A Busy Week: an update

My friend from college, Hadar, visited earlier this week (which explains all the gorgeous photos lately). He left on wednesday, which was also the first day I watched the little baby Nora. I've taken on another little one to play during my "Dancey Pants Daycare." She's only three months old and ten pounds, so I'm thoroughly enjoying having Odin newborn flashbacks (he was born ten pounds). I'll be watching her Monday through Wednesday, which will be exciting but also stressful. I'm trying to save up all the cash we can so that I can travel this winter without worry. I thought for sure that agreeing to watch such a little babe would calm me ridiculously strong baby urges, but no. I've only watched her twice and if anything my "I-want-a-baby" feelings have been amplified. Oops! We'll see how watching a newborn and two toddlers goes, I'm a little nervous honestly!

Odin's starting to become particularly exuberant, which is adorable but also terrifying. He's embracing his toddlerhood whole-heartedly. He spends his days making funny noises, kissing and hugging a tad bit too hard, and learning new tricks like walking on tip-toes and spinning in circles.

For some reason, he's also decided that this week would be the week that we switch from two naps to one, which has been a little difficult. Any advice, help, or experiences you could share would be greatly appreciated! He is tired and a little cranky at the usual time (10 am) but after nursing for about 15 minutes, will spring back up giggling and jumping around. We'll do this little dance on and off for the following two hours and he'll usually give in around noon. Oy. I really enjoyed my two two-hour naps a day...

Zak did work with the bees. They're doing a little too well! We now have 3 hives. One which is very strong, one which was the swarm that Zak so masterfully captured, and the third is an experimental hive. OH! And we adopted some baby chickens! I'm so excited about these little cuties.. I'll post better photos of them soon. Odin's very gentle with them and loves standing next to his papa when he checks on them.

I've also been cooking more, which is exciting. The idea of becoming so domestic is a little terrifying for my wild heart, but we're coming to terms with it. I made a variety of pizzas this week as well as banana crumb muffins and a new favorite- black bean, red pepper, onion, and sweet potato burritos with cilantro and lime. I thank Pinterest for that last one.

So, that's about it. A little update for you all! Again, and nap-time advice would be greatly appreciated. :)

independence declared; a post by Zak

Oh how perfectly timed these moments I shroud my days in can be.  They ring out like a beautiful voice, rising and falling, glow like a wrinkle in time tucked in a lovers eye, or stare at you out of the darkness and hollow silence of monotony.  Any other day I would have been slaying the relentless defiance of some shrub, pushing it once more into a cookie cutter ideal of curb appeal.  However, thanks to the kindness and forethought of our founding fathers, they decided on signing the Declaration of Independence on that day as a personal favor to me.  So that in the future I could be home to tame our bees own declaration of independence.
The day was progressing like any other and we were just about to leave to go to breakfast with some friends, which we were already quite late for.  I ran out to quickly put something behind the garden shed before we left for the day and as I came around the shed and stepped into my wild laboratory that's when it hit me, full on like a wave.  The buzzing ran its fingers over my body, bringing every hair to attention.  As I stared at the dark, ceaselessly shifting mass above me my first thought was that the bees were just being really active after a few days of rain.  Then I saw the opening of our hive and suddenly I knew exactly what was happening.  The torrents of bees literally gushing from the hive mouth could be nothing other then a swarm.  I ran inside, informed Michelle, and called our friend Carl to see if he had a spare hive box I could borrow.  Luckily he was on his way to check his bees, another beautifully fated coincidence.  I wasn't going to let these bees get away.  So with no real concrete idea of what I was doing I put on the bee suit and waited until all the bees in the air (about 20,000 at least) landed on a tree branch about 20 feet off the ground.  The bees amass in a giant cluster for anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days while scout bees search for a new hive sight.  With no idea how much time I would have, I quickly cut away all of the vines and branches that were blocking access to the swarm and set up a ladder.  Michelle using that big sexy brain of hers, said I should make up some sugar water solution to spray them down with.  This makes it so they cannot fly and the sugar makes them content.  It was about this time Carl showed up and the second phase of the adventure began.  We set up the box, blocked the entrance and took the top off.  Then began my incredibly precise and technical method of trapping the swarm.  I will try to keep this explanation simple, as I realize most of you are inexperienced with bees.  I climbed the ladder and using a piece of cardboard I knocked as many of the bees as I could, (hoping the queen was amongst them) into a 3 gallon bucket and quickly put the lid on.  I then descended the ladder and with the help of Carl dumped them in the hive and quickly put the top on.  We did this 3 or 4 times until we had most of the bees, switching who got to wear the suit and who was ground support.  After that, all I had to do was give the new hive a feeder with some sugar water to help them get straight to making comb.  Nothing like a little hands on learning.
I would like to give a special shout out to mother nature for laying this bounty on our doorstep and remind her she's always welcome to come over for drinks and crash on our couch if need be.

