Thursday, July 2, 2015

Off to Margarittaville!

Sitting in Margarittaville in the airport as I write this, sipping on one of my first ice cold beverages of the month, ready to depart back home.

We spent our final day on a beautiful 8-mile hike to Black Sand Beach as well as a waterfall in the middle of the forest. Our tour guide Lion (ironically he was a vegetarian) was full of song and spirit as he led us into the unknown. All throughout our hike we stopped at many trees and other various plants for a quick lesson. We learned about roots that give you a strong back when boiled, flowers that can be squeezed into the eye to improve eyesight, and plants that improve memory when boiled. It was amazing how easily he was able to differentiate so many plants that all looked so similar. 

The rest of the day was full of relaxation. This has by far been the most wonderful experience of my life and will surely only be the beginning of my journey.

Monday, June 29, 2015

The final days

Today is the 29th and I only have a couple more days of this wonderous lifestyle before going back to the states. Yesterday I spent a total of 8 hours in the car driving to pick up my brave mother who wanted to join in on the closing hours of this adventure. On the way back from the airport, I caved. We stopped at the Jerk Centre and each had a delicious serving of Jerk Chicken. The vegan lifestyle is nice, but meat every now and then is nicer.

The following day we started the morning with a walk to the cliff side. Mom came on this adventure and we hiked through the town until reaching our destination. Here the little Rastas, who were serving as our tour guide, spent close to an hour attempting to remove a stick from under a boulder. Eventually, they had to settle for a refrigerator door.

Once returned, I gave my mother an orientation in the bees so she would know I've actually been learning while here. We suited up and I showed her what a routine check on a hive looks like. After this we went to the beach and cooled off until lunchtime.

After lunch, we drove off-road, up to the apiary we were constructing in the mountains. We brought about 16 cinderblocks with us to prepare for moving the hives. We also cutlassed out a lot more of the area and set the debris aflame.

To wrap up the night we ate a delicious dinner, snacked on peanuts and pie, and were in bed by a nice 9:00pm.

Due to lack of technology I will be doing one more blog post, once back in America, to wrap up my overall experience here. If you've been keeping up with this blog I appreciate it and hope you've been enjoying it as much as I have!

Friday, June 26, 2015

Days 21 through 26

Day 21:

We drove on dirt roads for about 15 minutes until reaching some of the highest, mountainous areas in Jamaica. After getting out of the car we took an overgrown trail to an even higher altitude where we had the most beautiful view I've seen yet. On the way back to the car we stopped at a Star apple tree growing and had a quick snack. And on the way back to the cabins we stopped at Kwao's apple tree and harvested a few dozen Otaheiti Apples, then made one last stop at the Jack Fruit Tree and harvested 4 of those.

We came back and had a gluten free banana pie then spent some time at the beach. Later this evening my laptop crashed, so I have been making due on the resources I have available.

Day 22:

Went into 3 hives, each with 5 separated colonies inside. Our goal was to figure out which ones were queenless and return at a later date with queen cells for them.

We spent the rest of the day cutlassing out a section for an apiary at the mountaintop we were at the day previous. There used to be an apiary in this location, but due to a hurricane in the past the area was unusable for a while.

Day 23 & 24:

We focused on going through many more hives searching for queens. Once we had enough queenless hives spotted, we gathered queen cups and put each one in a hive that was in need.

We also finished clearing the area for the new apiary and will be moving hives here soon.

Mom will be coming to visit for this last week! Hope she is ready for this natural lifestyle.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Days 19-20

Days 19 & 20:

Spent the majority of my days relaxing due to swelling. Finished my sixth book since I've been here. Now I am feeling much better and will be back in the bees in no time.

On the 20th day, I broke my vegan diet. We went to a fish place at the top of the town where they prepared everything in front of you. The fish was still very intact once served, so you had to make sure to avoid eating any bones. We had a table right over the cliffside, with a beautiful view of the ocean.

The peanut man came as he usually does on fridays, and we ended the night snacking on peanuts and eating fried dumplings.

And now as I right this, it is the 21st, and I'd like to wish my dad a happy fathers day!

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Day 17 & 18 - Sting 19

Day 17:

Woke up and helped around in the garden for a while. After breakfast we went on a hike to a new location. We ended up in a cave, with bats flying around right above our heads. Once done here, we continued to Strawberry Point which has a beautiful view. On the way back we stopped at a guinep tree; these tasted very similar to a sour lemon - warhead.

We went into the bees later in the day. Yet again, a new location, where a couple hives were kept on a friends property in exchange for some honey during harvest time.  Afterwards we went to another ladies house, and helped with her hives because she was unable to.

