Last summer, I was pursuing the bee farming badge when I learned that honey can (allegedly) help combat seasonal allergies. As someone with dramatically (and occasionally hilariously) bad seasonal allergies -- like, I got sent home from school all the time as a kid -- I was pretty psyched. But as someone who prefers to use medical strategies that are actually proven to work, I was doubtful.
Nevertheless, I am also a person who likes to eat things that are delicious. Who isn't? So last night, I went out and bought myself some local honey (I've used up my stuff from last summer already!). On the train home, I noticed something, though. My new 1 lb jar of honey had broken inside my purse. The bee farming badge not only did not prepare me for this, not even a little.
Anyone got any tips for cleaning a pound of honey off of a very lovely camel colored leather purse?
Showing posts with label Bee farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bee farming. Show all posts
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Apples and honey
In honor of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, we had people over for a celebratory dinner last night. I made a noodle kugel, pasta with pesto, tomatoes, and zucchini, and Anzac cookies, which were experimental but kind of delicious. (These were partially a tribute to my mother's cherished belief that, when having folks over for dinner, one must always provide two dessert types: a fruit and a chocolate. My friend Wendy brought a chocolate cake, so the fruit spot was left unfilled, hence coconut/honey/oatmeal cookies. Yum.)
How does this relate to the Handbook? Simple. Honey.
Traditionally, on Rosh Hashanah, the meal (or the holiday itself) is capped with apples and honey. There are all sorts of explanations for each -- the apples as representative of the tree of knowledge, as references to the Song of Songs and so forth, and the honey as a nod to the "land of milk and honey." I've always liked the old standard the best, though. It's simply that apples and honey are both damn sweet and delicious and represent a wish for a sweet new year.
Our honey this year was the Tremblay Apiraries honey I'd sampled at Union Square a month or so ago, and let me tell you, while not the hit of the party, it was a delicious and seasonally-appropriate addition.
PS: I took a picture of apples, honey, challah, and the Anzac cookies last night in hopes of posting today, but ew. I am not a sophisticated enough photo editor to make a photograph of such delicious food look anything but disgusting. Instead, as a special bonus, my kugel recipe!
Now, many people think they do not like kugel. These people are incorrect. They do not like other people's kugel. Other people's kugel is dry and bland (sorry, other people). Mine is spectacular. Remember, this is a special occasion kind of dish, and fat = flavor.
You'll need:
1 pound of egg noodles
1/2 stick of butter
1 quart of buttermilk
4 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 cup (or more) of raisins
For the topping, you'll need:
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of crushed cornflakes (though I've made it with Kashi Golean, as well as with granola.)
2 Tbs of melted butter
1/4 tsp of cinnamon (though I use a lot more, often.)
To make the kugel, first preheat the oven to 375 F. Cook the noodles however you prefer to cook 'em. Drain them, then add the butter and stir the whole shebang around until the butter melts.
Add the buttermilk, eggs, sugar, salt, and raisins to the buttery noodles and mix them all around. Put the whole mess into a 9 x 13 baking pan, put some tin foil on top, and bake for about a half hour.
While your kugel starts to bake, get to work on the topping! Mix up the four ingredients. (This does not take the entire 30 minutes the kugel is baking unless you crush each flake of cereal individually. Don't do this.)
Sprinkle the topping over the partly-baked kugel, replace the foil, and continue to bake the kugel for another 30-45 minutes. It's done when the whole thing is semi-solid, with no buttermilk sloshing around.
Eat it. Seriously. You will not want to stop.
How does this relate to the Handbook? Simple. Honey.
Traditionally, on Rosh Hashanah, the meal (or the holiday itself) is capped with apples and honey. There are all sorts of explanations for each -- the apples as representative of the tree of knowledge, as references to the Song of Songs and so forth, and the honey as a nod to the "land of milk and honey." I've always liked the old standard the best, though. It's simply that apples and honey are both damn sweet and delicious and represent a wish for a sweet new year.
Our honey this year was the Tremblay Apiraries honey I'd sampled at Union Square a month or so ago, and let me tell you, while not the hit of the party, it was a delicious and seasonally-appropriate addition.
