Alexander and the Red Ribbon Year

I love Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.  Poor Alexander - nothing goes right for him.  He even has to wear his railroad train pajamas and he hates his railroad train pajamas.  When he goes with his brothers to buy shoes, everyone gets cool ones, but they only have boring uncool ones in Alexander's size.

It's a great book to read when things aren't going well.

My honey contest year was a little like Alexander's day.  When I entered my wax block, in each show the winning entry was poured into a design mold instead of a block.  It's much harder to pour a solid block but since most honey contest rules don't designate specifically a solid block with no design, then fancier looking entries always win.

So this was a red ribbon year.  I never won a blue ribbon in any of the many categories I entered.  And I should remember that there were plenty of people who entered honey contests this year who didn't get any ribbon at all, but it was still disheartening.

Usually one wants to improve, not go downhill!

Ordinarily I'd say, "Well, there's always next year," but I'm thinking I might skip entering contests next year and focus on honey production instead.

I'm pretty sure I've entered my last wax block, although I feel so drawn to that effort.  I didn't get to enter the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers' honey contest this year because I was in Ireland, and our honey contest rules do not allow a design mold poured block.   Here are our rules for wax block:
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Class 7:  Wax block

1.      The block must be at least one inch thick but not more than two inches thick.

2.      The block must weigh a minimum of two pounds, (but no more than three pounds)

3.      The block should be smooth-surfaced and free of decorations or embellishments.

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We worked really hard at Metro to develop a complete and comprehensive set of rules.  If your club needs guidelines for how to write honey contest rules, we ran ours past Robert Brewer (who trains most of our country's Welsh honey judges) and Keith Fielder before completing them.  Here's a link to the MABA honey contest rules.

So, we'll see next year.  Maybe I'll enter the wax block, but probably skip the honey entries for next year.

Yet Another (two) Wax Block(s)

Well, I'm at it again:  The Great Wax Block Saga.

Last night I poured two wax blocks for the Tara Contest and hoped at least one of them would be good this morning.  When I got ready to pour, I pulled out my piece of silk and found that a wax moth or some other creature had feasted on it:

So I resorted to using panty hose - not as good a filter, but hey, it's what I had.

The panty hose is stretched over a measuring cup with a pouring lip that has been heated in a pan of simmering water so the wax won't solidify as it hits the glass.

I cooled one block in the downstairs oven and the other on the counter top.  I heated the oven to its lowest temperature:  170 and then turned it off before putting in the wax.  Inside the oven while it is heating is a roasting pan filled with hot water and the mold for the block:

I poured one round mold and one in a bread pan.   This morning both were good, but the bread pan had striated lines on the edges of the block:

I polished it while I put the round mold in the freezer - it wouldn't come out of the mold and sometimes the freezer for about 30 minutes will do the trick.  As a last resort, I could use this block but I don't want the striations.

Voila!  The round mold came out just lovely:

I can see a couple of specks in it - result of the use of panty hose instead of silk, but it is a gorgeous wax block.  I've packed it up (after polishing and polishing with panty hose) to go to the show tonight as well.

It rides in its own Tupperware container and sits on a linen napkin - throne for a queen, I guess.

Wish me luck and I'll let you know how it goes.

Entries for Tara Honey Show

I belong to a couple of bee clubs.  The Tara Bee Club is having its honey contest tonight.  I have to work until 6:30 and I live 16 miles in going home traffic from the Tara meeting in Forest Park, Georgia.  They are accepting honey entries from 6:45 - 7:15 so I will arrive at best just under the wire.  As a result I had to get everything ready last night so that I only have to take the plastic wrap off of the jars, put on new tops, and hand them to the steward.

Generally to a honey show, I take a leg of panty hose or a piece of silk for polishing, gloves to pick up the jars, a flashlight to look for fingerprints, a squirt jar of water in case something needs cleaning, toothpicks for last minute bubble removal, silver demitasse spoons for equalizing jar fills, and lint free cloths for polishing jars.  I'll probably have all of that with me, but in reality, I won't have time tonight.  So last night I spent hours getting my entries ready for the show.

I poured two wax blocks and crossed my fingers until this morning.

I polished, equalized, and de-bubbled jars (actually only one jar had bubbles).  I put new tops for each jar in plastic Ziplocs.  I put all the finished products in a sectioned box:

So I'm entering (from top of photo to bottom) black jar, creamed honey, light honey, chunk honey (and a wax block - see next post).  You can see the flashlight peeking out of one of the jar lid filled sections and the new tops for the jars in their baggies.  