Day 18:

Had an early morning at the farmers market again. Was a similar adventure to last time, except more pineapple and watermelons. Lots of watermelon. Also tried an Otaheiti apple for the first time. They looked similar to a plum and tasted very delicious.

We drove to the apiary on the upper end of the property and checked out a couple hives. One of the hives did not seem to have a queen, and had very many queen cells. This means there is a high chance the queen took many of the bees and swarmed to a new location, leaving roughly half the bees behind. As Kwao was explaining that bees like to swarm in nearby trees, we looked up, and lo and behold - the swarm was in the tree. We found an empty hive, backed his truck up directly under the hive. I got on top of his car and held the hive under the bees while he shook the tree. After my 10th sting of the minute I decided I would spectate the remainder. Next week we are going to check the new swarm hive for a queen. If they have a queen and are laying eggs - good; however, no queen means they will likely swarm right back to where we captured them from.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

The days are starting to blend

Day  14:

Tried sour sap juice for the first time with breakfast. Reminded me of a taste similar to orange juice.

We worked on cutlassing down more of the brush in the garden. Afterwards, we went to cool off at the beach for a little while. Later on we rendered the empty combs into beeswax. We boiled the wax in a contraption we made, and came out with a solid portion. We are going to reboil again tomorrow in order to increase its purity.

We next squeezed out more honey comb we had previously collected and ended up with about 3 and a half gallons of honey. We now have more empty combs that too can be turned into wax tomorrow. Now we are left with the sticky cleanup before heading to bed. Peppermint extract is used with much of the cleaning as it repels bees away.


Day 15:

We had our first unsupervised mission in the bees today. First we had to move a hive from where it was to another location, in order to free up the supplies it was sitting on. We also investigated a smaller hive that was captured as a swarm about a week ago. This hive had a queen, eggs, and very dense patterns of brood - All good signs for a hive.

A cook was hired to help in the kitchen, making meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This opens up a lot more time for work to be done in the garden. My roomate Spencer also flew in from Florida today.

For desert we ate chocolate cake and used banana leaves as plates. Once done, we just through our plate right into the compost pile.

Day 16:

Cutlassed out areas around banana trees so they would be able to grow and yield more. We made many batches of wax and experiment with a recipe to make lotion.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Day 12 & 13: Bees in the Trees

Day 12:

Started with a morning straight to the bees. We went through a few and had to split the larger hives into two because they were there was not enough space for the worker bees to be efficient. Because each hive only has 1 queen, this means one of the hives will be queenless. The queenless hive will take notice and within days the worker bees will feed one of their eggs royal jelly, thus making it a queen cell.

After breakfast, Agape had 3 friends over who were full of questions about beekeeping. As soon they they were helped we ready ready to go to the hives. On the way out, Kwao received a phone call from a distressed neighbor whose bees had 'swarmed' to a nearby tree (this is when bees do not have enough space in their hive and take off together into a new location). We stopped by her house on the way to the hives and quickly saw the bundle of maybe a thousand bees hanging from a branch in a mango tree. The other intern and myself held an empty hive directly under the branch and Kwao gave the branch a strong shake. Rather simply, all the bees fell into the bottom of the hive, and we quickly had to cover it with top bars so they wouldn't fly out. Her bees had swarmed from a small hive into a tree, and we moved them from the tree into a larger hive for her.

We then went to the original apiary we were heading towards and collected two buckets of honey comb. Once back at the house, I was assigned with taking the bees out of one of the buckets. There were  good 30-40 bees still in the bucket. The trick is to grab them by the wing and throw them far as possible before they attempt to fly back.

Before dinner, we went on a hike with the dogs to a new location. It was a rather deep swimming hole with a large rope swing. I will definitely be returning here when there is more time for a swim. Instead of taking the traditional route back, we were led coast side of the island until we ended up back at our beach.

Day 13:

My swellings were finally going away just in time for more stings. After breakfast we drove to the same apiary as yesterday and collected a bucket of honeycomb. We split a couple more hives and needed to travel to another apiary to pick up top bars. While out we stopped by the Jack Fruit Tree and harvested 3 fruits. Yesterday was also Kwao's birthday, so there was much pie still to be eaten.

Today was a relaxing day and I spent much of it soaking bee stings and bug bites in the seawater.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Day 10 & 11

Day 10:

Woke up quite the swollen hand, and the other intern here happened to be stung in the same spot as I, swollen to the same extent. With both of us being practically useless, we took a relaxing day. While cleaning up my room my mosquito net ripped, so my project for the day was getting that fixed and hung again.

