Making soap is lots of fun!

Last January my sister and I took a class in soap making at the John Campbell Folk School. It was a weekend class and we had a great time and learned a lot. We also made a lot of soap in that weekend.
  
I immediately came home, ordered supplies and then looked at them for so long that by the time I got around to making soap six months later, I had to relearn the process.....but boy, is it fun. And making soap is a useful way to employ beeswax.

Beeswax in soap makes the soap harder and causes it to last longer. My recipe that I have finally settled on for now includes both beeswax and palm kernel oil flakes to harden the soap. The soap is full of shea butter and when one uses this soap, it softens, rather than dries, one's skin.

My daughter is an attorney and she ordered gift bags from Linda T's Bees as thank you gifts for her referral sources. We put soap, lip balm, lotion bars, and honey in each bag. I got to make lots of fun soaps for the project.

   

 

I made pumpkin soap colored with paprika and with an exfoliant of poppy seeds; then I made basil/rosemary soap, oatmeal honey soap, cocoa swirl soap, honey/chamomile soap, dirt and basil soap, chocolate chip cookie soap, cucumber mint soap, green tea soap, and vanilla oatmeal soap. I have loved making soap. I just found a recipe for fresh carrot soap and want to make that as well as avocado soap with fresh avocados (like bathing in guacamole?). I even ordered avocado oil to use in that soap.

I've bought silicone soap molds, have used cardboard milk cartons (as we did in the Folk School) and have just had so much fun.

If you have any beeswax from your bee year, this is a great use for it. You do have to melt and filter the beeswax and weigh it precisely to make this all come together well.

Some helpful hints:

1. You have to melt some of the oils in order to use them. The last thing one wants to happen is for the oil to turn over and spill, so I have put a cotton placemat in the dutch oven filled with hot water to keep the plastic bottle upright.


2. There are all kinds of silicone pans that one can use - this is a silicone bread pan from Target:


3. After you make soap, it has to cure for three weeks. Another great use for the queen excluder:



Try it, you'll like it. (Note: this is cold process soap made with lye)

The Thing about Keeping a Blog This Long is that I start to Repeat Myself!

So today and yesterday have been warm December days in Atlanta. At night we've had temperatures in the 30s but in the day, the temperature rises into the high 60s. My neighborhood is crawling with men digging mysterious holes in the area between the sidewalks and the streets. Rumor has it that Google is putting in the wiring for Google Internet - look out Comcast and AT&T. (I, for one, will be running to Google the minute it is available.)

Despite the loud racket of the digging and the numbers of cars and people, at one corner of my neighborhood is a Fatsia Japonica covered with flying insects (this was established in a blog post in 2011 - see how I am repeating myself?) Honey bees are all over the flowers on this shrub which is just starting to bloom.

There are 4000 species of bee in the United States. At least eight of those species were frantically visiting this plant when my dog Hannah and I walked by it today. I am disturbed by all the digging, but the bees appear not to care about Google and their industrious venture in my neighborhood.

I only had my phone so if you want to see good photos, revisit my post from 2011. Only the second photo actually shows a bee, but they were all over the shrub, I promise. Since the shrub is the only blooming plant in the area, it is a very popular place.

Piedmont Park opens an Apiary

Atlanta's Piedmont Park lies right in the heart of the city and is a place where people walk, run, and play. Festivals are held there; is available in the park each Saturday; an interactive fountain in which my grandchildren like to play offers water that sprays in sync.

I live close enough that I walk my dog there almost daily. In the park, there is a model orchard and garden. This year they added an apiary.







(my granddaughter Lark playing in the fountain)




Atlanta's Botanical Garden is attached to Piedmont Park, extending the green space in the city even further. The Botanical Garden has had bees for years and has an observation hive in the children's garden. But Piedmont Park itself has been without an apiary.

I'm sure my own bees feast on the flowers in the park and at the Botanical Garden since both are within a mile of my house and apiary.

The Northwood Garden Club sponsored the new apiary and in honor of the ribbon cutting, they invited me to come to their meeting to introduce them to bees and beekeeping. I talked to them and showed a PowerPoint I have called: Meet the Bee. Then we all went to the new apiary for the ribbon cutting.

