First off, Happy New Year everyone! We hope you had a wonderful time over the festive period and are looking forward to a productive and healthy 2015, we certainly are. As to that, we are really pleased to announce that for the first time since our relaunch, we are now stocking some of our product in a real life physical store.
Last year the business moved up to Featherston in South Wairarapa, and in that time we have gotten to know the locals really well. One of whom is Emma Jackson, proprietor of the Loco Cafe in the town. It’s a fantastic little space that features a lot of Emma’s and her beau Chris’s arts and crafts, as well as other beautiful things all made locally. We already bought a piece for some relatives back in Ireland for Christmas, and it won’t be the last thing we buy. Aside from the art and the great coffee, Loco also stocks some health and beauty products, so our Apis Mellifera skin care and health food ranges feel right at home, as you can see from the photo Emma took above (thanks for the cute addition of the bee to keep watch over our products!) So if you live in Featherston or are passing through, keep an eye out for the pink panther lounging outside the cafe, and why not drop in for a coffee, a sit down and maybe an Apiary product or two.
A newly constructed “bee hotel” at the University of New Hampshire’s Woodman Farm isn’t much to look at — with its cinder block floors and pine cone-littered suites — but for the region’s pollinators, it’s as appealing as any five-star resort.
The bee hotel is at the center of the first-ever comprehensive study of New England’s bee population. The study, led by researchers at the University of New Hampshire’s New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station (NHAES), aims to assess the condition of the region’s estimated 250 species of bees.
“The study will establish the first complete diversity assessment of native bees in the region and also provide a better understanding of pollinator diversity and ecology,” Sandra Rehan, lead NHAES researcher and assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of New Hampshire’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture (COLSA), said in a statement.
The study, called “Sustainable Solutions to Problems Affecting Bee Health,” was launched to coincide with National Pollinator Week (June 16-22), an annual event sanctioned by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture that highlights the urgent issue of declining pollinator populations in the United States.
“Basic data on species diversity and habitat preferences will be fundamental to future studies to ameliorate declining bee populations and to target species at risk,” Rehan said.
In addition to helping protect native bees in New England, Rehan said the project is designed to raise awareness about how humans are affecting pollinator populations in the region, as well as across other areas of the country.
Bees, which play a critical role in the health of food crops and natural ecosystems, have experienced rapid declines in population and diversity over the past several years, research from NHAES shows.
And humans deserve at least part of the blame for this decline. Loss of habitat and agricultural environments, as well as the widespread use of pesticides and chemicals in farming, are believed to be contributing to the current bee crisis throughout the United States.
The value of pollination to agriculture is estimated at more than $200 billion each year worldwide, said Rehan, who oversees the University of New Hampshire’s Bee Lab. This makes the university’s research into the subject even more pressing, and has led to the launch of a longer-term project to monitor the biodiversity of bees in New Hampshire. The bee hotel at Woodman Farm represents one part of this project, with other monitoring sites at NHAES facilities also contributing much-needed data.
“By documenting what species are abundant, common and rare to the area, we can track species habitat and floral preferences,” Rehan said. “By further developing long-term monitoring, we can identify species at risk and changes in bee communities.”
The researchers plan to use genomic screening on the winged guests of the bee hotel to identify which species suffer low genetic variability. This trait, the researchers explained, may indicate certain genetic issues that can lead to the decline or even extinction of a species.
John Wraith, NHAES director and dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, expressed enthusiasm for the bee hotel project and its related studies, noting the impact that pollinators have in New Hampshire and its neighboring regions.
“These are critically important, time-sensitive issues that face our state and regional producers, gardeners, residents and visitors,” Wraith said in a statement.
“We’re excited to support this work within our engaged research portfolio.”
Rehan is equally excited about the studies, and hopes that continued research and education can help reverse the trend in declining bee populations in New England and other regions.
“By educating New Hampshire citizens, farmers and policymakers about native bees and habitat preferences, we can encourage the regional and national authorities to create and maintain native bee habitats,” Rehan said.
Museli bars are great for a number of reasons. They’re the perfect snack you don’t have to think about, they’re pretty good at dealing with a rumbling tummy in the middle of the day, and are great for kids’ lunch boxes. However there are a few problems too. More often than not the ones you’ll find in the supermarket are packed with sugar, often with barely any actual fruit lying within, and they can be pretty expensive for the six relatively small bars you get.
