The Drone

A drone's work is never done.  You probably know the term "worker bee."  They do all the work, build the hive, fetch the pollen and nectar, plus a lot more.  And you've probably heard about the queen, who has the very big task of birthing all the little bees.  But drones, what do they do?  Drones are the carriers of the next generation.  They fly out to find queens from other colonies and pass along their genes....thus insuring the continuity of the honey bee race, and of their particular colony.

If ever a plant has received a raw deal, it's the Common Dandelion.  Considered a pesky weed by modern homeowners, it was once a culinary delicacy.  So here's a thought:  Instead of killing them, cultivate them.  Try their flowers as a wine, or their leaves in a salad.  In fact, the Dandelion leaf is how the plant gets its name.  In old French, dent-de-lion means "lion's tooth," a great description of the leaves' signature shape.

Queen Bee Mysteries

I'd like to introduce everyone to a fellow bee friend of mine. Her name is Deb Baker and in addition to loving bees, she is also a mystery author with two established series. When I asked Deb to tell my readers a bit about herself, here is what she said.

"Like honeybees, I have to keep moving, so one day I decided to write something completely different. My agent and I brainstormed. What wasn't 'beeing' done? Then we hit on the idea of introducing a beekeeper to the world of mysteries, which was perfect for me (I love nature). From that tiny glimmer, I created a small Wisconsin town and the protagonist Story Fischer, a new beekeeper with a lot to learn. My publisher liked the idea and so here I am, waiting for the first in the Queen Bee series (Buzz Off) to come out in September under my pen name Hannah Reed.

And like Story, I have much to learn about those tiny important insects. Joining the local beekeepers association and helping out in the club's beeyard has been exciting research. While having my own hives isn't an option right now, I've planted bee-friendly flowers and participate in the Great Sunflower Project every year, where I monitor and record bee activity in my area."

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Here's a little about the book:

It's September-National Honey Month-in Moraine, Wisconsin, and things are looking up for Story Fischer. Her messy divorce is final; the honey from her beekeeping business has been harvested; and the Wild Clover, the market she owns, is thriving. Life seems pretty sweet until her mentor in the honey business is found stung to death in his apiary.

Story is still trying to explain to the panicked locals that Manny was killed by wasps, not honeybees, when another body is found floating in the Oconomowoc River. This time the evidence points to Story's ex. Sure, Clay's a womanizer and a buzz kill-but a murderer?

With the townsfolk stirred up against her honeybees, and a handsome cop-who also happens to be Story's former high school sweetheart-putting Clay in cuffs, it's up to Story to get them both out of a very sticky situation.

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Buzz Off is now available for pre-order. To celebrate I'm running a special spring deal. Pre-order Buzz Off before May 1st and prove it by sending a copy of the receipt - either email (hannahreed51@gmail.com) or snail mail (email for the address) and you'll be entered in the May 1st drawing for a honey of a mystery prize. Your favorite brick-and-mortar bookstore can handle the pre-order for you. Or take care of it right now.


Order from Barnes and Noble Here
Order from Amazon Here
Visit the Queen Bee Facebook Page
Visit the Queen Bee Website


Thanks Deb,
I've got mine ordered and I can't wait to read it!




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To Do List

March Chores:

If you've medicated your hives, remember to remove all medication in time for the nectar flow, no one wants to get that stuff in their honey.

Monitor the hives to be certain they are not preparing to swarm since this is the season for it.  One indication that they are preparing to swarm is that they are trying to produce multiple queen cells.  If you find these, simply cut them out.  Swarming may be a natural occurance, but to a beekeeper, it's not really a good thing.  During a swarm, half of the colony will leave.  That means that the populations suddenly drops dramatically, and there is half the honey being brought in until they get their poplulation back up to normal which can take about a month.  This can put a big dent in your total honey harvest.

You Can Make A Difference

Join the Great Sunflower Project.