We were planning to process the honey-less comb into wax, but did not have materials safe to boil that would not harm the purity of the wax, so we will get them at the market tomorrow.

Day 11:

Woke up at around 4:00am to head to the farmer's market in Kingston. In order to beat traffic and the rush we didn't have any time to waste. The drive was roughly an hour and a half, and took us through a very scenic route in the mountains. The market was full of at least 200 different stands (both inside and outdoors), all selling roughly the same fruits and vegetables. It was the buyers job to know who had the best products.

Later in the day we went on a hike to this very secluded spot on a giant rock surrounded by ocean. We hung out here for a while before returning home to eat. On the way back, we stopped at many trees and other various plants where the children would eat whatever was growing on them.

At the end of the day, when the bees went home we began making wax. The combs were boiled multiple times to increase purity, and the product was left out to cool over night.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Day 9

Woke up at 7am to get some sunshine time with the bees. We went through about 3 hives, collected any comb full of honey, and checked on the queens.

Later on we drove to a different apiary with a similar plan. Some of the covers were off the hives when we got there. As we went into the hive, much of the combs had fallen off their top bar due to rain. We collected any of these that didn't have brood in them. The plan is to go back tomorrow with materials to secure the combs back to their top bars.

Some projects we will be working on intermittently: cleaning out the garden and transporting onions, removing bees from the comb buckets and harvesting honey & wax, cutlassing out a trail for the truck to reach an apiary easier, and of course daily updates on hives to make sure each is successful.

Earlier in the day I reached sting #7 and not until night did it start swelling. I am now sitting here with a bowling ball sized hand, somehow managing to type all of this.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Day 8: They won't bite you, they only sting

Right after breakfast we went to the garden for our first time. I was given a bucket of wood ash to spread around the plants. This would help give them an increase in phosphorus, as well as keep the critters away.

Afterwards, we went to the beach for the first time, which is located at the bottom of the property. There was a nice little swim hole, surrounded by rocks on 3 sides. After cooling off, we went back to the house, and I got to use my clothes line for the first time.

Next, we checked on some of the hives to see their status (ready to swarm, queenless, harvestable, etc,). Some of the combs had fallen off of their top bars. So, we cut the brood cells out and left them within the hive, and harvested whatever was left of the comb into a bucket. At the end of the day, the bucket was full of bees that would have to be removed at some point.

We later on went back to the garden. There must be at least 15-20 different plants scattered around. Papaya, lettuce, watermelon, banana, and mango are only a few. There was a huge area covered with tall grass and other wild plants. Our job was to grab our cutlasses and clear out the area so the onions could be moved to a larger location. Due to the large amount of weeds, we were going to have to finish another time.

Once the sun went down, and the bees went back to their homes, it was time to harvest the honey. The bucket of bee-less combs from the previous day was full to the top. After grabbing a separate bowl, the honey extraction starts.  Holding pieces of the comb over the bucket, squeezing and twisting as tight as possible, honey oozes out of the comb and into the bucket. The now honeyless comb is thrown into the bowl to later be turned into wax. Once the bucket was full of mainly honey, it  was strained in order to separate it from the tiny combs left floating around. The now pure-honey is poured into as many containers as can be filleed, which in this case was exactly 1 gallon.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Day 7: The first week comes to a close

After a week of non-stop action, today was a day for pure relaxation. Decided to give the goldenseal diet (supposed to make my blood taste bitter) another try because the bugs have been rather bitey recently. Likely due to the lack of rain this past week.

Every other week Robin's Bay Children's Bee Club is held here. Kwao, the father, went back to the hives with about 5 children under the age of 13. They extracted combs of honey from the hives and brought them back to the cabin. The combs of honey were in a sealed bucket, still ravishing on the inside and outside with bees. The children had to leave as it was getting late.

So, now I was left with the job of extracting the bees from the bucket. To do this, I opened the bucket and had to literally grab the bees by their wings and throw them as far as I possibly could, as fast as I was able to. Otherwise, they would just fly back into the bucket and I would make zero progress.

At night time almost all of the bees return to their hives. So after dinner, once the sun set, we set out on the mission of moving a couple hives. The main apiary was getting a bit crowded so we were going to move a few of them to a new location. I had to move one of these hives. Simply picking up the hive, containing no less than a few thousand bees, as well as pounds and pounds of honey, and carrying it to this new location, just hoping to myself I don't get stung and drop everything.
Luckily everyone made it there in one piece.

We don't use gloves for protection because it takes away from the genuine interaction with the bees.

To top off the night I watched a DVD on Top-Bar Beekeeping to reaffirm everything I had been learning these past few days.