I only have light honey to enter this year since Jeff and I only really harvested from Five Alive and Stonehurst.  Like last year, the Stonehurst honey has crystallized early - it was kind of medium - so all we have is the light honey from Five Alive.

We'll see if anything places - I've not done great in honey shows this year, but if I say so myself, the creamed honey we are entering into Tara is really fabulous.

The Wax Block Pours Again.......

Those of you who have been along for most of this journey remember the year when I poured a wax block for the honey contest 18 times.  This is the first pour when I innocently thought this might be pretty easy.  And this is the 15th.  I did get a blue ribbon, but now I think that was a little (are you laughing yet?) obsessive.

This weekend is the Georgia Beekeepers' Association fall meeting and honey contest.  I am going to miss the Metro honey contest this year because I will be on vacation.  So I am entering the GBA contest this weekend.  For sure I'll enter liquid honey, chunk honey, creamed honey (remember Jeff's and my detailed experience), crafts, and maybe photography, but I don't have a photo that just screams to be entered.  I'd like to enter wax block but I didn't pour my first one until last night.

Well, to be honest, I poured two.  I had enough wax and I figured that one would probably come out OK and I could keep repouring the other to try to attain perfection (or close).

The other aspect of this contest is that I'll be up against Virginia Webb - she wins everything.  Her honey has won Best in the WORLD at Apimondia - TWICE.  And she always wins the wax block.

The last time I went against her at GBA she entered a block that wasn't a classic wax block but was poured into a mold covered with designs. She got the blue ribbon and I won the red.  Our rules for MABA specify that the block has to follow the classic rules - a plain, no design on it, 2 - 3 pound wax block.  But this weekend Virginia is sure to enter a lovely designs all over it block and I will not get the blue ribbon - so I'm trying for the red.

The truth is I may not have an entry at all.

This morning I woke to find that neither block had finished well - both had cracks in them.

The prettiest wax I have poured all the right ways - left in a hot pan of hot water in a 350 oven that I turned off right before I put the wax into it.  I put a window pane over it, closed the door and left it for the night.  Nothing doing, it's a mammoth failure....










The second block I put in a pan of hot water on the work bench with glass over it and it too cracked in cooling.  That usually means uneven cooling but I had it in a hot water bath, with two sheets of glass over it.

It looked pretty good from the top, but underneath:

Undaunted, I repoured both of them tonight - we'll see.  I didn't change much - used a little more release (dishwashing liquid) and added some extra hot water to the pan.

We'll see in the morning.

Happy Blues for the Honey Contest

Well, my jarred honey - light and medium - did not place at the honey contest this year. While that honey may not have placed no matter what because there were a lot of great entries, I have to confess that I used all old jars and one should never do that, so next year, it's new jars for me. Much of honey judging has to do with presentation and mine, sad to say, were all in old jars (which show their wear or have smudges from the dishwasher, etc.) , but I got several blue ribbons and one red one.

My chunk honey came in with a blue ribbon. This is the first time I've used these jars that are designed specifically for chunk honey. I loved them and will use them again.



You know the wax block saga and this is pour # 6. I marked the pan that I used for this one, but likely it will not be used again for wax blocks, but rather for bar cookies or some other such cooking use.



And I got a blue ribbon for crafts - this was a quilted bag that I made - all original. I made up the pattern. The bee skep is on a pocket. It has pockets on the inside of the bag (six of them).



I got the idea for these handles from a book and really was pleased with how they turned out as well.



My beekeeping buddy, Noah, won the blue ribbon in cut comb honey and mine came in second with the red.  Mine had lots of problems - wet cappings, some honey on the bottom of the container, but what the judge said was the midline was not straight!  I laughed - it's the bees fault, then!

When you go foundationless, the bees determine where they want the midline rather than the beekeeper who has more control with wax foundation.  So I guess if I keep entering cut comb, I'm going to have to be more selective about my creative bees!

Noah also uses foundationless frames - I think his cut comb came from his top bar hive - and the judge essentially said it was a perfect entry.  I know he's not my kid, but I was so proud of him for getting that blue ribbon as a teenager.

My friend Scotti Bozeman won many ribbons including best in show!  This was only her second honey show.  She's in the center with the two Welsh honey judges, Evelyn and Marcy on either side.

