what exactly this was. Is it a gazebo? No matter what it is, the placement is great! It kind of sneaks up on you as you round the corner of the path. As you get closer to it you can see so much detail, especially in the ceiling (roof?, haha).

While we walked around and took picture after picture Madeline taught me some things including slowing down/speeding up shutter speeds. This allowed me to basically freeze moving water in time and get some awesome shots or blend the water together to make a cool-fuzzy look.

I "practiced my water" a lot to see what kinds of pictures would come out.

 

After awhile we started to get silly with our photography. Madeline had a fisheye lens extension and we used it to magnify ourselves.  ;D

We also started using our timer setting to complete self-portraits.



haaayyy!!!

In total, we spent around 4 hours at Longwood Gardens just wandering around, talking about what's going on in our lives and taking pictures. I got a nice little tan and some great shots -- so, long photography story short:






Santa Cruz Water Platter lilypad

  

Close-up of the side of the Santa Cruz, very spiny!





Hummingbird Moth
It was very cool; looked like a little bird when it flew.