As far as pictures go, the connection here is very shaky and I need to stand among the bees in order to have steady service... So the bulk of them will be posted on Facebook when I get back to the states.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Day 6: Oh, I guess it is Saturday



Today we started off breakfast with boiling the seeds of the jack fruit from the previous day. It is interesting that nothing goes to waste here.  We mixed in the boiled seeds with cabbage, watermelon, pineapple, many other cooked veggies, as well as some sugar cane to top everything off.

After breakfast we went to the hardware store in Ochos Rios to get a weed-whacker repaired. This was probably about a 3 hour drive round-trip.

Once returned, some of Agape’s organic farmer friends were hanging out at the house. I say house but it is more of a large cabin with abundant amounts of food.  These friends had just designed a building that is supposed to dry out the potent Jamaican fruit they harvest so they are able to mix and blend these fruits into various products such as teas, lotions, soaps, etc. These products are then shipped off and sold to stores all over Jamaica and numerous other countries. Much of their energy is generated through solar electricity, and all of their resources come from the environment around them. They grow all their own food as well, so this entire process is purely profit and the only outside source they need is a buyer, which they have plethora of. Quite the business model. They actually grew up in Michigan and have lived in Jamaica for the last 17 years, and even happen to have a son named Joshua…Hmmm…

For a mid-afternoon snack we had a sweet potato cake filled with raisins.  The friends then started talking about how they participated in the anti-Monsanto rally a few weeks back, and proceeded to have a very passionate conversation about GMO’s.

I tried Noni juice for the first time. Apparently this Noni is said to be one of the rare foods that is actually able to restore similar processes that sleep does. As interesting as that was, it was slightly bitter for my taste. 

As these friends leave, more come visit. This trend continues for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. The day is very relaxing and full of pleasant conversation.

As days start to repeat themselves, I will likely not be posting daily as it will not be as exciting to read and/or write. But when interesting things do happen I will be sure to mention them!

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Day 5: And it hasn't even been a week

Began the day with some finishing touches on the sharpening of my cutlass. Once done we drove to the area where we will be creating a new apiary. We were to create a pathway for the car to drive through. Hundreds of branches and trees and shrubs and vines had previously blocked the way, but we took care of them. However a slight injury had to end this journey early.

Once back at the house, we suited off, and were off to the bees. A neighbor came over who had a few hives in this apiary and we went through her hives to make sure each had a queen. We went through five and only 1 was without a queen, so we will have to deal with that another day. One of the other hives appeared as though they were about to swarm. This is when there are too many bees and not enough space in the hive, so thousands of bees fly off together to find a larger location. Because this would be bad for the beekeeper, as he would be losing all of his bees, we preformed a synthetic swarm. We built a larger hive, found the queen in the old one, and moved her over to the new hive. We then took a few of the combs from the old hive, as well as about half of the bees, and added them to the new hive. Soon we will add another queen to the old hive, and with any luck, both hives will be flourishing again, and no bees will be swarming to a new location. We came back for a lunch break, and the father asked if we wanted to go finish off the last 3 hives. I figured I'd stay back and consider it a solid day of going sting free.

It was only about 2:30pm at this point. For lunch we had the national fruit of Jamaica- Ackee. They looked kind of like peaches with large grapes inside, but tasted similar to eggs.

As I thought the day was over I threw on some bug repellant and was ready to relax. But I was mistaken. We took a drive to another apiary that I did not even know existed. We were just going to check on the area, so no suits were needed. Well, apparently bees are attracted to insect repellant, who knew? So as we cruised by we came across a coconut tree with orange coconuts. As I enjoyed my coconut water minding my own business, sting #6 got me in the face. And then they continued attacking so we, or at least I, made a run for it down the overgrown path.

Continuing down this path the father took us to his banana trees that he had planted about a year back, they were soon ready to produce. We continued down the path to a Cocoa tree. The cocoa pods were not as I expected. You can cut them open, suck on the seeds, which have a rather citrusy flavor, and spit them out, or even plant them.

 Our last stop of the day was this gigantic Jack fruit tree. These were like nothing I had seen before and were a great treat to top off another eventful day.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Day 4: Need more bugspray

Woke up to a delicious meal of banana fritters and cabbage. Not sure if I will continue this healthy vegan lifestyle once I'm back in the states, or fall back into a meat-loving animal once I'm back home.