I Should Bake More Brownies: Results of the "Final" Pour

To do the final pour, I bought a brand new pan. I now own at least fifteen 8 inch square pans - some glass, some silicone, some nonstick metal, some aluminum. I should open a brownie bakery!

This new pan did not do well for the ninth and "final" pour. See the dimples on the surface? I didn't use mold release but it was a nonstick pan so this wasn't great.



Also I cut a new square of silk to filter the wax through, but there are particles in the wax that should have been caught by the filter. You know how there's many a slip twix the cup and the lip? Well, I think these particles fell into the wax as I took the silk off of the measuring cup at the end of the filtering. I'll work on a better system for that next year.



And the top of the block had an odd swirl to it. I did this pour during the day time and motion in the house makes this happen, even when the mold is in the oven and is covered with a pane of glass.



So choosing between the two, pour number six won out and that's the one I took to the show (on the right covered in plastic wrap).



Oh, and by the way, I was about to throw out the first piece of silk, now completely caked in wax and then thought, NO.  So I put it in a pan of boiling water, turned the water off, and in the morning the wax was on the water's surface and the silk was clean and ready to use again!  Hooray for recycling.

Just for the record

Pours seven and eight both cracked while cooling - a sign of cooling too fast - which doesn't make sense to me since they were cooling in the oven that was hot (190 degrees) when they were put in and cooled WITH the wax.  But whatever, both cracked down the center.

Pour number nine (and because of time and lack of any further patience, pour number last) is cooling in the oven as we speak.  Tomorrow I'll see what the results are.  If it's a disaster also, I still have the yellow wax, imperfect block to enter into the contest....along with a craft, a photo, medium liquid honey, light liquid honey, chunk honey and maybe cut comb - it isn't really contest-worthy, but I might enter anyway - and black jar (for taste alone).

Our annual picnic is really a big deal.  We have an auction which is our club's fund raiser for the year.  I've contributed a number of items for the auction:  three loaves of buttermilk honey bread that I baked today, three dozen Canadian honey-buttermilk homemade rolls (also baked today), a coffee mug with honey bees on it, a clock with honey bees on it, and my favorite: a dinner for four people that I will cook at my house with every item on the menu having honey as one of the ingredients.

Pour Seven, but Who's Counting?

For what it's worth, the yellow wax poured into a relatively pretty block - still with flaws on the corners and edges.  I polished it with panty hose, wrapped it in plastic and then.....

while my granddaughter took her nap today, I REPOURED the light wax for pour number SEVEN.  I poured this one into the Pyrex glass mold that had the blemishes on it in my first try, but this time instead of going without mold release, I used Ivory liquid.  Maybe this one will be the best, but if not, I'm entering the flawed but really pretty pour number SIX.

Or maybe there will be yet another pour before the contest on Sunday afternoon!

And The Results......Wax Block Blah

Well, the block in the oven looks good at first glance - no ripples, came easily out of the mold, no white blemishes.....but of course, there are imperfections that don't make me happy.

The block that didn't cool in the oven cracked all over the place.  See the wax is yellower but this is of course unusable without repouring.

Here's what's wrong with the almost perfect block.  At the corners are little bumps and depressions. They are almost unseen but a judge will see them.  I think it's because it must have been cooler in the corners of the pan and the hot wax solidified there - or more likely wax splashed there while I was pouring at a different part of the pan and solidified before the molten wax joined it.

A better view of the problem and it's on three of the four corners.

So the good news is that I have enough wax to remelt the very yellow wax and repour it tonight.  I'll use the pan that I used for the uncracked block and cool it again in the oven.  So....on to pour six.....GRRRR.

Sorry about the picture issue - Picasa is letting me down again.

First Stonehurst Harvest

The owner of Stonehurst who usually lives in Germany came home for a couple of weeks. I wanted to harvest some of their honey so she could get a taste of it. We opened the hives on Sunday.

I always love to see the bees clustering around a broken pool of honey gathering it up. We took four frames of honey from their hives - only from the top box of hive 1 - to harvest.



Crushed it looked really pretty but in the jars was more medium than the light look you see here.



Because the frames were really pretty I cut five squares of cut comb honey and put it in my freezer. My agreement with them is that this year we split the honey. That is my recompense for being their beekeeper.




After I crushed the honey comb, a bee in the house tried to help me with clean up!



Here are my five cut comb squares. Really this probably isn't pretty enough for a honey contest because the cappings are too "wet" but maybe I'll enter them or look for better squares in my next harvest hive visit.  Either way they will be delicious to eat on hot biscuits.



