Honey BBQ baked chicken tenders by National Honey Board

Tags

bbq, chicken, chicken tenders, honey, honey recipe, recipe

You just can’t beat fresh honey! It’s great for so many purposes but we especially love it in recipes! These baked chicken tenders turned out great. Full of flavor and just delicious!

YIELD: Makes 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

2 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken tenders

1/2 cup BBQ sauce

1/4 cup honey

2/3 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup milk

2 eggs,beaten

2 1/2 cups whole wheat Panko breadcrumbs

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

non-stick cooking spray

Honey BBQ Dipping Sauce:

1/4 cup BBQ sauce

2 T honey

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cover baking sheet with parchment paper.

In large bowl, mix flour and panko together with salt and pepper.

In another large bowl whip together BBQ sauce, milk, eggs and honey.

Dip tenders in BBQ/milk (wet) mixture and generously roll the chicken tenders in the Panko mix. Place the chicken strips on the baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Flip tenders over and allow it to bake until cooked through and outside is crisp, about 10 minutes. Cook chicken tenders longer if you want more brown.

Serve with the Honey BBQ Dipping Sauce (below).

To make the Honey BBQ Dipping Sauce, combine the BBQ sauce and honey, stirring together until fully mixed.

Tip: Spray tenders with non-stick cooking spray to help them crisp up better.

Full article here:  Honey BBQ baked chicken tenders by National Honey Board

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Vegetable Gardening for Honey Bees by settling for bees

Tags

bee photos, beekeeping, honey bees, photography, planting for bees

These cold winter days don’t allow for much gardening time.   Like many of you, I’ve been considering the possibilities that spring planting offers lately, particularly as seed catalogs pile up and lure me into their pages with colorful spreads of summer’s bounty.

Last week, it was warm enough for bees to fly.  I went out back without the restrictions of a heavy coat, feeling as light and carefree as my honey bees navigating and searching for any available food sources.  I let the chickens out, watched my honey bees flying for a while and considered garden options for the spring.  I even brought a nice cup of hot tea outside, sweetened with my girls’ honey, of course.

For more excellent honey bee photos and suggestions for vegetable gardening plantings for the bees visit: Vegetable Gardening for Honey Bees — settling for bees

Honey Bee’s Proboscis by Christine R

Tags

bee photos, honey bees, proboscis

The bird’s water bowl and the top two tiers of my fibreglass pond dried up while we were away, even though the weather was predicted to be coolish.

Wandering around with the Nikon D3000 today, I spotted bees visiting the refilled ponds. I was surprised to see the unfurling of a red proboscis (tongue), not having photographed one before.

For more great honey bee pictures please visit: Honey Bee’s Proboscis — Christine R

Bees in Lithuania by West Kootenay Beekeepers

Tags

bee culture, beekeeping, honey bees, Lithuanian

Interesting article about bees in a different culture. SBF

Are Lithuanians obsessed with bees? – BBC Travel

Will Mawhood writes about bees in ancient Lithuanian culture and the enduring effect our favourite creatures have today. Photo: Rambynas/Getty Images

“Lithuanians don’t speak about bees grouping together in a colony like English-speakers do. Instead, the word for a human family (šeimas) is used. In the Lithuanian language, there are separate words for death depending on whether you’re talking about people or animals, but for bees – and only for bees – the former is used. And if you want to show a new-found Lithuanian pal what a good friend they are, you might please them by calling them bičiulis, a word roughly equivalent to ‘mate’, which has its root in bitė – bee. In Lithuania, it seems, a bee is like a good friend and a good friend is like a bee.”

Read the BBC Travel article here: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180319-are-lithuanians-obsessed-with-bees

Above introduction via Bees in Lithuania — West Kootenay Beekeepers

Banana Sandwich — Peanut Butter * Raw Honey * Apothecary

Tags

art, banana honey sandwich, honey, opinion, recipe, snack recipe

A great tasting, super easy, healthy after school snack!

This Banana Sandwich was and still is a favorite!

*  banana sliced lengthwise

* reid’s gourmet peanut butter

* reid’s gourmet raw honey

* cinnamon

* raw cacao nibs or grated chocolate

spread nut butter on 1 banana slice and drizzle with honey
sprinkle cinnamon
sprinkle chocolate

place other half of banana on top, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze

Read the full article here:  Banana Sandwich — Peanut Butter * Raw Honey * Apothecary

The bees tell their story by The Obee Reardon

Tags

beekeeping, colony assessment, hive assessment, management, reading the frames

Having been engaged in beekeeping for several years now, I find that many beekeepers look for a recipe timeline for much of their beekeeping. Instead it would often be wise to begin looking at the hive itself and understanding what the bees are telling us. Below is an excellent article by The Obee Reardon on reading the frames and observing what the bees are saying, what they are doing, and what they need. Enjoy!