PS: I took a picture of apples, honey, challah, and the Anzac cookies last night in hopes of posting today, but ew. I am not a sophisticated enough photo editor to make a photograph of such delicious food look anything but disgusting. Instead, as a special bonus, my kugel recipe!
Now, many people think they do not like kugel. These people are incorrect. They do not like other people's kugel. Other people's kugel is dry and bland (sorry, other people). Mine is spectacular. Remember, this is a special occasion kind of dish, and fat = flavor.
You'll need:
1 pound of egg noodles
1/2 stick of butter
1 quart of buttermilk
4 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 cup (or more) of raisins
For the topping, you'll need:
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of crushed cornflakes (though I've made it with Kashi Golean, as well as with granola.)
2 Tbs of melted butter
1/4 tsp of cinnamon (though I use a lot more, often.)
To make the kugel, first preheat the oven to 375 F. Cook the noodles however you prefer to cook 'em. Drain them, then add the butter and stir the whole shebang around until the butter melts.
Add the buttermilk, eggs, sugar, salt, and raisins to the buttery noodles and mix them all around. Put the whole mess into a 9 x 13 baking pan, put some tin foil on top, and bake for about a half hour.
While your kugel starts to bake, get to work on the topping! Mix up the four ingredients. (This does not take the entire 30 minutes the kugel is baking unless you crush each flake of cereal individually. Don't do this.)
Sprinkle the topping over the partly-baked kugel, replace the foil, and continue to bake the kugel for another 30-45 minutes. It's done when the whole thing is semi-solid, with no buttermilk sloshing around.
Eat it. Seriously. You will not want to stop.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Thirty-four seconds.
I failed the Army fitness test today.
I considered lying to you about it. I went over the allotted time for the 2-mile run by a healthy thirty-four seconds, and I spent some time at the laundromat today reflecting that, well, maybe if I'd jaywalked a little more aggressively, or if I'd decided to run a little earlier in the day, when there was less traffic, I could have pared away that thirty-four seconds easily. But the truth is, that would be a lie. I failed the running test because I didn't run fast enough and that's that.
I thought so hard about lying (I told myself it was just tweaking my results a little bit, honestly) that I even floated it past one of my friends, the way we look for approval when we don't really think what we're doing is right by the approval of others might make it so. Fortunately, one thing pulled me out. First, the one I wish it was: my own moral compass. I mean, how can I lie, right? Lying is bad! But the real reason is the spirit of the project itself. If the object of this project of mine is to actually complete the badgework, then my own honesty is the only thing keeping this from turning into some kind of peculiar but fictional real-time story. And that's no fun. If I start lying about silly things (say, thirty-four seconds), it can become way too easy to move into bigger lies -- did I really successfully cook an all the required food for the Camping badge? Did I convince Prospect Park to let me raise corn?
As the Handbook (and my dad, actually) remind me, a scout is trustworthy -- heck, it's the first piece of the Boy Scout Law. It's not just honesty the scout should strive for, either. "The honor of a scout is a sacred thing, and cannot be lightly set aside or trampled on." This doesn't just apply to commitments to others (foolish as they may be -- are you, internet, really going to judge me for whether or not my run time was off by thirty-four seconds?), but, more importantly, to self-respect.
Now, I know that a few days ago I had some less-than-polite words for the Handbook, in general. I had a bit to say about mouth breathing (bad!), and a bit more about frogs' legs (huh?). But this bit right here, this is a critical one for me. I really do love that the Handbook sees behavior towards others as inherently tied to a sense of self -- it's almost Golden Rule-like. It's a nice bit, and maybe my favorite part of the Handbook so far. (If you're following along at home, you can check it out at Project Gutenberg, then just move down to the "Scout Virtues" section.)
This bit here, really, is what scouting should be about, and kind of what being an actual human being should be about, too. Don't we all want to think the best of ourselves? Don't we all want to have faith in those around us?
To lie to you about thirty-four seconds. Psh. You deserve better.
(Also, a quick reference to a bee-related article in today's NY Times!)
I considered lying to you about it. I went over the allotted time for the 2-mile run by a healthy thirty-four seconds, and I spent some time at the laundromat today reflecting that, well, maybe if I'd jaywalked a little more aggressively, or if I'd decided to run a little earlier in the day, when there was less traffic, I could have pared away that thirty-four seconds easily. But the truth is, that would be a lie. I failed the running test because I didn't run fast enough and that's that.