I bottled the rest of their honey. From eight frames we got the five cut comb squares, four classic queenline bottles, two refilled Kroger plastic 40 oz containers (I was horrified because I think honey belongs in new glass containers, but Barb has ordered some pretty jars for Stonehurst and this will do in the interim) and
1.5 hex jars.



I bottled the four queenlines as if for a honey show. Stonehurst as an inn is a member of MABA and therefore could enter the honey contest but I can only enter once, so it seems to me, since I like on my own to enter honey contests, that Stonehurst should enter on their own and Caroline, the innkeeper, should make the entry, not me on their behalf.

Because of the four honey contest bottles, I am coming out on the short end of the stick in this division of the honey, since they are getting about nine pounds of honey to my 4.5.

I'll make it up in the next harvest, however.

It was a pretty start to their harvest. There are still four eight frame boxes to harvest on the hives at Stonehurst.

Preparing Honey and Wax for Competition

Because it is harvest time, many beekeepers are bottling honey and preparing bottles to enter into honey contests.  We are hoping to have record numbers of entries at the MABA honey contest in September.  We have recently rewritten and much improved the honey contest rules for our club.

I gave a talk at the June meeting of the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers on the topic of preparing honey and wax for competition and have uploaded it as a YouTube movie so that if you weren't at the meeting, you can learn about what to do.

It's a video, but if you want to pause it to read a slide better, it's easily done with a click on the pause icon (the two parallel lines) at the lower left..

Using a Refractometer

I bought this refractometer on EBay for around $50 a couple of years ago. If you buy one, be sure it is a refractometer designed to measure the amount of moisture in honey - there are many types of refractometers to measure liquids in a variety of ways. You don't want a refractometer for measuring motor oil if you are measuring honey!

Instruments that involve math-like operations or calibration just cow me and I have stared at this thing for as long as I have owned it.
I didn't know how to use it until I helped judge the honey contest with a certified Welsh honey judge in West Palm Beach at the Southeastern Organic Beekeepers Conference. Dr. Mikhail Kruglyakov taught me what to do. Thanks so much to him for his lesson.

So for any of you equally intimidated by the refractometer, here's a simple lesson in how to use it to measure the moisture content in your honey.

This is what the instrument looks like. The eyepiece is on the left end and the place for the honey is on the right.



You lift the plastic cover like so:



There's a pipette to use to place the droplet of honey on the refractometer, although I sometimes use a chop stick.



Then like in chemistry lab, you place the plastic top down on top of the droplet, flattening it on the viewing window.



I can't take a picture of the next step, which for me is first put on my glasses, then look through the eyepiece with the instrument held up toward the light. Then focus by twisting the dial near the eyepiece until you can read the chart. There you'll see the good or bad news.  The chart indicates the moisture level which you want to be at about 18.6%.

At first the reason that I thought I couldn't use the thing is that I didn't know I could focus it - so I would diligently put on my glasses, hold the loaded refractometer up to the light and see only a blur through the lens.

I thought something must be wrong - and it was - I hadn't focused the eyepiece!

Talk on Preparing Honey and Wax for Competition

I was invited to the Southeast Organic Beekeepers Conference in February.  I actually taught three workshops:  one on preparing honey and wax for competition, one on harvesting honey in my simple crush and strain way, and one on making lip balm and lotion.

Brendhan, the head of the conference, taped the talk I gave on preparing honey and wax for competition.

It's here, if you'd like to see and hear it.

Julia Child with Wax and Oil

I had four assignments at the Southeast Organic Beekeepers Conference:

1. To do a talk for the advanced beekeepers on How to Prepare Honey and Wax for Competition.

I enjoyed doing that so much. Most of the audience had never entered a honey contest. I was so grateful that I had gone to a lecture by Robert Brewer in 2008 at the state meeting of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and had heard him talk on the subject.

Most of all I was glad that I have entered honey contests ever since I started beekeeping five years ago. I've learned a lot from every wax pour and from pouring each jar of honey. And I've won a lot of ribbons! So I covered liquid honey, chunk honey, cut comb honey and wax blocks. I learned a lot by organizing what I know into a PowerPoint presentation.

