Sunday, May 27, 2012

Bees: Neglectful Beekeeper

I have been neglectful in posting and neglectful as a beekeeper. Last year, my bees got inspected once a week for the first month then every other week for the second month then a couple more times after that. They do a pretty good job on their own, once established, but I really feel like I have been shortchanging both hives for attention. That said, mostly I have neglected writing up anything. The biggest reason I didn't write anything up is because I haven't been taking pictures. Today, I managed to inspect my second hive (which doesn't have a name yet) a got a couple shots.

These bees are doing surprisingly well considering my gross missteps previously. I think they like their home, although they certainly made a mess of it. The first box ended up totally unmanageable. They built the comb in-between the frames instead of on the frames. At this point, my plan is to wait until Spring and take the whole box, frames and all and try to realign the comb when it's empty. They got a second box, this time with every other frame of drawn comb and every other frame of starter wedges. They did a great job drawing that out and filling it up with eggs and nectar. So much so, that they needed a third box. The new box is pure wax foundation. The bees seem to like it better than the coated plastic.

Anyway, here are some shots I got. One thing I found is that it is really hard to take good photos in bright sun while wearing a net over your head. Next time, I think I might bring the good camera and take the net off my head.

A little blurry with the queen (yellow dot)

Clear shot, but I missed the queen

Just got her this time (right edge) plus eggs

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Bees: Making hand lotion

As I pass the dawn of my life into the middle somewhere, the skin on my hands has become more prone to drying and cracking. During Winter (from shoveling snow) and Spring (from dirt and subsequent washing) my hands have the texture of Velcro with random spots of blood from the deepest cracks. I just ran out of my Burt's Bees almond milk hand cream at work. I generally like it. It doesn't make my hands sweaty, smells inoffensive and comes in a nice little jar that fits under my monitor. That said, it's $9 per little jar (up from $5 a few years ago). I happen to have some extra beeswax so I decided to try making my own.

Ideally, I would replicate the texture, smell and performance of my preferred brand. If it was quick and easy to make in smallish batches, it would be even better. At the very least, I needed something functional and not offensive for less than $4.50 per oz., otherwise, I might as well buy it.

The basic principle is pretty simple. Beeswax is solid at room temperature. It needs to be mixed with one or more room-temperature liquid or semi-solid oils. As I said, I already have the beeswax. The stuff I like has almond oil plus some other things. Most of the recipes on the web call for olive oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, jojoba oil, avacado oil, etc. I happened to have olive oil and coconut oil on hand as well, so I decided to use those.

The wax and oils need to be melted together. I did this in a double boiler at a bare simmer, keeping in mind that I wanted the wax melted not smoking and scorching. I added 7 oz. of coconut oil, 1.75 cups of extra virgin olive oil and 6 oz. of beeswax.Once it was fully melted, it needs to be fully homogenized and emulsified. What that means is that it needs to be thoroughly mixed with a little water. From what I gather, if you don't mix it as it cools and/or you don't add water, it will be rock hard. I saw people suggest a blender or a fork as viable options. Personally, a blender would be impossible to clean and a fork would just be a pain. I happened to have an old KitchenAid stand mixer which was perfect. I used the mixing bowl as the insert of double boiler so there was less clean-up. Since everything I used is edible, I wouldn't be afraid to use the primary mixer (if my wife wasn't around).

So, I transferred the mixing bowl of melted wax and oil to the stand and turned it on. I tried a couple different speeds. It turns out that the slowest speed was perfect. It kept it mixing and minimized the solids that needed to be scraped down back into the mix. After about 15 minutes of cooling and mixing, I stopped the mixer, scraped down the sides, restarted it and added 1/3 cup of hot water. After that, it just needed to be mixed and scraped down a few more times until it was warm and soft, but manageable. I spooned it into four 1/4-pint mason jars and one pint mason jar. In other words, the recipe made a quart of lotion.

Lessons learned and personal review: I want to try some almond oil and possibly some other stuff like cocoa and shea butters. I might even consider using mineral oil. It had the right texture, but it had a strong smell of olive oil. I would also like a different scent to this. I like the smell of olive oil in my pasta but I don't know if I'll like it on my hands perpetually. I could see infusing some rosemary or lavender in the olive oil would be a nice addition. It had a nice feel on my skin, but it was really efficient so I used way too much the first try. I can see this will be a fun, quick project which I can mix it up every time I need it. Looking at the cost, the coconut oil was about $4 and the olive oil was about $6. That makes it $10 per 16 oz.