The Natural Energy

It is no secret that athletes of all ages and abilities include honey in their training regimens.  Honey is commonly found on training tables "before the big game," made into energy drinks to drink durng exercise, or as an energy boost for athletes who have gone through the challenge of "making weight."

The benefits of carbohydrate (CHO) consumption prior to, during and following endurance exercise are well documented.  Research supports the benefit of CHO consumption prior to and during high intensity exercise of shorter durations also (examples: soccer, swimming and even resistance exercises).  Carbs eaten before and during exercise help maintain blood glucose levels and prevent premature fatigue (crashing).  After exercise, carbs are necessary to replenish muscle and liver glycogen and prepare the athlete for the next training bout.

Honey is a natural source of readily available carbohydrates providing 17 grams of carbs per tablespoon.  Honey's unique carbohydrate composition, approximately equal amounts of fructose and glucaose, may render it the perfect pre-exercise food.  Research suggests that honey is as effective as glucose for carb replacement during endurance exercise too.

Beautiful Pictures

The following photos were taken by our friend Joni Lentz Earley.  She loves her bees and takes great photos of them, it looks like they pose just for her.

These guys aren't honeybees, but all pollinators are important.

She's loves her cat too.  Thanks Joni, for sharing your pictures.

Granola, Yogurt & Honey

Crunchy Honey-Yogurt Breakfast Parfait
1 large banana, sliced, divided
1/3 cup honey, divided
1/2 cup plain yogurt, divided
1/2 cup crunchy granola, divided

Reserve several slices of banana for garnish.  Layer 1 tablespoon honey, 1/4 of the pre-sliced banana, 2 tablespoons of yogurt, 2 tablespoons granola, 1/4 of the sliced banana, 2 tablespoons yogurt, 1 tablespoon honey and 2 tablespoons granola in parfait glass.  Repeat for second parfait.  Garnish with reserved banana and honey.

Nutrition: Calories 408, Total Fat 9.4, Protein 7.6g, Cholesterol 4mg, Carbs 80, Sodium 47, Dietary Fiber 4.


This reciped was reprinted from The National Honey Board, check their website for more great recipes,                National Honey Board Recipes.

More Health Benefits

Honey and weight loss are often associated.  Why is honey a smarter choice than table sugar if you are watching your weight and what you eat?

Refined dietary sugars lack minerals and vitamins and are often called empty calories.  They draw upon the body's nutrients to be metabloized into the system, and when these nutrients are depleted, metabolizing of cholesterol and fatty acid is impeded, contributing to higher cholesterol and promoting obesity due to higher fatty acid on the organs and tissues.  The good news is that honey, a natural sweetener, contains 22 amino acids and a variety of minerals essential for its metabolism so it is helpful in preventing obesity.

If you are determined to shed weight and speed up a sluggish metabolism, try this honey and lemon tip.
It is believed that drinking lemon juice with a little honey the first thing in the morning is an effective anticellulite treatment as it helps to increase body metabolism.  Another very popular recipe associated with honey and weight loss is a drink that uses honey and cinnamon as ingredients.  Many people have found this home remedy effective in losing pounds.  It's easy to make,  just dissolve half a teaspoon of  ground cinnamon in a cup of boiling water.  Stir and cover for half an hour.  Filter any big particles and add a teaspoon of honey.  Take it in the morning with an empty stomach and about a half hour before breakfast.

For people who tend to overeat or feel discomfort in their stomach after meals, honey can be taken for better digestion.  Honey is a simple carbohydrate that one safely  takes during fasting because it contains easily digested sugars.  Foods that are rich in sugars or complexes of sugars are carbohydrates and it takes the body much longer to digest the sugar from complex carbohydrates.

This information  was found at http ://www.benefits-of-honey.com

Anatomy of a Honey Bee

The body of the honey bee is segmented: stinger, legs, antenna, three segments of thorax and six visible segments of abdomen.  

The head consists of eyes, antennas and feeding structures.  The eyes include the 2 compound eyes and the simple eye.  The compound eyes helps bees understand color, light and directional information from the sun's UV rays, while the simple eye helps in determining the amount of light present.  The antenna's function is to smell and detect odors and to measure flight speed.  The mandible is the bee's jaw, which is used in eating pollen, cutting and shaping wax, feeding larva and the queen, cleaning the hive, grooming and fighting.  The tongue allows the bee to drink nectar, honey and water.  It also functions as the medium for food exchange between the bees.

The thorax of the honey bee consists of the wings, legs and the muscles that control their movement.  The forewing, which is typically larger than the hind wing, is used for flight and as a cooling mechanism, while the latter is used to fan away heat and cool the hive.  The legs are also important to pollen transfer and propolis, a resinous mixture collected and used as a sealant in hives.

The abdomen's six segments include female reproductive organs in the queen, male reproductive organs in the drone and the stinger in both workers and queen.  The stinger is a defense mechanism which stays in the victim when used because it has barbs, and causes the bee to die.