2. To talk to the beginning beekeepers about Honey Harvest from the Bee Hive to the Jar.

Most of them were, as many new beekeepers are, a little overwhelmed by how to get the honey harvested. I of course talked about the simple honey harvest that I do. I used a PowerPoint to show them how to harvest with minimal clean-up, a simple approach to the bees, and honey without extraction. This talk was only about liquid honey. I also showed my movie on harvesting honey via Crush and Strain .

3. To talk and demonstrate how to make lip balm and lotion from the wax from the hive.

I felt a little like Julia Child, essentially cooking in front of everyone. The whole conference was there - advanced and beginners....so about 60 people.



I had a burner to use to melt the ingredients on, but in the end we used the much more effective stove in the kitchen. I showed them how it is helpful to use a chopstick to stir - chopsticks are just great and I use them a lot in various aspects of beekeeping.



Here I am, thanks to my friend from Beemaster, JP, who generously took these pictures. I am using a syringe to squirt the liquid lip balm into tiny lip balm containers. I had lots of help with this project. Brendhan and Eric manned the kitchen stove and cut wax, Janel went out to buy all the ingredients and supplies, and others help cap the containers when I was done.



I also mixed up lotion for everyone, but that takes about 2 1/2 hours to cool so they went on to other activities while the lotion was in the blenders for 2 or more hours. I had brought samples of the lotion bars that I had made at home a couple of nights before, so I used ice trays that I bought at WalMart to make everyone tiny lotion bars as well.



In the end all of the participants went home with a lip balm, a jar of lotion and a lotion bar. Everyone had fun doing this, I think.

4. I was supposed to help judge the honey show.

Dr. Mikhail Kruglyakov, a Robert Brewer trained honey judge, came to judge the show and I was to be his steward. I learned so much. I own a refractometer and didn't know how to use it and he showed me. He also showed me how to examine a jar of honey from start to finish and write notes about it for the entrant. He was a lovely person and very kind and encouraging. We had very few entries into the show but tried to write good comments to help the entrants learn for the next show.

I hope that I can take the Welsh honey judge training at Young Harris in 2011 (if I get Master Beekeeper this year - otherwise I'll be taking the exam again in 2011).

Annual honey contest at Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association

Today was the annual honey contest and picnic for our beekeepers' club. I usually love the honey contest but this year my bees didn't make much honey and I didn't have my usual entries.

I usually enter chunk honey and cut comb honey. I didn't get entry quality chunk honey this year. I also didn't get any cut comb honey - boy, am I going to miss it for winter biscuits! I didn't enter in either of those categories.

I did enter light and medium honey, but my honey didn't win anything. The judge said my light honey had foam in the jars. I thought I had checked each and looked again when I got home, but still didn't see the foam that obviously they saw....oh, well, live and learn.

The good news about honey being judged is that you learn a lot about your honey. Our judges always make notes and give them to us. I learned that my honey that I entered was well below the 18% moisture that is required by refractor test. This is great - many people have said that the honey this year is not as viscous as in other years. So this would make one worry that the honey would be too moisture laden.

My medium honey had a moisture content of 17.8 (it was not a prize winner because they said there were smudges on the jars). My light honey had a moisture content of 16.75. Hooray for the bees!

What was really nice is that a lot of different people won this year. The contest wasn't dominated by any one person and that makes everyone feel so good about what they accomplished for the year.

Below is a picture taken from far away of the judges looking at my wax block. In the end I poured the block six times this year. They are Welsh honey judges, which means that they must wear the Welsh judging coat and hat while they are judging a honey show.



And my wax block won a blue ribbon - first place! This is the top of the block.



This is the bottom side of the block (they look at all sides). The judges commented that there were some "scratches" on the top. Actually what was on the top were some swirls from the dishwashing detergent I used to grease the pan. I had polished it with panty hose, but still didn't get it all out.

They also said that they loved how it smelled. This was all wax from this year, melted in my solar wax melter.

This is the third year in a row that I have won first place for my wax block!



I also put the cross stitch below in the "craft" part of the contest. I bought the pattern at a needlework shop in Hiawassee when I was in Young Harris in 2008. I promised myself I'd finish it for the honey contest this year.

This won a blue ribbon as well. The judges made lovely comments on it: "beautifully framed, great work." So I was pleased.



This coming weekend is the Georgia Beekeepers' Association fall meeting (and honey contest). Last year both my honey and my wax block did well there, but I am not going this year. One of my daughters who lives in Atlanta is due to have a baby any day now and I don't want to be out of town for the event, so any honey contest entry for GBA will have to be in 2010.