Can you plant a few sunflower seeds?  Do you have a 1/2 hour to count the bees that visit it and report the amount?  Great!  You are now a perfect candidate for the project.  You can help create a habitat to understand and protect our pollinators. Sure you'll have to wait til next spring to start planting your sunflowers, but keep the project in mind and plan ahead.

All you do is:

• Sign up at
• Plant sunflower seeds
• Describe your garden
• Count how many bees visit your flower in 5 minutes
• Report your observations

Are you a teacher or a student?  Here is a great project for the whole class.  It's also a fun project for community centers, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, even nursing homes.  By last May, about 30,000 people from every US state and province in Canada signed up to participate this year.  They can even send you the seeds!  Just think, by planting a few sunflower seeds, you are not only supporting bees, but the environment overall.  Trees, flowers and crops must have pollinators to be productive.  By making that contribution, you're also helping support the food production that is important to us all.

Ask your family and friends to join and make it a group project.  Don't worry about forgetting by the time spring rolls around, I'll post this again after the first of the year to remind everybody. 

Sign up at http://www.greatsunflower.org/

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Gingerbee Cookies

1 1/2 cups honey                         2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup butter softened                1 Tbs ground ginger 
1  egg                                          1 Tbs cinnamon
5 cups AP flour                            1 tsp ground cloves

In large bowl, cream honey and butter until light and fluffy.  Beat in egg. Add flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon and cloves; mix until combined.  Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. 

When dough is chilled, divide dough in half; return one half to frig.  Dust work surface and dough with flour.  Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutter; transfer to well-greased baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining dough from frig.

Bake at 350* for 10 to 12 minutes 
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Connect the Dots

Bees seem to have the ability to recognize dots, a skill they utilize for distinquishing between nectar-rich and plain old flowers.  Though it's likely more pattern recognition than actual counting, bees can reliably tell the difference between patterns of two, three and four dots.  Dots appear on a variety of plants like Jewelweed and Foxglove, which may form a simple nector quide, inviting the bees in for a quick sip.

This is a Flowering Quince:  Mixing beauty and more than a little brawn, the Flowering Quince is probably best thought of as a garden shrub.  A hearty, sturdy plant, it requires little care or attention.  And it's generally one of the first to stick out a tentative spring bloom in most climates.  Originally known as Japonica, it moves from blossom to a pear-like fruit that makes a tart and tasty jam.

Originally printed in A Bee Lover's Garden calendar.

Farm 2 U

Check out www.farm2uonline.com/westga .

It is an exciting new way to buy local produce in the Carrollton, Georgia community.  The idea is for anyone to be able to buy directly from local farmers.  I have recently started selling honey thru this site along with several others who have farms of less than 25 acres and grow a variety of organic produce.  You will even find beef, sausage, goat cheese, fresh eggs, and whole grain breads there.

Farm 2 U was started in Virginia and has recently come to West Georgia.  The purpose of Farm 2 U is to provide members access to nutritous, natural, locally grown and raised foods by supporting sustaining local family farms.

If you are interested in selling or buying thru this great new local program, visit the website above and read all about it.  Or contact Steve Faulk directly at 678-977-7352 or Stan@Farm2uOnline.com.  If you would like to start a Farm2u family food co-op in your community, visit http://www.farm2uonline.com/ for more information.

Listed to the left are some of the farmers and producers for the West Georgia area.

Share It

Hey Everybody,

Thanks for stopping by our blog again.  We are excited about our new layout.  Across the top you will see tabs for a variety of topics, this should make it easier to find certain interests and keep like things in one place.  We are just getting started with the upgrade and it will take a little while to get it all organized. 

We have been having more and more folks stop by and visit our blog and we thank you very much.  Recently our visitor count topped 1000, something else we are excited about.

Dancing Bee would love to know about our readers; where are you from, are you part of school group or scouts, do you keep bees, do you think you want to keep bees, did you have any interest in honey bees before you found us?  So let us know about you, or if you have any questions or suggestions for the blog, please let us know that too.  Make a comment here or drop us a line at dancingbeefarm@att.net.  Also, visit us on Facebook and become a fan.

