Snuggles and Dogs

I may have found a suitable substitute for the discontinued Snuggles Hot Dog Cradles - Pita Bread.  I first tried a Slaw Dog and it was good but not as good as the Chili Cheese Dog.  Try some pita on your next dog and see if you like them as much as we did.

Steel Cut Oatmeal

Do yourself a favor and start preparing this morning meal (which may be habit forming) with buying one of the Tramontina induction portable cooktops.  Using the rather large pot it come with and the timer setting you will be able to start the oatmeal and set the time and forget it - come back in 20 min and it's done.  Easy peasy.  Here's what I do...

• 1/2 cup steel cut oats (not the quick cooking kind)
• 2 1/4 cups water (give or take but definitely more than the recipe calls for to allow other stuff you going to add)
• salt to taste

After cooking the oats for 20 min get your serving bowl out and add...

• 1/3 cup Fiber One (fiber is good, right!)
• 1/3 cup Craisens dried Cranberries (look for the 50% less sugar)
• 1 heaping tablespoon of ground Cinnamon
• 1 tsp of Cayenne (optional)
• 1 heaping tablespoon of Cacao Nibs
• 1 tablespoon of Pumpkin Seeds
• 2 tablespoons of Honey
• Butter to taste (optional, it's good but you won't miss it)

Now put the hot oats on top and stir real good before adding / topping with...

• 1/4 cup Grape Nuts
• 1 tablespoon Trilogy (Flax, Chia, and Hemp seeds)
• 1 tsp Honey Bee Pollen (you can find this and Trilogy above at Walmart)

Enjoy and bee healthy!

Chocolate Gravy & Biscuits

Roughly 30 years ago my sons came home and told me that their friends, Mark and Kevin's grandma made this chocolate gravy and biscuits for them everyday.  I have wondered how good that might be all this time and now I know.  It was wonderful!  Equivalent to desert biscuits at places like Bojangles or Hardee's.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

I am not sure I will ever be a regular blogger again but I will share what I did with all the Turkey and Ham leftover from our dinner as these two dishes are pretty awesome and easy.  The turkey is easy as the recipe for Brunswick Stew is already listed here under "Soups & Stews".  It's always easy for me because I usually have some Pulled Pork and Brisket in the freezer.  So to start I cook the turkey frame down till the meat is falling off the bone then pull the good meat off and use that in place of the BBQ Chicken.  The 14 lb turkey frame done in this manner always provides a cup or 2 which is plenty.  Add to that the frozen  1 lb ea pack of brisket and pulled pork and add to the the the turkey frame making sure there is enough water to cover and cook until all the meats are stringy and if you are a Brunswick Stew lover as I am you know what that looks like.  Now your ready to refer to the recipe and add all the other ingredient and finish up which takes 1 to 2 hours more.  Enjoy!  What about the ham?  I will just outline the recipe for this casserole for you and don't worry, it will be good as it has a short list of great ingredients.  We made one and took it to my sisters dinner which was a delayed Thanksgiving dinner because it just fit everyone's schedule better and it was so good we made another the next day for us.  So, just start by boiling 2 cups of large diced potatoes and 1 cup of large diced celery and cook for 20 min or till soft.  Here's a little tip:  some casseroles are more flavorful if the ingredients are not chopped up too fine.  Now dice about 2 cups of the ham (this can be small dice) while you fry 5 or 6 slices of bacon.  After frying the bacon gently saute a cup each of sliced onion and bell pepper and remove from the pan and add the ham and cook it, yes cook it again as it adds so much more flavor.  Now add back the onions and peppers and add to your casserole dish along with the drained potatoes and the chopped bacon mix it well.  Add a tablespoon of butter to the same pan and enough flour to make gravy with using 1 cup of milk.  When the gravy starts to thicken add 1 cup of cheddar then pour evenly over the casserole, add about 1/2 cup bread crumbs and bake for 30 min or until bubbling.  Easy and so good, we froze portions of it on a sheet pan and food savered for later.  I will add that the Brunswick Stew recipe I use here is one I took from a magazine many years ago and I love this stuff and have enjoyed it at many fine BBQ joints and this will stand up to any I have ever had.  If you don't have the pork and beef you might just get your crock pot out the night before.

Honey For Sale

We have a new harvest of clover honey for sale  $20 / quart or  $10 / pint. Harvested just two weeks ago and pure clover, raw, unfiltered honey from Murray County.

Swarm Transfer

I am so shocked at how well the bees were doing in this nuc.  It is a swarm from one of my own hive that I had been thinking it was about to happen and got this trap put up just in time.  I'm thinking "let your bees swarm" might be a better strategy than all the fuss of trying to prevent a swarm.  The parent hive is doing well too with new brood. 

Learning To Keep Bees

In the next few days I will be doing full inspections on 3 established hives, one of which is a split from one of the other two with the hopes of seeing confirmation of sorts on all that I have learned over the past few weeks.

Swarming 

Tom Seeley's Honey Bee Democracy was certainly an eye opener in that it makes one aware of the lengths bees go to choose a new location for a swarm to reside.  I don't know that knowing all that I learned from that book had anything at all to do with setting up my two swarm traps near my hives in hopes of catching a swarm from them but catch one I did and I learned that unless I missed it in his book this swarm did not follow what he described as their normal methods.  The first thing they did was cling to the bottom of the Long Hive they came from for 2 days before I saw another smaller ball of bees do the same near another hive just a few feet away.  The next day the first larger swarm moved to a trap I had placed about 10 ft up in a tree and did the same thing, made a ball clinging to bottom of the trap for 2 days, but then that 2nd smaller ball joined the first one for another day before they all finally entered that trap.  Nothing I read prepared me for this and I am relatively sure all the bees are from the same parent hive.  It would seem that the bees Democracy was in as much disarray as ours has been for years now, but all worked out for them as I sure hope it does for us.

Hiving a Swarm

On this subject the results are not in as I am a day away from actually taking that trap out of the tree.  I have struggled and still struggle with the issue of whether or not the bees need to be confined to the trap after I move them, so my plan is as follows.  It worked before and so what I will do is screen the entrance, move as close to the new permanent hive and location as possible and leave them confined for 2 to 3 days before releasing them with a queen excluder covering the entrance in place of the screen.  After 2 days I will then transfer the bees from the trap to the new hive and attach the queen excluder on that new hive for 2 days.  I will report the results.