Beekeepers Mary Yetter and Bob Hassenritter. Mary is a new beekeeper and Bob has kept bees for several years now. They installed these bees late in the season (August) which means the bees missed the nectar flow. They are feeding the bees with inboard feeders. It was nice to meet Bob who is a member of Coweta beekeepers and reads this blog!!!

The Rotary Club and the Northwood Garden Club sponsored the apiary so the presidents of each of those organizations shared the scissors to cut the ribbon, officially opening the apiary.

Mary and Bob talked a little about the bees. I was so proud of the Northwood garden club members who were able to answer some questions accurately since they had just heard my talk.

Here are the two hives, surrounded by fencing to protect onlookers from getting too close. The Georgia Beekeepers Association has a goal of getting bees in the state parks around the state, but here we have bees in a city park in Atlanta.

Apology and Explanation

Dear people who follow my blog,

I have been silent for several months and wanted to offer an apology. I am a clinical psychologist in real life when I am not a beekeeper. I am approaching retirement in a couple of weeks and this fall has really been a time full of saying good-bye to people I have known and worked with, often for years.

So my energy has been pulled away from writing on this site to saying good-bye.

Then in the middle of that process my 93-year-old mother died. It was sudden and although she was 93, she lived on her own and was in relatively good health, so that has also pulled me away from thinking about writing about my bee work and fun with bee stuff in general.

So I plan to get back to writing about my love and fun with bees starting today and wanted any of you who have been concerned to understand my long absence.

Warmly,

Linda T

Only two days left to sign up for GBA Conference to hear Michael Bush, Dean Stiglitz, and Dewey Caron

On September 12, the rate for the GBA conference in Milledgeville on September 18 and 19 goes up to $75 a person. Sign up TODAY to get the discounted rate of $60. The conference has a great program, great speakers, a honey show, an auction of bee-related products, and much more. You get lunch both days at the conference, have a chance to hang out with like-minded beekeepers, and visit all of our vendors' booths.

Come one, come all. Sign up today - even if you are not a member of GBA, signing up as a nonmember buys you not only the conference but also the newsletter for the next year!

How can you do anything but win.

Hear Michael Bush in person - rarely in the Southeast.

To sign up, click here.  To see the program, click here. To join GBA before you sign up, click here. (It's a bargain: $15 a year for an individual membership; $25 a year for a family membership).

See you in Milledgeville!

At long last here is the program for the GBA Fall Conference on September 18-19

We welcome GBA members and nonmembers alike! To register, click here.

Julia and I are part of the meeting committee and have really worked hard to plan a good meeting. We are proud to have Michael Bush, Dewey Caron and Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer as nationally known speakers as well as a host of other good speakers and breakout presenters.

2015 Fall Program Georgia Beekeepers Association Conference

Mr. Holmes: A Poem on Film

This afternoon I went to see Mr. Holmes, a beautiful poem of a film that is acted well and just lovely. I appreciate Ian McKellen as both an actor and a beekeeper. The scenes of the beekeeping are well done. The bees look great and Mr. Holmes even gets to use his powers of deduction in his apiary.

I wanted to put a photo of him in his beekeeping garb but couldn't find one. Sad, because it was fun to see him in his veil and with his half gloves.

Generally it's a movie about aging and decline of the mental faculties and it does it gloriously in a beautiful place with bees. And when they add they little boy who learns to be a beekeeper in the process of the movie, I just fell in love!

At least seven people have told me that I have to see this, so I will say to all of you - go and see it - beautifully shot beekeeping scenes, not to mention a quite good movie.

Here is a write-up about it.

Upcoming GBA Fall Conference - Michael Bush, Dewey Caron, Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer

Julia and I have been working really hard on the meeting committee to plan to the GBA fall conference on September 18 and 19 in Milledgeville, Georgia. We are thrilled with our speaker line-up. Michael Bush is coming as well as Dewey Caron and even Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer, authors of the Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping.

Below you'll find the latest issue of Spilling the Honey - the GBA newsletter that I edit with Gina Gallucci. All the details of our fall conference, the main speakers, the breakouts, the honey show, etc. can be found there.

Please plan to come - we will be glad to see you!

GBA August 2015 Edition: Spilling the Honey