Do you see a post you would like to share?  Just click on the envelope below any post to email it to a friend.

Thanks and Come Again,
Jill

Pure or Not? & February To Do List

To eat PURE honey or 'not really' Pure honey. 

Truly pure honey means that when you buy it, it is  the same as when it was in the hive.  A few beekeepers have been known to put additives in their honey, often water or corn syrup, usually to make it cheaper to produce.  A beekeeper with integrity would never put additives in their honey.

There are a few ways honey can be tested to determine if it has additives.  The following website contains more info about impure honey and how to perform the tests. 

www.wikihow.com/Verify-the-Purity-of-Honey.

February Chores:
This month, the bees are gearing up for the spring honey flow.  If their food supply is low, we must continue feeding them.  This may be the last month we need to do this. 

Some beekeepers medicate their bees because of pests and diseases.  For those that do, now is the time.  The medication needs time to work and then be removed from the hive 4 weeks prior to the start of the flow.  This is so that no medication winds up in the honey.  When we began keeping bees, we used medicines for 2 years, but then decided we'd rather fight pests and diseases naturally and eliminated the medications from our hives.

Winter is also a great time to prepare sites for new hives, and repair and build new equipment.  This is our son helping build a new hive.

Infants

Honey should never be fed to infants under 12 months.  It is a known source of bacterial spores that produce Clostriduim botulunum bacteria.  When ingested by infants, these bacteria make a toxin that can cause infant botulism, a rare and serious form of food poisoning.

Infant botulism affects a baby's nervous system and can result in death. Most babies with infant botulism, however, do recover.  Signs and syptoms of infant botulism include:

• Floppy arms, legs and neck
• Persistant constipation
• Weak cry due to muscle weakness
• Weak sucking and poor feeding
• Tired all the time (lethargy)
• Difficulty breathing

Botulism spores may also be found in low-acid home-canned foods and corn syrup.  For this reason, you should avoid feeding these foods to infants.


Reprinted from http://www.mayoclinic.com/

Bee Brains & Bee Flowers

Don't underestimate the bee brain.  Bees are considered to be among the smartest in the insect kingdom,  with their highly developed colonies, and the hierarchies that exist therein.  In fact, though the brain of a bee is only a cubic millimeter, it has the densiest neurophile tissue (the stuff that makes our brains work) of any animal.  That includes us too.

This plant is Borage, and is nicknamed "bee's bread" because bees love its nectar-rich blooms.  This is the herb plant for those with great taste and who like to taste their plants too.  The hardy annual has leaves that taste like cucumber, and planting them near tomatoes actually improves your tomato's flavor.  Mainly, the bees would love you if you planted some Borage.

No Bake Peanut Butter Honey Candy

Call it candy, call it a cookie, or just a snack.  It's healthy, easy, and yummy.  If you are one of those that like peanut butter and honey mixed together, you'll definitely like these.

Peanut Butter Honey Candy
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup dry milk
1 1/2 cup raisins
1 1/2 cup pecans and/or walnuts

Variations:  Add dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, oatmeal, chocolate chips, golden raisins for color.  Have fun, get creative.

Blend honey and peanut butter together in a bowl.  Gradually add dry milk, mixing well.  Mix in raisins and nuts.  Shape into a log, wrap tightly and store in refrigerator.  To serve, cut into 1/2 inch slices.  I also tried rolling it into balls and mashing them, this way they turned out like cookies. 


When mixing the first 3 ingredients, it may help to microwave them for 20-30 seconds, it will make the peanut butter easier to stir.  These are good at either room temperature or refrigerated.  If they are cold, it makes them chewier, a little extra honey and it makes them softer.

This is by far the easiest and best honey recipe I have found.  If you try it, let me know what you think.

Recipe pubished Emory-Adventist Hospital