There’s a well known saying: “A picture tells a thousand words.” Beekeepers also have a saying along the lines of going through a hive is like reading a book, the bees are telling you what’s going on on each frame. So what does this picture of a frame tell me? And is it a thousand words?

Read entire article here: The bees tell their story — The Obee Reardon

Smoking The Bees

Tags

bee smoker, beekeeping, beekeeping equipment

Source: World of Beekeeping – Smoking the Bees

April 6, 2012

When I first started beekeeping I never smoked my hives.  Somehow, somewhere I had learned that it was terribly difficult to smoke your hives correctly without burning the bees or some other weird idea.  I had some strange fear that it would be a little like operating a hand held dragon.  I’m not sure how that got into my head but it caused a ton of issues for me and thankfully I eventually started smoking my hives when doing inspections.

While you certainly can operate without smoking your hives it means putting new boxes, lids and other items onto the hives very slowly, pushing each little bee out of the way.  If you don’t you’ll squish a lot of bees and while unlikely, one of those could be the queen.

Eventually I fired up the smoker and realized that it really isn’t difficult to use.  The trick?  Let the fire die down before you start pumping the bellows.  You don’t want burning dragon fire coming from your smoker but it’s easy enough to avoid.

That’s really all there is to it.  If you’re at all paranoid you can simply blow the smoke over your bare hand… if it only feels mildly warm to you it’ll be just fine.

But why do we smoke our bees?

There are several thoughts as to what a smoker causes bees to do.  First many think that bees respond to smoke as they would a forest fire, gorging themselves on honey so they can fly off to a new home should they need to flee the hive.  Second the smoke is said to mask the warning pheromones given off by guard bees, keeping the troops from hearing the battle cry.

So how do you best use the smoke in your hives?

Well first you can use smoke to push bees where you want them to go.  When I first used the smoker this was really helpful when it came to adding new boxes to the tops of my hives… pushing them away from the top of the box meant very few if any were squished when I put on the new box.  The same idea holds true when it comes time to put on the inner cover.

But don’t smoke them too much!

Pushing them around a bit is fine but if you use too much smoke it won’t work for you.  Why?  Because if they are surrounded by smoke they won’t be able to “move away” from the smoke but will instead simply walk around disoriented.  Not what you were hoping for when you lit up the smoker!  So use smoke sparingly and both you and the bees will be happy.

Final thought.  If your beehives aren’t at your home (or even if they are) you have a burning thing you need to transport and/or store.  Make sure the fire is out before you put it anywhere and as an extra added precaution get a metal box with a lid if you need to put your smoker in your car.  We don’t want to see you on the news with a smoking car!

Source: World of Beekeeping – Smoking the Bees

A Bee’s Eye View of the Garden — Native Beeology

Tags

bee biology, colors bee see, honey bee biology, planting for bees

Planning a Garden With Bees in Mind –

The sweeping vista of flower filled meadows is a sight to behold yet aesthetics are a side effect to the flowers true intent. Flowers are not seeking human admiration but seeking the attention of pollinators. Through visual cues, the flowers are shouting… “Pick me! Pick me!”   A closer look reveals that over evolutionary time flowers have gone to extreme lengths to get the attention of their preferred pollinators: whether insect, bird, bat or wind.    Many factors come into play in regards to attracting any pollinator including colorful (or not colorful) petals and sepals, nectar guides, good or bad smells (or lack of) and overall shape and size. These features are often characterized as pollinator syndromes and understanding them can clue you in as to who might be most likely to visit a particular flower. If you are planning a garden that caters to our native bees it important to understand the type of flowers that they are most attracted to. Here are a few pointers to understanding the bees-eye view of the world.

Read full article at: A Bee’s Eye View of the Garden — Native Beeology

Native North American Honey Bees? by Native Beeology

Tags

apis, apis nearctica, archaeology, beekeeping history

The European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) arrived in the Americas aboard European ships around 1622. In a way this was a homecoming, America had regained her long lost honey bees. It has always been assumed that honey bees are not native to North America until a recent discovery found a single fossil of a native North American honey bee in the Stewart Valley basin in west-central Nevada. The 14 million year old fossil was a female worker of the extinct honey bee (Apis nearctica) that lived in North America during the middle Miocene epoch and was found in a paper shale deposit along with other insects of the period. The fossil record proved honey bees lived in North America but for how long? And when did they go extinct? These questions remain unanswered.