I thought so hard about lying (I told myself it was just tweaking my results a little bit, honestly) that I even floated it past one of my friends, the way we look for approval when we don't really think what we're doing is right by the approval of others might make it so. Fortunately, one thing pulled me out. First, the one I wish it was: my own moral compass. I mean, how can I lie, right? Lying is bad! But the real reason is the spirit of the project itself. If the object of this project of mine is to actually complete the badgework, then my own honesty is the only thing keeping this from turning into some kind of peculiar but fictional real-time story. And that's no fun. If I start lying about silly things (say, thirty-four seconds), it can become way too easy to move into bigger lies -- did I really successfully cook an all the required food for the Camping badge? Did I convince Prospect Park to let me raise corn?
As the Handbook (and my dad, actually) remind me, a scout is trustworthy -- heck, it's the first piece of the Boy Scout Law. It's not just honesty the scout should strive for, either. "The honor of a scout is a sacred thing, and cannot be lightly set aside or trampled on." This doesn't just apply to commitments to others (foolish as they may be -- are you, internet, really going to judge me for whether or not my run time was off by thirty-four seconds?), but, more importantly, to self-respect.
Now, I know that a few days ago I had some less-than-polite words for the Handbook, in general. I had a bit to say about mouth breathing (bad!), and a bit more about frogs' legs (huh?). But this bit right here, this is a critical one for me. I really do love that the Handbook sees behavior towards others as inherently tied to a sense of self -- it's almost Golden Rule-like. It's a nice bit, and maybe my favorite part of the Handbook so far. (If you're following along at home, you can check it out at Project Gutenberg, then just move down to the "Scout Virtues" section.)
This bit here, really, is what scouting should be about, and kind of what being an actual human being should be about, too. Don't we all want to think the best of ourselves? Don't we all want to have faith in those around us?
To lie to you about thirty-four seconds. Psh. You deserve better.
(Also, a quick reference to a bee-related article in today's NY Times!)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Covered in bees!
I have a feeling you’ve been waiting for this day. Because today, I can award myself my very first badge . . . Bee Farming.
I took a trip to the slightly-further-away reaches of Brooklyn to interview John Howe, a rooftop beekeeper. Tracy in tow (again!) we visited John first for a video introduction to his beekeeping background, and then to actually check out his hives.
Did I mention that, while 1000 bees sound like a lot, they look like a hell of a lot more?
John’s been a beekeeper for the past eight years, first with three hives and later with two. A self-taught beekeeper, he coordinates the New York Beekeepers Meetup. He harvests roughly 100 pou
nds of honey each year from his hives (buy some here).
In the backyard, John showed me his display hive, which he takes to schools and other public functions. It’s home to roughly 1000 bees, who, like I said, are a lot more than you’d imagine. (See that box right there? There are 1000 bees inside it. Seriously.)
John also showed us his honey harvesting room, where he uses a warm knife to remove the wax caps from the combs, then places the frame — the wood or plastic piece that holds the honeycombs — into his extractor, a giant steel salad shooter of a machine, which spins off the honey for filtration. Then? Delicious, delicious honey.
By this point, fully prepared with information about honey harvesting and with a little preparation for seeing a whole lot of bees, it was time to head up to the roof for a little ha
nds-on research.
Would it be too dorky of me to say that the hives were buzzing? Seriously, they were.
I followed John’s advice, keeping away from the fronts of the hives. He tells me that he barely wears protective gear anymore — “I’m just not afraid.”
The hives are wooden langstroth models, the kind that almost look like a chest of drawers. He also has a single polystyrene tray. I wondered if bees might have housing preferences — the old-fashioned log cabin bees vs. the new money
bees. Not so. “The bees don’t seem to notice, but I don’t like the look of it.”
One more beekeeping tidbit: while I’d imagined NYC’s beekeeping ban to go back hundreds of years (it seems like a colonial type of law, doesn’t it?), John tells me it only dates back as far as the Giuliani administration. Know what other cities ban beekeeping? As far as I can tell, Ypsilanti, MI. Seriously. That may be it, kids.
(Check out this article for a more London-y take on beekeeping.)
(Oh, right, and check out the sidebar for a running tally of badges.)