flowers for the bees

We want to keep our bees happy with their new home, so Zak brought home loads of flowers to fill our garden. Bees have favorite colors and favorite flowers so we've been trying to keep that in mind. I've started a ton of flower seeds but it'll be a little while before they're ready to transplant into the garden beds. I love watching Zak do what he loves and dig his hands into the earth. The only thing that makes me happier is when he shares those moments with Odin, teaching him to love the earth just as his papa does.

hello honeybee

We've been waiting for weeks for our honeybees to arrive. They've been continuously delayed for (I'm sure) various reasons. Last weekend they finally made their way into our friend Carl's hands and aboard the boat to our little island. Carl brought them over to us early the next morning (on our dear friend James's birthday!) and helped us transfer them to their new home. Zak and I have been prepping by watching tons of youtube videos about beekeeping, reading some bee books, and painting the hive. I threw Odin in the sling (very sloppily) and ran outside to watch when Carl arrived. 

The first step is to pry the top cover off and remove the queen. The queen is in a separate little cage closed off with a sugar cube to allow her to eat her way out over the course of a few days. This allows the queen and the hive to adjust to one another and to their new surroundings. Other than her elongated torso, she looks a lot like the rest of the colony. With a rubber band, Z attached the queen to one of the middle frames 

After the queen's in place, we doused the bees with sugar water to keep them content as we poured them into the hive. It was funny (and a little scary) watching Zak shake and dump the bees into their new home. Carl sprayed the remaining frames with sugar water to keep the bees occupied while we set up the top to the hive.

(notice our spastic cat climbing a tree in the background, pay no mind)

Placing the box that they arrived with in front of the hive allows the last few bees to venture out and hopefully into their new home on their own. There are always a few more left in the box. We then took the can of sugar water, Z poked holes in the top, and set it upside down on top of the inner cover to provide the bees with food until they start building comb and can start to produce their own honey. We then let Caligula investigate. 

There are two different entrances. For now we use the small entrance and in about a month we'll be able to switch back to the larger entrance to allow more passage for the bees to collect pollen and nectar. Odin was fascinated the entire time and watched silently from the sling.

A few words from Zak on bees;

Hullo strangers, I feel the need to preach for a moment and since this is the internet and thats what people seem to do here I guess I need not feel ashamed.  Getting these bees was very exciting and was the climax of much dreaming and wishing over the past few years to get into apiary.  And of course over the time I couldn't pursue these desires in any physically tangible ways I did the only thing left to do.  Read about bees.  And the more I read the more and more I realized how truly fascinating these little insects are.  I also realized how little the majority of our country knows about the important role they play in putting food in our mouths.  Did you know that one out of every three bites of food we eat comes from open pollinating plants (assuming you eat fruit and veg)?  And that bees are doing all the leg work in the pollination process?  Imagine doing all that work by hand, or even worse, if all plants were pollinated as they were before bees existed, which was via fly.  Meaning that these plants flowers usually looked and smelled like rotting meat.  Thank god for bees, at least for now.  Unfortunately in recent years large portions of honey bee populations have been disappearing from their hives and leaving them to collapse.  This is accurately called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD and is pretty serious.  It is different from a swarm.  When bees swarm, the hive simply gets too big, splits, and half the bees go out to establish a new hive.  With CCD the bees simply wander off and die.  All signs point to over-spraying of agricultural pesticides as the culprit.  These chemicals don't simply kill the bees straight out, but impair them so much they can't function in the hive hierarchy.  In other words they get really 'buzzed'.  Imagine trying to do your job after huffing on a bag of glue.  I could say more, but I will refrain.  Just try to imagine a world without fruits, nuts, and veggies.  That is a world without bees.