Read full article here: Native North American Honey Bees? — Native Beeology

Bee Here Now by RUMBLEBEE ROAD

Tags

bee here now, honey bees, musings

I’m jealous of bees. Everyday they wake-up driven by a sense of purpose and really important work to do. They belong to a network that supports every move they make. I am 58…still wondering.

#1 They make honey.

#2 In their quest for nectar they pollinate and inadvertently save the world.

Read full story here: Bee Here Now — RUMBLEBEE ROAD

 

Spring Surprises

Found this over on Twitter. Thought is was fun.

Couldn’t bring myself to wreck it’s nest! pic.twitter.com/tbzOl5oexF

— Chris Manton (@ElmTreeBees) March 11, 2018

Enjoy!

Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Tags

A.A. Milne, bears, bees, Winnie the Pooh

It’s a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees,
They’d build their nests at the bottom of trees.
And that being so (if the Bees were Bears),
We shouldn’t have to climb up all these stairs.

 

 

Whether laziness or cleverness, Pooh considers the shortest distance to accomplishing his goals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh

Dinner Rolls by The Ephemeral Bee

Tags

bread recipe, dinner rolls, honey, honey recipe, recipe

The bread recipe of the week are these lovely buttermilk dinner rolls.  They are light, solidly formed, and subtly flavored by honey and lemon zest.  I added some sprouted wheat flour to the mix for some additional protein, but, if you do not have any on hand, feel free to use regular flour, or substitute in another whole grain flour.  Keep in mind that the density of the flour will effect the lightness of the rolls.

cont.

Full article and recipe at: Dinner Rolls — The Ephemeral Bee

Resource – MAAREC Fact Sheets

Tags

beekeeping, education

Honey bees coming to pollen feeder

Source: Resource – MAAREC Fact Sheets Posted in useful references 

http://agdev.anr.udel.edu/maarec/educational-resources/maarec-fact-sheets/

Basic Biology and Management of the Japanese Hornfaced Bee

Pollination Contracts – 5.4

Moving Bees – 5.3

Pollination – 5.2

Bees and Bears – 4.10

Bee Diseases and their Control – 4.9

IPM for Beekeepers – 4.8

Varroa Mites – 4.7

Small Hive Beetle – 4.6

Wax Moth – 4.5

Stinging Insect Control – 4.4

Pests of Honey Bees – 4.3

Tracheal Mites – 4.2

Chemicals and Drugs – 4.1

Beeswax – 3.9

Honey – 3.8

Bait Hives – 3.7

Removing Bees – 3.6

Transferring Bees – 3.5

Swarming Control – 3.4

Dividing Honey Bee Colonies – 3.3

Fall Management – 3.2

Early Spring Management – 3.1

Keeping Bees in Populated Areas – 2.7

Sources of Information and Assistance for Beekeepers – 2.4

Queen, Nuc and Package Bee Suppliers – 2.3

Beekeeping Equipment and Supplies – 2.2

Tips on How to Handle Bees – 2.1

Honey bee nutrition – 1.4

What is the Africanized Honey Bee? – 1.3

Information for Bee-ginners – 1.2

Bees are Beneficial – 1.1

Source: Resource – MAAREC Fact Sheets

The Importance of Swarm Control

Tags

beekeeping, management, swarms

This was done online at canva – I was full of ideas until I started playing with it, it’s not the final one .. but was interesting to have a play with. It needs making more even. The templates are there to play with so I might have another go and see what I can […]

via Playing at infographics… — bbkamodules

The Eternal Question – How to prevent swarming? by The Walrus and the Honeybee

Tags

beekeeping, honey bees, Swarm control, swarm prevention, swarms

How to prevent swarming?

I previously wrote about some potential factors involved in the swarming of honey bees and why swarm prevention and control are so important for the beekeeper. The idea that we can prevent swarms is probably misguided; it is after all what bees are programmed to do, it is how they reproduce, but we must nevertheless educate ourselves and do what little we can in this regard.

The people who are most qualified to advise on swarming, or any other honey bee management topic, are the commercial honey farmers who manage thousands of colonies and rely upon their efforts to earn their living from it. This is why I will be quoting from such people extensively here – they have lived and breathed a life with bees and I would rather take heed of their words than those of a keen hobbyist or a well read scholar.