Drones Deserve More Credit

A drone's work is never done.  Everyone knows about worker bees.  They do all the work, build the hive, fetch the pollen and nectar, take care of the babies and a lot more.  The queen has the very big and never ending task of birthing all the little bees.  Often we give the drones a hard time because other than mating with the queen, they just hang around and eat food stores.  However, they really are incredibly important, they are the carriers of the next generation.  They fly out to find queens from other colonies and pass along their genes.....thus insuring he continuity of the honey bee race, and of their particular colony.

This is what Spanish setlers first called the California Poppy.  Translated, that means "cup of gold", a term first coined in local legend and one inspired by this plant's orange petals.  It was said that as each of the petals eventually grew tired and fell, they would turn into gold as they tumbled down, changing the ground beneath into a rich, treasure-filled bounty.

Go To Sleep

It's true, I have been known to be a total grouch in the mornings, occasionally.  I'm not normally this way, but I know I don't want to do anything or deal with anybody until I've had something to eat and then I'll be fine (I'm not a coffee drinker).

A few months ago I read a book called The Hibernation Diet.  One of the main concepts of the books is about how honey fuels the liver and the effects that has on our body.  What I learned is that the liver converts glucose and fructose that we consume into energy.  Since we eat thruoughout the day, we continually keep the liver fueled.  During the night however, our bodies often use up that fuel supply and the liver can literally be on empty in the morning.  That is why you can feel sluggish, draggy, ucky or grouchy when you get up. 

Having a couple of spoonfuls of honey in the morning will refuel the liver and get you back on track.   Don't forget about all the energy you use during exercise too.  Eating honey before and/or after exercise will help your body recover faster from using all those carbs. 

Try this and see what you think.  Once I started doing this, it was like Wa La!, the Grouchies are gone  (my husband is even happier about this than I am).  The Hibernation Diet has alot more information about how great honey is for the body.  If you would like to read it, you can find copies at the following places.

Mann Lake Bee Keeping Supplies 
Amazon



Saturday, May 29 is Honey Bee Awareness Day.  Let's show our little friends some loving. 

Visit:
Celebrate Honey Bee Awareness Day

.

Honey Cornbread

Honey Cornbread
1 c each yellow cornmeal and all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp each baking soda and salt
1 cup milk
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
2 tbs cooking oil

In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  In a small bowl, whisk together milk, honey, egg and oil.  Add to the flour mixture; stir until just combined. 

Pour batter into a well-greased 8x8 inch baking pan. Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Serve warm.

Makes 9 servings

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I have recently discovered Georgia Made Georgia Grown.  It is an organization that promotes things Made and Grown in Georgia.  You will find growers, makers and entertainers of Georgia.  Visit them on Facebook at:

www.facebook.com/georgiamadegeorgiagrown

Swarm Prevention

We have recently had visitors from 18 different countries.  We appreciate everyone's interest and hope you are enjoying our blog.

On to swarm prevention.  Despite the fact that swarming is a completely natural form of reproduction for the bees, once it happens, a bee keeper now has two small hives.  While he waits on each hive to build up their workforce to preswarm numbers, he has lost a significant amount of time of honey production.

A new queen won't get the urge in her first year, but by the following spring, that natural instinct will kick in.  Once she knows it's time to get ready, she will lay several eggs that will be fed royal jelly and form into queen pupa.

 Queen cells are very easy to identify since they are so large.  The developing queen will be to large to fit in a regular cell.  When you see what often looks like a peanut hanging on the side of the comb, you've found it.

Swarm season will be at different times during the spring depending on the climate where you live.  If you are not sure when this time is, just ask another bee keeper in your area or check with a local association.  Once you have this info, you can start prevention procedure a few weeks ahead of time.

Remove queen cells as you see them being developed.  All you need to do is cut them off with your hive tool.  When you identify a hive as a potential swarmer by locating the queen cells, you can make 'splits'.  A split is simply dividing the hive in half yourself.  This way you can control the situation better and you will wind up keeping all of your bees.  Otherwise, if you don't happen to be in the bee yard when they get ready to go on their own and aren't able to catch them, you've just lost half a hive.

'Starter hives' are placed in a smaller hive box called a nucleus or a 'nuc'.  They will hold 3-5 frames each.  In order to sustain a split, you will need to remove one or two frames of brood from a healthy hive to put into the nuc.  You will also need a frame of honey so they will have food right away.  Add two frames of drawn comb so the queen will have place to start laying (or you can add two frames of honey and one of drawn comb, it is not an exact science).  Making a split does require a bit of planning because you will have to aquire an additional queen.  These can easily be ordered from most bee suppliers and will be shipped to you thru regular mail here in the US. 

A full frame of brood and a frame of honey.

When the new bees emerge from the comb that came from a different hive, the bees will stay where they are and not go to the original hive.  When they are born, they know their queen's pheromone and will know that is where they belong.  As the young colony grows, eventually place them in a full size hive box.

Accept one another, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.  Romans 15:7

When They Swarm

The sole purpose of the existense of a honey bee is to reproduce.  It is also a natural impulse for them to want to swarm.  If they didn't reproduce with such ferver, the swarm impulse wouldn't be there. 