(Oh right, and for Kate.)
I took a trip to the slightly-further-away reaches of Brooklyn to interview John Howe, a rooftop beekeeper. Tracy in tow (again!) we visited John first for a video introduction to his beekeeping background, and then to actually check out his hives.
Did I mention that, while 1000 bees sound like a lot, they look like a hell of a lot more?
John’s been a beekeeper for the past eight years, first with three hives and later with two. A self-taught beekeeper, he coordinates the New York Beekeepers Meetup. He harvests roughly 100 pou
nds of honey each year from his hives (buy some here).In the backyard, John showed me his display hive, which he takes to schools and other public functions. It’s home to roughly 1000 bees, who, like I said, are a lot more than you’d imagine. (See that box right there? There are 1000 bees inside it. Seriously.)
John also showed us his honey harvesting room, where he uses a warm knife to remove the wax caps from the combs, then places the frame — the wood or plastic piece that holds the honeycombs — into his extractor, a giant steel salad shooter of a machine, which spins off the honey for filtration. Then? Delicious, delicious honey.
By this point, fully prepared with information about honey harvesting and with a little preparation for seeing a whole lot of bees, it was time to head up to the roof for a little ha
nds-on research.Would it be too dorky of me to say that the hives were buzzing? Seriously, they were.
I followed John’s advice, keeping away from the fronts of the hives. He tells me that he barely wears protective gear anymore — “I’m just not afraid.”
The hives are wooden langstroth models, the kind that almost look like a chest of drawers. He also has a single polystyrene tray. I wondered if bees might have housing preferences — the old-fashioned log cabin bees vs. the new money
bees. Not so. “The bees don’t seem to notice, but I don’t like the look of it.”One more beekeeping tidbit: while I’d imagined NYC’s beekeeping ban to go back hundreds of years (it seems like a colonial type of law, doesn’t it?), John tells me it only dates back as far as the Giuliani administration. Know what other cities ban beekeeping? As far as I can tell, Ypsilanti, MI. Seriously. That may be it, kids.
(Check out this article for a more London-y take on beekeeping.)
(Oh, right, and check out the sidebar for a running tally of badges.)
(Oh right, and for Kate.)
Friday, August 21, 2009
Hey honey
Beekeeping is illegal in New York City. You didn’t know this? Me neither, though you can read all about it here. However, this hasn’t stopped dedicated apiarists, and I don’t intend it to stop me from my full-scale pursuit of the bee farming badge.
The bee farming badge seems deceptively simple. There are only two requiremen
ts:
1) Have a practical knowledge of swarming, hiving, hives, and general apiculture, including a knowledge of the use of artificial combs;
2) Describe different kinds of honey and tell from what sources gathered.
However, given the illegality of my pursuit, this could get tricky. Fortunately, there are the good folks at websites like http://www.nyc-bees.org/, where I tracked down a gentleman willing to help me out. We’ve scheduled a meeting next week — I’ll keep you all posted!
Meanwhile, I spent time today at the Union Square Greenmarket, talking to Dewayne from Tremblay Apiaries. Dewayne works with Tremblay, building their honey-harvesting materials for . . . get this . . . six hundred hives. (This means that there are something like 60 million bees. Yikes.) As far as he’s concerned, the beekeeping holds a secret message for modern society — “the bees can live, a hundred thousand in the same house, and they can all work together for a common goal.” And the honey they make? Delicious.
I’m currently enjoying a nice glass of ice water with lemon juice and some of the Tremblay Apiaries linden honey mixed in — this honey is NOT the kind I’ve gotten from regular grocery stores. It’s sweet, almost woody-tasting, and I cannot stop eating it. I tasted a very light, mild raspberry honey and a floral spring mix, too, and it’s utterly bizarre to me to see how different the varieties are. I hear buckwheat honey is delicious, but due to a bad crop on neighboring farms this year, there was none to try. Rats.
So, let’s say I have a hive of bees (I don’t), and I want ‘em to make me some more linden honey. How can I do it? I have no idea. Fortunately, this seems be because it’s impossible. “You can’t convince a flower, or a bee, or the weather to do anything,” Dewayne told me. The best you can do is put the bees — who are shockingly efficient at honey harvesting, finding the flowers with the highest sugar content first, then the next, then the next, then the next — somewhere near one of the plant varieties they might like.
