Where oh where has July gone? I think I spent most of it in the berry patch picking blueberries but we also had many other activities to keep us busy as I attended the 2018 Heartland Apicultural Society (HAS) conference which was held locally (at Washington University) for the first time in many years.

I’m still feeling the thrill of sitting in lecture halls and laboratories where I was able to  listen to the academics speak on all things related to bees and beekeeping.  Best of all was the opportunity to learn new things. This brought to mind the quote I used on my senior yearbook page from one of my favorite books, “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White.

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake in the middle of the night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”

And so, as I continue to worry so about the world we live in and the challenges facing us – particularly our environment – I was able to surround myself with other Beeks (that is what beekeepers call themselves) from around the country and learn new things. One of my favorite classes was Queen Rearing which met for multiple intense sessions during each day of the conference.

Three fabulous instructors from noted entomology labs at Purdue University and the University of Maryland taught us how to properly prepare for and graft minuscule eggs cells from the demonstration apiary frames into specialized queen cell cups and foster the further development of these fragile bits of cells into future queen bees. It was nothing short of exhilarating in spite of the miserable weather!

Here I am in the lab experimenting with using both specialized German and Chinese tools to graft the exactly 3 day old eggs from the bee colony frames into the artificially prepared queen cups of our own making. I’m holding a red flashlight in one hand and the grafting tool in my right. Many used a high powered magnifier as well. FYI, a three day old bee egg is about the size of 3 or 4 grains of sand and incredibly fragile. We spent the previous day preparing the conditions in the hives to accept the grafts we made on the second day but best of all was the excitement 24 hours later (day three) when we were able to find out if our grafts ‘took’, meaning: did the bees accept our simulated queen cells and begin to feed them royal jelly which would promote their development into real queens? Here is my recording of the big reveal.

This was so exciting as our class of 18 Beeks doing queen cell grafting for the first time was quite successful as you can see by my nonstop smile and sweaty mop – it was so hot those days that my phone shut down due to the heat! All the classes I took were amazing but I must say that one benefit of being part of the local bee club that sponsored the conference was to be able to purchase (practically free!) one of the 18 demonstration hives we had placed in the WashU quad for the event. After 3 long days of classes, I returned to campus at 5 the following morning – in the dark of day – to help move the hives off the campus site and brought one home to our apiary. I admit that I had the advantage of knowing the hives and chose well as I arrived at the farm with a very heavy colony of bees which we moved swiftly into place just after 6am.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend next year’s HAS conference in Tennessee since July is a tough time to be away from the farm for many reasons. Blueberry harvesting is at least a 6 week season from mid June thru July and I’m just now feeling relieved of this daily chore. We were thrilled to read this delightful article in the NYTimes about blueberries and shared it with our CSA customers. (I can’t tell you how many people ask what CSA stands for…so a reminder here…Community Supported Agriculture.)

We related to this article for many reasons since we have some of the same varieties mentioned, but also because we decided to test the blueberry muffin recipes that were sited. So, we offered a blueberry muffin tasting for our Saturday customers hoping to inspire them to bake! Here was the winning recipe, Jordan Marsh (MA department store) vs. Ritz Carlton, Boston. Jordan Marsh came out the winner but decide for yourselves as both recipes are in the link! We have also been in the midst of peach picking…the first significant amount of  peaches from our trees since we planted them 8 years ago!

Of course this prompted me to find a peach/blueberry recipe and Ina Garten did not fail me in her cobbler combo of the two fruits along with a bit of lemon. After testing this recipe with the Ward family, I made another 8 batches today to freeze in smaller containers for the winter! YUM! Here unbaked and ready for foil wrapping.In other news…we have finally hired some help here at the farm. I know, I know…everyone tells us to get some additional hands on board but it is really hard to find just the right fit and in some ways to relinquish any smidgen of control. I’m told that I don’t ‘suffer fools’ and I always wonder quite how to take that statement but I’ll ignore it for now as we have found a wonderful young helper, Jane, who has jumped into the fray and helped us immensely so far.

We are so pleased to get another pair of hands on the job and we try to have as much fun as possible. For instance, we are a tiny bit competitive (really?) and so on peach harvesting day we held a competition to guess the number of pounds of peaches picked. Well, Jane won and for her efforts, she was rewarded a farm hat and officially joined our silly crew! Jane has also jumped into the inside chores when rained out in the field…pickle making is in progress with many pounds under our belts in the form of fermented sours…as well as 60 pints of bread and butter varieties already in the pantry. Perhaps the biggest news of the month is that we have had the first eggs laid from the new crop of chicks. In anticipation of this, we opened the nest boxes in the mini coop on July 20th (at 17 weeks of age) and patiently waited as we watched the newbies investigate these nests as well as those of the main coop. The first egg came from a Cinnamon Queen on July 26 at approximately 18 weeks old and today we had the first, smallish white egg (so telling from the color!) from one of the Leghorns. YAY!We have continued to harvest a variety of other fruits and veggies to offer our dear CSA customers and to cook for ourselves. Yesterday, we had some beautiful unsold eggplants to use for dinner and I made a new recipe for Eggplant Rollatini.  There are quite a few versions available on line but they all seem to have similar ingredients: thinly sliced eggplant which is cooked and then rolled into bundles with a stuffing of ricotta cheese, spinach and spices and cooked on a bed of marinara sauce, something that also abounds in my pantry!

Although it seems like ages ago, we can’t help but enjoy the memories of the July Fourth parade in the Ward’s neighborhood. Coulter pedaled his tractor… While we followed along…Willie, most concerned about incoming teeth, thought the whole thing to be pretty funny!