After breakfast we suited up and went out to the hives. Today our goal was to check all the hives and make sure a queen was present. Queen are the only bees in the colony that will lay eggs, so no queen means no new bees for that hive. We alternated between using the smoker and recording notes, so we could keep track of the status of each hive. The Top Bar Hives were a variety of shapes. Mainly boxes and trapezoids. Trapezoids were much easier to manage, as you could push the bees in any direction you wanted. Squares however were a mess and all of the bees would be flying around at once. While using the smoker to attempt and reduce stings, received sting #4.

One of the beehives was overflowing with activity. So we were to migrate them from their 2ft hive into a 4ft hive. I was in charge of the migration, and each comb had to be moved separately. There were about 15 combs, each with a few hundred bees on them. As the clouds came in, the bees were roweled up, and sting numero 5 happened. This is probably the point where I will start losing count.

Afterwards we went to the hardware store. Not your ordinary American home depot styled place. We purchased cutlasses so we could clear out an area on the property to create another apiary. The cutlasses come dull, so we also needed to file them in order to make them sharp. This is actually much more difficult than I expected.

To end the night we picked fruits and made a tea out of them to wind-down a bit after a long day.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Day 3: I think I'm a beekeeper

After breakfast we put on our beesuits for the first time. Walking into the larger apiary, we looked into one of the beehives to understand what was going on. The Top Bar Beehive is broken down into about 15 top bars. Each one has large amounts of comb coming down from it. When picking up this comb you see about 500 or so bees attached to each one. We used a smoker to simulate a forest fire so the bees would be focused on survival and not as much stinging, giving us access to their hive.

Looking into each comb you can see the different capped broods for workers, drones, and queens. If there are no eggs in a hive, there is likely no queen, which is a huge problem for both the bees and beekeeper. Some of the combs were filled with pollen as we were able to try some. You chew the comb like it is a piece of gum and then spit out wax when you are finished.

Later on we went on a hike around the town. We met the locals, skipped some stones, and saw some of the beautiful landmarks that make Jamaica all that it is.

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Day 2: The first of many beestings

In the morning we started off with a a lesson on the Jamaican language of Patois (Patwa). It's like a combination of English and a variety of African languages, but much more simplified.

We ate a delicious vegan breakfast that consisted of banana fritters and a variety of other foods that came from the local trees. There is never a time here where bananas are not hanging from the ceiling, and abundant amount of watermelons are not in the kitchen.

After breakfast we went into our first lesson on bees. This presentation focused on the idea that beehives are a super-cellular organism that work together to complete their common goal. Learning about the variety of honeybees, the traits of a queen, how to identify the specifics happening in a colony and comb, etc. There is a lot more to a hive than meets the eye.

We proceeded to take a visit to the apiary, which is a collection of beehives. The first apiary had roughly 25 hives. The second apiary had about 15. The thing about bees is when there are overcast skies, they tend to be a little grumpy. And we didn't happen to have our beekeeping gear on at the time. Within seconds the interns racked up a quick 5 or so stings, which hurt a lot less than I remembered.

As the night wound down we played cards, relaxed, and hoped for a sunnier day tomorrow.

Finished Book #1: The Way to Bee: Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping

(Still struggling with pictures though...)

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Day 1: This will take some getting used to

After about an 8 hour journey I finally arrived at my destination, the town of Strawberry Fields Together, at Yerba Buena Farm. Once here, I met the mother, father, 6 sons, and other intern, Brianna. As well as the 3 dogs, 2 cats, 8 chickens, and thousands and thousands of honeybees.

The property has 3 large cabins and a common area kitchen. The showers are all outdoor and there is a beautiful beach at the bottom of the property. Day 1 was a relaxing day, a chance to explore the area. All of the plants here have food growing from them. Hungry? Go outside and grab a mango or banana from a tree. The seeds are thrown back outside to grow more trees while the remainder of any food that is left becomes composted for future beneficial use.

When it was time for sleep, I went back to my cabin, ignored the many critters wondering amongst the room, put down my mosquito net around my bed, and called it a night.

I have already taken many pictures and will be putting them up shortly!

Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Final Countdown

Twelve hours from now I will be embarking on my greatest journey yet. I am excited to have the opportunity to spend a month in Jamaica living with a family where I will be learning about top bar beekeeping. I have absolutely no idea what to expect, which makes it all the more exciting.

To prepare for this trip I have been taking Goldenseal dietary supplements for the past week. This blend of herbs is, in theory, supposed to alter the sweetness of my blood to the point where mosquitoes will have no interest in me.

As the adventure begins I will be sure to continue posting blog updates, pictures, and all of the exciting things that will be taking place. If you are curious about the details of what I will be doing, you can find information on the website: http://yerbabuenafarmjamaica.com/

Stay tuned!