With the new year upon us we thought we’d start by looking at ways we can save money while still eating healthily and not missing out on yummy snacks. Muesli bars are one of those things that are easy to chuck in the trolley without thinking about. But it’s often the many little things that make for a lengthy receipt at the checkout, so by starting small and making your own little snacks at home, you can help keep the budget at bay. So here’s our recipe for some yummy muesli bars that will keep you and yours going.
On an ungreased baking sheet, spread your oats out evenly and bake at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes, stirring them up once in the middle of that time.
Remove oats from oven, leaving oven ON, and let cool completely.
While your oats are cooling, you can begin to mix together the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. After the oats are cooled, add them to the bowl and mix all ingredients together.
Lightly spray a smallish (no smaller than 8″x8″) baking dish with cooking spray or a light coating of olive oil, and place mixture evenly into the dish, using your fingers or a rubber spatula to help push it down flat into the dish and corners.
Bake at 180 degrees for approximately 25 minutes.
After cooking, allow dish to cool completely.
After bars have cooled and chocolate has hardened, you can slice however you prefer.
I managed to make about 20 bars by cutting the block in half and slicing relatively thinly.
According to recent research from John Hopkins Research, 30 minutes of meditation can possibly help ease the symptoms of anxiety and depression. asics onitsuka tiger donna But how exactly does it work?
The researchers evaluated the degree to which those symptoms changed in people who had a variety of medical conditions, such as insomnia or fibromyalgia, although only a minority had been diagnosed with a mental illness. Canotta Milwaukee Bucks MadhavGoyal, an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and his colleagues found that so-called “mindfulness meditation” — a form of Buddhist self-awareness designed to focus precise, nonjudgmental attention to the moment at hand — also showed promise in alleviating some pain symptoms as well as stress. New Balance 998 mujer The findings held even as the researchers controlled for the possibility of the placebo effect, in which subjects in a study feel better even if they receive no active treatment because they perceive they are getting help for what ails them.
To conduct their review, the investigators focused on 47 clinical trials performed through June 2013 among 3,515 participants that involved meditation and various mental and physical health issues, including depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, substance use, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and chronic pain. Maglie New Orleans Pelicans
They found moderate evidence of improvement in symptoms of anxiety, depression and pain after participants underwent what was typically an eight-week training program in mindfulness meditation. Canotte Selección de USA They discovered low evidence of improvement in stress and quality of life. Trevor Siemian Jerseys There was not enough information to determine whether other areas could be improved by meditation. store locator for new balance shoes In the studies that followed participants for six months, the improvements typically continued.
Mindfulness meditation, the type that showed the most promise, is typically practiced for 30 to 40 minutes a day. Cheap Nike Trainers UK It emphasizes acceptance of feelings and thoughts without judgment and relaxation of body and mind. Nike Air Max Goedkoop He cautions that the literature reviewed in the study contained potential weaknesses.
This may seem like an odd thing for a bee-based skincare and honey site to be posting about, but we love all aspects of what makes up a beehive. One of those very important things is the shape of the honeycomb. fjallraven kanken classic 16 L A hexagon is the most erognomic shape and the perfect match for something as complex yet simple as a honeycomb. Adidas Pas Cher So whenever we see interesting news related to our favourite shape, we just have to share it, and what’s more fascinating than a naturally occurring hexagon on Saturn?
The unusual structure with a hexagonal shape surrounding Saturn’s north pole was spotted on the planet for the first time thirty years ago. Nothing similar with such a regular geometry had ever been seen on any planet in the Solar System. Womens Air Jordan 5 The Planetary Sciences Group has now been able to study and measure the phenomenon and, among other achievements, establish its rotation period. What is more, this period could be the same as that of the planet itself. Saturn is the only planet in the Solar System whose rotation time remains unknown. The research illustrates the front cover of the journal Geophysical Research Letters and has been highlighted by the publication’s editor.
In 1980 and 1981 NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 space probes passed for the first time over the planet Saturn, located 1,500 million km from the Sun. Among their numerous discoveries they observed a strange, hexagon-shaped structure in the planet’s uppermost clouds surrounding its north pole. Air Jordan 2 Retro The hexagon remained virtually static, without moving, vis-à-vis the planet’s overall rotation that was not accurately known. Dennis Pitta Ravens Jerseys What is more, the images captured by the Voyager probes found that the clouds were moving rapidly inside the hexagon in an enclosed jet stream and were being dragged by winds travelling at over 400 km/h.
Thirty years later –the equivalent of one Saturn year, in other words, the time the planet takes to go all the way around the Sun– and over more than six consecutive years, researchers in the UPV/EHU’s Planetary Sciences Group, in collaboration with astronomers from various countries, were able to observe Saturn’s northern polar region in detail once again and confirmed that the hexagon continued in place.
