Friday, October 11, 2013

A reminder of some of the health benefits of "Raw" honey.

Health Benefits:
1. Prevent cancer and heart disease:
Honey contains flavonoids, antioxidants which help reduce the risk of some cancers and heart disease.
2. Reduce ulcers and other gastrointestinal disorders.
Recent research shows that honey treatment may help disorders such as ulcers and bacterial gastroenteritis. This may be related to the 3rd benefit…
3. Anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-fungal:
“All honey is antibacterial, because the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide,” said Peter Molan, director of the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.
4. Increase athletic performance.
Ancient Olympic athletes would eat honey and dried figs to enhance their performance. This has now been verified with modern studies, showing that it is superior in maintaining glycogen levels and improving recovery time than other sweeteners.
5. Reduce cough and throat irritation:
Honey helps with coughs, particularly buckwheat honey. In a study of 110 children, a single dose of buckwheat honey was just as effective as a single dose of dextromethorphan in relieving nocturnal cough and allowing proper sleep.
6. Balance the 5 elements:
Honey has been used in ayurvedic medicine in India for at least 4000 years and is considered to affect all three of the body’s primitive material imbalances positively. It is also said to be useful useful in improving eyesight, weight loss, curing impotence and premature ejaculation, urinary tract disorders, bronchial asthma, diarrhea, and nausea.
Honey is referred as “Yogavahi” since it has a quality of penetrating the deepest tissues of the body. When honey is used with other herbal preparations, it enhances the medicinal qualities of those preparations and also helps them to reach the deeper tissues.
7. Blood sugar regulation:
Even though honey contains simple sugars, it is NOT the same as white sugar or artificial sweeteners. Its exact combination of fructose and glucose actually helps the body regulate blood sugar levels. Some honeys have a low hypoglycemic index, so they don’t jolt your blood sugar. 
8. Heal wounds and burns:
External application of honey has been shown to be as effective as conventional treatment with silver sulfadiazene. It is speculated that the drying effect of the simple sugars and honey’s anti-bacterial nature combine to create this effect.
9. Probiotic:
Some varieties of honey possess large amounts of friendly bacteria. This includes up to 6 species of lactobacilli and 4 species of bifidobacteria. This may explain many of the “mysterious therapeutic properties of honey.”

10. Beautiful skin:
Its anti-bacterial qualities are particularly useful for the skin, and, when used with the other ingredients, can also be moisturizing and nourishing! For a powerful home beauty treatment for which you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen already

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Early fall visit.

85 degrees today and sunny. Bees seemed happy and busy as usual. Even noticed some bees at Vineyard with filled pollen sacks. Thought about harvesting some small frames from orchard but some were it quite capped off. The earlier troubled hive had a plethora of brood, which seems odd since we've had cooler evenings as of late (50's). I did however harvested a full honey super from the strongest hive I have at the Orchard.

The photo was taken shortly after lunch and shade from trees is covering the boxes. Have to remember to place differently next year.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Update on Microtel bees.

Decided It was about time to visit the Microtel bees again. It had been two weeks. It's a good thing I did, they look like they are about to move out. I added another deep box. Hope they will be fine. Only was able to get off a couple shots before one decided just sting me on my arm. That's what I get for approaching without my suit.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Sting

This morning was quite adventurous and traumatic all in one. A visit to Vineyard hives was the first my nephew Justin visited the bess let alone help with the harvesting and checking of honey and honeybees.
Jackson sat in the vehicle even though temps were 85 degrees and climbing. Thus making the 9am visit, still a sweaty proposition. Alex our photography took a few shots while we were there. The bee shot was of our Microtel bees.


After visiting the vineyard we headed to the Orchard hives to check on them. Currently still trying to nurse one of those hives into being. Pretty sure still no queen and they apparently have been unsuccessful in making one as well. Anyway the other hive seems still strong though numbers look smaller but we have two deeps and two honey boxes on hive. Stole once again some early brood and placed into weakened hive. 
When done we were almost ready to go and Alex yelped. He had been towards the back of the vehicle when he was stunk directly under his right eye on his cheek. Unable to attend immediately help, he ran around screaming as several other bees were trying to follow up with some more torment, being warned by the stinging pheromones. As I approached some bees were following me as well, and we were afraid of them stinging him. Finally I was able after a few minutes approach and extract the lodged stinger from his cheek. Already swelling and tears with in his eyes, more bees came and he was off to the races. Pretty sure he'll be a sprinter in high school. After the bees dissipated we loaded up and have quite a story to tell. Don't think he'll be wanting to visit the bees any time soon. Though for those who read this, honeybees don't just come and sting you. A few apparently smelled the honey in the back of the vehicle and came calling in that area. One lit on his cheek and he swatted at it, thus the sting.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

8-6-13 Visit

Took 3 more honey frames from the Vineyard hive, only a few more and i'll have another 50 lbs. Pretty good year since these are all new colonies. Orchard hive North is still struggling. No sign of new queen nor her offspring. Placed a small sampling of brood from Orchard South so they can continue to keep numbers but I'm afraid unless the new queen shows with eggs, it will most likely parish.
Microtel hive continues to grow stronger but not as fast as I'd like it. Therefore I gave them a half frame of brood from Vineyard hive. Vineyard hive is strong and I hope it will still be fine after losing some of their own to help another. Guess we will find out.
Here's an image I took at home on one of our butterfly bushes. This bush is nearly 10' tall and covers a 1/4 of our south elevation of our house. I think it's about 6 years old now.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Times and trials

So, for the past month I've been dealing with the two Orchard hive losing their queens. At a loss as to why they disappeared however replaced the twice and finally one took and the other hive finally got tired and made their own. They did this with the help of myself by me giving them brand new brood from which they made queen cells from.
So today harvested a couple more frames of honey and saw that one hive gas eggs and is doing well and the other has a new queen. Yet to make her virgin flight, so hoping for the best.
So far I have harvested about 50lbs if honey. Will start bottling soon.
Also caught some wild bees at the Kelly residence with the help of Clarence. He was moving them in to a new box this week.