Bee Informed Partnership Auction

 Many of us beekeepers benefit from the work of the Bee Informed Partnership. They keep records about bee deaths around the country, they help beekeepers with their Sentinel program weighing hives, they provide webinars and videos that you can watch online, and they have loads of educational material on their website.

To fund these endeavors, they offer an auction every year. The auction is going on right now until November 8. I donated a quilted bag I made (photos below) and there are so many other wonderful items available for auction. I wanted to bid on many of them and have bid on some. Go visit and see if you would like to bid in the auction and support a great website and organization.

Photos of the bag I donated:

                                            

I loved making this bag because to me it looks like the way the bees move around the hive! Inside there is a double pocket for your cell phone, reading glasses, etc. and the closure is a bee button as well as there is a bee button in the center on the front of the bag.

New Video Series on Cooking with My Honey

 On October 18, I was invited to speak to the Tara Beekeeping Association on cooking with honey. I gave a talk to this club in 2011 and at that time, their meetings were held at a building where there was a kitchen. So I cooked during the meeting and brought all kinds of dishes that I had made with honey to share with the club members. 

This year they are meeting on Zoom. I wondered how in the world to manage a talk on food without being able to feed the people there. One of the club officers suggested that I think about it like a cooking show - like Rachel Ray, she said. I started thinking about my videos of the bee hive inspections that I did all through the pandemic on video and then on Zoom.

Why couldn't I do cooking with honey that way?

I went to the farmer's market and stocked up on all the ingredients I needed and then began cooking and filming. I used the same tripod, mic, and phone holder that I used for the hive inspections. 

My biggest obstacles were three: 

• I am not Rachel Ray; 
• I moved this year into a tiny house with a tiny kitchen so camera placement was difficult; 
• My hands shake all the time when I do fine motor stuff - it's not a disease - just aging essential tremor, but it is embarrassing. 

I decided to stare down all of the above and plow ahead anyway.

Title slide from PowerPoint

I created a PowerPoint presentation with a menu from cocktail and appetizer to dessert. Every menu item had honey as an ingredient. I filmed each menu item separately and then put inserts or heavily edited portions of the videos into my PowerPoint to shorten the presentation to the 30 - 50 minutes that were allotted. I had a fabulous time.

The program went well and I got positive feedback, so I decided to put the videos up on my YouTube channel. There are about seven up there now, and I am going to keep a list of the videos on the Pages for Bee Information on the right column of this blog. If you are interested in cooking with honey, I'll keep updating that page as I add videos to my YouTube channel. 

Cooking with Honey: Making Cocktail Sausages with Honey

 A quick and easy appetizer that includes honey in the sauce are these cocktail sausages:

Recipe for Honey Sauce and Sausages

Ingredients:

2 lbs cocktail sausages

2 T toasted sesame oil

½ cup honey

2 T soy sauce

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425. 

Stir together all liquid ingredients

Place sausages in an iron skillet or roasting pan (skillet is preferable)

Pour liquid over the sausages and roast for 20 - 25 minutes.

Stir about every 10 minutes.

Serve with toothpicks to spear the sausages.

Cooking with Honey: How to Make a Bees Knees Cocktail

 

I gave a talk to the Tara Beekeepers Association tonight and included all the elements of a good honey dinner in which every menu item had honey as an ingredient. The first item on the menu was a Bees Knees Cocktail. Here's the video of how to make it.

Recipe for a Bees Knees Cocktail:

Serves 2

Ingredients:

¼ cup hot water

1 tsp lavender blossoms

¼ cup honey

6 T gin

2 T lemon juice

Bring water to a boil. Pour ¼ cup over the lavender blossoms and allow to steep for five minutes. Mix the honey into the hot water/lavender mix. Strain into another container.

To make the drink put 3 T of the honey simple syrup that you just made, gin and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake and then pour into a glass to serve.

The remaining simple syrup can be used for other drinks, to make lemonade, etc.