“If I were to meet a man perfect in the entire science and art of bee-keeping, and were allowed from him an answer to just one question, I would ask for the best and easiest way to prevent swarming.” C.C.Miller, Fifty Years Among the Bees

more…

Read full article here: The Eternal Question — The Walrus and the Honeybee

Moving Bees by Jennifer Berry

Tags

beekeeping chores, moving bee hives

There are many reasons we find ourselves “having to” or “wanting to” move bees. The “have to’s” might occur when a neighbor complains they are bothering the children or the hive is not in the right location. The “want to’s” might be moving bees to fulfill pollination contracts or to take advantage of different nectar flows. Whatever the reason, moving bees, whether a few feet  in the backyard or across several thousand miles, is no easy task. Not only is it hard work (hives are heavy), it’s also a bit intimidating to think about picking up a box with hundreds, no thousands of insects that when disturbed or agitated, will become stinging agents of pain. Since this can be a tricky job, let’s talk about how we can move hives without harming the bees or more importantly, ourselves. But Wait!! Stop the Presses!!!! Placing hives in the right spot, the first time, will save a lot of headaches, backaches and work down the road. So, before we ever move in the first hive of bees, let’s consider the following things.

Read full article here: Moving Bees — BEEKeeping: Your First Three Years

Bee Behavior – Festooning

Tags

beekeeping, honey bee behavior, honey bee biology

Source: Bee Behavior – Festooning

Bee behavior is my favorite part of beekeeping. It’s such a neat experience to watch and learn from the bees. It’s also interesting to have scientists explain (or in this case fail to explain) what is going on inside the mind of the bees.

Festoon is defined as “adorn (a place) with ribbons, garlands, or other decorations.”

In this case, that decor is the bees themselves, dangling like chain inside the hive. The video below shows a short clip of this activity.

At one point or was hypothesized that this pose promoted the production of wax from the wax glands – that has since  been debunked.

It’s purpose is deemed unknown to scientists and although there are speculations. Bees tend to do this when building new comb in their hive – some people think it’s a type of acrobatic scaffolding, that they’re measuring to build the comb the proper size, or that they’re just beat friends clustered together. Either way, it’s pretty neat bee-havior.

Source: Bee Behavior – Festooning

Fragrant chicken with vibrant Asian slaw and honey in Marinade by Nicole’s Kitchen Diary

Tags

honey, honey recipe, oriental recipe, recipe

I’ve made this dish twice, once for my husband and once for my best friend. Both times I was met with amazing feedback, and I have to admit, it’s one of my best yet. I’m a huge fan of Asian flavours and this really has it all going on. It’s fresh, zingy and sweet. There are no carbs and the veggies are served raw so it’s super healthy. Using medium chillies in raw form adds a nice heat, not too much, but enough to let you know it’s an Asian dish. There is something fun about food you can eat with your hands, just load up the Romaine lettuce cups with crunchy Asian slaw and top with some sticky fragrant chicken. Roll it up and get stuck in.

This recipe is great for when you’re entertaining because everything can be prepared in advance. The slaw can be prepped and stored in a container in the fridge (undressed), the slaw dressing can be made and popped in a jar with a lid (no need to refrigerate). Prepare the chicken by slicing and covering with the marinade in a glass bowl, wrap with cling and store in the fridge until needed. When you’re ready you can have everything ready and on the table within minutes.

Don’t be put off by the long list of ingredients, because some of it is store cupboard stuff and the rest is mostly just veggies. I’ll be entirely honest, the preparation takes a little longer than most dishes I cook, but it’s just a case of finely slicing the veggies. Why not stick the radio on and practice your knife skills one afternoon? You’ll be glad you spent the time when you taste how delicious this dish is. It’s like a party in your mouth, seriously!

cont.

Read fully recipe here: Fragrant chicken with vibrant Asian slaw in lettuce wraps — Nicole’s Kitchen Diary

Swarming Season by Roads End Naturalist

Tags

honey bee biology, swarms

The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.

~Jacques Yves Cousteau

Just at closing one day this week, a coworker at the Garden sent an email alerting everyone to a swarm of honeybees just outside the back gate. I was getting ready for programs the next day so wasn’t able to get down there for an hour or so, but finally grabbed the camera and went out to see if I could find it. I asked a couple of people that were standing there talking if they knew the location of the swarm, but they had not seen it. About then, I saw some flying insects, and quickly found a ball of bees about 12 feet up on a small tree trunk.

Read more here: Swarming Season — Roads End Naturalist