There are different ways for a bee keeper to look at swarming.  On the one hand, a swarm means an additional hive, additional honey but only in the long run (probably not til the next year), and perhaps a little adventure in retrieving it.  However, on the more practical side, swarm prevention is preferred by any bee keeper who is wanting to keep his hive population and his honey production high. 

If a hive swarms, you've just lost half your honey producing bees from the original hive and they have to have time to build themselves back up so that they can get that original level of production up as well. 

If you catch the swarm and place them in a hive box that already has drawn out comb in it, you still have to wait on the queen to lay eggs that will take 21-24 days to be born.  A large portion of the bees will be dying off and the population will be dwindling as a bee typically lives about 30 days or so.  The survival of the new hive will greatly depend on the older bees surving til the new bees are born.

One way to give a tremendous boost to bee production in the new hive is to remove a couple of brood frames from another hive, they don't necessarily have to come from the original hive, you may not even know which one the swarm came from.  The baby bees will not go back to the hive that their brood frame was removed from.  When they are born, they will only know the pheromone of that hive's queen and believe that is where they are supposed to be.

Since a swarm leaves home with only the food they can carry inside them, they will need food stores quickly.  Adding a food source will also be very beneficial to the ladies.  Pollen patties are a great source of protein for the bees, but if you don't have any ready available (you can order it from a bee supplier), give them sugar water or even honey.

Our next post will be about Swarm Prevention.

Swarm Pictures

I finally got all my swarm pictures ready.  I've included pictures from 3 different ones.  The first was about 20 feet up a tree, where most of ours wind up.  We have to use the bucket on the tractor to reach them.

I lift my husband up in the bucket with snippers for small branches, lobbers for bigger ones, a hand saw  and a 5 gallon bucket.

He carefully removes any limbs sticking out of the swarm because one swarm might cover several.  You don't want to have long limbs sticking out that might hang on other ones, that could accidentally dislodge them.  And nobody would be a happy camper then.

Retreiving a swarm is not usually easy and can be dangerous.  Getting stung is the least of your worries.  Always have the right equipment before you start and know the risks if it is high off the ground.  

When they land in a tree, ideally you would be able to cut the limb they are on and gently lower it into a bucket or the hive box.  It won't always work that way.  If they get bumped, most of them will fall to the ground in a big clump, now they're all ticked off and will fly around in a large cloud for a few minutes.  Eventually they will all settle back around the queen, whether she's still in her original spot or she fell to the ground too.

Before we start each time, we discuss our options and angle of approach.

This is a swarm trap that we tried this year for the first time.  We placed queen pheromone inside and they literally made a 'bee line' for the trap.  The back end comes off for easy removal.

We have seen many of these traps in Tucson, Arizona.  They are used for the Africanized Honey Bees that inhabit the area.

Occasionally we get calls from stranger asking us to remove a swarm or a hive at their house.  We have only done this the one time that they could be easily reached from the ground.  A very experienced beekeeper told us to avoid getting swarms where our feet have to leave the ground because it can be so dangerous.  We will only catch a high sitting swarm if it is ours and we can reach it from the bucket of our tractor.  For those calls about hives, the next thing they say is that it is in the wall of their house.  That will require removing and replacing parts of the house, so the next call they need to make is to a professional bee removal service.

Swarms

This past Thursday we caught our first swarm of the season.  We arrived in the apiary in the middle of the swarm, it really does look like something out of the movies with such a large cloud of bees looking like they are unorganized and out of control.  However, the total opposite if true.  They are very organized, on a serious mission and everybody know exactly what their job is.

A number of scout bees have gone to scope out the perfect new home.  The remaining bee's job is to protect the queen.  Inside the middle of the cluster, is her royal highness.  Once the scouts return and the decision is made, everybody takes off for their new abode.

I once chased a swarm 500 feet through my neighbor's yard.  They were flying about 20 feet above the ground and I wanted to see where they were going.  However, they went through some trees and crossed a fence then I lost them and hopefully the neighbors didn't see me galloping thru their yard in my suit staring at the sky.

Our swarms usually seem to be on branches about 15-20 feet up.  What we normally do is, Danny will get in the bucket of the tractor with a five gallon bucket and a pair of lobbers. Once I lift him up to the swarm, he will trim limbs around and under the one with the swarm on it.  Then he cuts the limb with the swarm and gently lowers it into the bucket.  I lower him to the ground, then we literally dump the bees into a waiting hive body. 

We like to have foundations with drawn comb already in the new hive.  This way the queen can start laying immediately, which is very important.  Otherwise she can't lay eggs until the workers create cells for her, this is a serious delay in bees being born and increasing colony population.  The new colony population will dwindle rapidly while waiting for the new bees to be born.  Therefore it is a good idea to get two or three frames of brood from other hives to help the swarm be successful.

Since the only immediate food source the bees have is what they can carry inside of them when they leave the hive, it is very beneficial to pull a couple of frames of honey from another hive so their food source will be stable as they start to bring in their own.

The next day, we caught two more hives, now our count is up to 14.   Tomorrow night we are picking up the nucs we ordered back in January, then we will have a total of 29.