One final thought on bees, this regarding artificial combs. First, I really don’t get it. I’ve been unsuccessful at finding information about artificial combs on the internet, and the
folks I’ve contacted online (so far) haven’t had much to say on the subject either. This may just be because people don’t use them much — the artificial comb badge requirement may be a relic of a society eager to take ever more steps in farming technology. However , Tremblay does have one technology piece that I think is unbelievably cool. See, bees can be subject to mites, which like to nest in the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, right up alongside the larvae. If the cells are too big and the larvae have too much wiggle room, there’s space for mites, so a good beekeeper wants to make sure his colonies all have small cells. To that end, the folks at Tremblay have plastic sheets imprinted with appropriately-sized cells imprinted on them (like this, I think), in order to give the bees a head start.
Also today, in Union Square, I was distracted by a woman from one of the many cat rescues in NYC. Someone had just dropped off something like 10 severely abused kittens, one of whom I wish I could unsee. Please, guys, stop by the NYC Humane Society site and consider throwing a few bucks their way.
Personal history fact: I’ve never been stung by a bee. Have you? Since I haven’t, does that make me magic, smelly, or just really, really lucky?
The bee farming badge seems deceptively simple. There are only two requiremen
ts:1) Have a practical knowledge of swarming, hiving, hives, and general apiculture, including a knowledge of the use of artificial combs;
2) Describe different kinds of honey and tell from what sources gathered.
However, given the illegality of my pursuit, this could get tricky. Fortunately, there are the good folks at websites like http://www.nyc-bees.org/, where I tracked down a gentleman willing to help me out. We’ve scheduled a meeting next week — I’ll keep you all posted!
Meanwhile, I spent time today at the Union Square Greenmarket, talking to Dewayne from Tremblay Apiaries. Dewayne works with Tremblay, building their honey-harvesting materials for . . . get this . . . six hundred hives. (This means that there are something like 60 million bees. Yikes.) As far as he’s concerned, the beekeeping holds a secret message for modern society — “the bees can live, a hundred thousand in the same house, and they can all work together for a common goal.” And the honey they make? Delicious.
I’m currently enjoying a nice glass of ice water with lemon juice and some of the Tremblay Apiaries linden honey mixed in — this honey is NOT the kind I’ve gotten from regular grocery stores. It’s sweet, almost woody-tasting, and I cannot stop eating it. I tasted a very light, mild raspberry honey and a floral spring mix, too, and it’s utterly bizarre to me to see how different the varieties are. I hear buckwheat honey is delicious, but due to a bad crop on neighboring farms this year, there was none to try. Rats.So, let’s say I have a hive of bees (I don’t), and I want ‘em to make me some more linden honey. How can I do it? I have no idea. Fortunately, this seems be because it’s impossible. “You can’t convince a flower, or a bee, or the weather to do anything,” Dewayne told me. The best you can do is put the bees — who are shockingly efficient at honey harvesting, finding the flowers with the highest sugar content first, then the next, then the next, then the next — somewhere near one of the plant varieties they might like.
One final thought on bees, this regarding artificial combs. First, I really don’t get it. I’ve been unsuccessful at finding information about artificial combs on the internet, and the
folks I’ve contacted online (so far) haven’t had much to say on the subject either. This may just be because people don’t use them much — the artificial comb badge requirement may be a relic of a society eager to take ever more steps in farming technology. However , Tremblay does have one technology piece that I think is unbelievably cool. See, bees can be subject to mites, which like to nest in the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, right up alongside the larvae. If the cells are too big and the larvae have too much wiggle room, there’s space for mites, so a good beekeeper wants to make sure his colonies all have small cells. To that end, the folks at Tremblay have plastic sheets imprinted with appropriately-sized cells imprinted on them (like this, I think), in order to give the bees a head start.
Also today, in Union Square, I was distracted by a woman from one of the many cat rescues in NYC. Someone had just dropped off something like 10 severely abused kittens, one of whom I wish I could unsee. Please, guys, stop by the NYC Humane Society site and consider throwing a few bucks their way.Personal history fact: I’ve never been stung by a bee. Have you? Since I haven’t, does that make me magic, smelly, or just really, really lucky?
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