Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Experiments With Legion

Generally when I use Legion to make bread, I use all purpose flour and sugar because the youngerchild prefers this bread for sandwiches and is less of a fan of whole wheat. However, I had a few egg yolks lying around from another project and also found a white whole wheat flour I wanted to try. So I used that flour - the mix was about 2 parts whole wheat flour and 1 part all purpose flour. The sugar was the same. I did toss in the egg yolks (3) and adjusted the water accordingly. In general, I have been trying to add more water because I find that the final product is softer. My batch always makes 3 loaves.

The bread came out a light brown, the color of raw sugar, rather than the really dark whole wheat or the regular white; this is likely due to the flour choice. The crumb was also a bit softer, which I attribute to the egg yolks. We ate almost an entire loaf while it was still warm. YUM.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Her Royal Highness

Today was finally the right combination of: warm, sunny, I had no place to be urgently, and I could wash my hair and not put my styling products in (I have come to the conclusion it smells to the hive like their alarm pheromones. It's not a good scene when a bee is STUCK IN YOUR HAIR. Which has happened more often than I care to admit. Sometimes, I am a slow learner). Finally I could inspect Beeyoncé's hive.

Back when I removed the insulation panels, I had put in some comb from the other hive that was empty. It has been well used, with honey stores being formed in the back of the hive and a ton of new brood. Lots and lots of both worker and drone cells. As I moved forward in the hive I found some larvae and, finally, Queen B herself. Everything seems fine for now, but it does feel a little crowded in there. I'll have to get back out there soon to make sure they're not getting ready for a swarm. So far, I didn't see any queen cells. There is also a little cross-combing going on which, if I have to split the hive, I can remedy.

I am still pondering whether this is the right hive setup for me. At some point, I would like to get some honey and maybe, with a modular hive like a Langstroth, I could accommodate the changes in population better. I have no idea how to convert an existing colony from a top bar hive to a Langstroth and I'd also have to get a bunch of new equipment. For now, I will continue to ponder.