After measuring the positions of the hexagon vertices with great precision, they determined that its movement remains extremely stable, and on the basis of the cloud movements, that the jet stream inside it remains unchanged. For this study the researchers used images taken from the Earth between 2008 and 2014; they used, among others, the astronomical cameras PlanetCam (developed by the Planetary Sciences Group itself) and Astralux, fitted to the telescopes of the Calar Alto Observatory in Almería (Spain); in addition, they used the very high resolution images obtained by t he Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004. New York Giants Jerseys
Due to the tilt of approximately 27º of the planet Saturn, its polar atmosphere undergoes intense seasonable variations with long polar nights lasting over seven years, followed by a long period of 23 years of variable illumination. However, the seasonal variations do not affect the hexagon and its jet stream at all, so both are part of an extensive wave, deeply rooted in Saturn’s atmosphere. Fjallraven Kanken Kids UK The UPV/EHU researchers suggest that the hexagon and its stream are the manifestation of a “Rossby wave” similar to those that form in the mid-latitudes of the earth. On our planet the jet stream meanders from west to east and brings, associated with it, the system of areas of low pressure and anticyclones which we have been seeing regularly on weather maps.
On Saturn, a hydrogen gas planet, ten times the size of the Earth, cold in its upper clouds, without a solid surface, and with an atmosphere as deep as that of an ocean, “the hexagonal wavy motion of the jet stream is expected to be propagated vertically and reveal to us aspects of the planet’s hidden atmosphere,” pointed out Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, Head of the Planetary Sciences research group. cheap jordans uk “The movement of the hexagon could therefore be linked to the depths of Saturn, and the rotation period of this structure, which, as we have been able to ascertain, is 10 hours, 39 minutes and 23 seconds, could be that of the planet itself,” he added.
Mother’s Day is coming up on May 11th, Canotta Golden State Warriors and we here at The Apiary value our mothers a great deal. As a relatively new mother myself I understand the fundamental role my mum has played in my life. Nike Air Max 2017 damskie So to celebrate all our mums,
we are giving you the chance to treat yours this Sunday. Air Max 90 Yeezy If you head on over and Like Us on Facebook, you’ll see a message posted about our Mother’s Day Freebee.
You have to get in quick though, Justin Forsett Ravens Jerseys in order for your Mum to receive her goodies by Sunday we’ll be picking someone at random tomorrow. Goedkoop Nike Air Max 2016 Treat your own Queen Bee to breakfast in bed with perhaps some delicious raw and unheated honey on toast, Tajh Boyd – Clemson Tigers and help her skin feel refreshed and healthy with some soft but effective skin care.
Five thousand tags are being fitted to bees in southern Tasmania. Justin Forsett Ravens Jerseys The information they generate will be used to learn more about bee movement and behaviour.
CSIRO Science Leader Dr Paulo de Souza has been instrumental in developing the tiny radio frequency identification sensor. Yadier Molina JerseyHe says the technology works because bees are social animals: “Because the communication range we have today is pretty short, we can read the data about 30 centimetres away. nike air max 1 pas cherSo if we have an insect that passes a specific place that we can read the data, that will help us a lot.”
Beekeeper Peter Norris is hopeful the technology can be used to eradicate the exotic Asian Honey Bee, found in Queensland. New Balance buty damskie “It’s fantastic for our industry, particularly if we can get to the point where we can take GPS readings.
It would be a real breakthrough from a pollination point of view for working out pollination densities.
“But probably one of the major things I’d like to see it used for is eradicating Apis cerana, which was an incursion in Cairns in 2007. Scarpe Kobe 11 Unfortunately it wasn’t eradicated and it’s now moved to a management situation. But with this chip, if we could trap Apis cerana at feeding stations, we could get GPS readings of where the nests are. Nike Air Max Flyknit Heren We would be in a position to eradicate it.”
Dr de Souza says that, in the future, even smaller radio transmitters could be used to study Queensland fruit fly, an increasingly concerning issue in New Zealand.
Medical professionals sometimes use honey successfully as a topical dressing, but it could play a larger role in fighting infections, researchers told a meeting of American Chemical Society recently.
“The unique property of honey lies in its ability to fight infection on multiple levels, making it more difficult for bacteria to develop resistance,” said study leader Susan M. Kenley Jansen Authentic Jersey Meschwitz, Ph.D. That is, it uses a combination of weapons, including hydrogen peroxide, acidity, osmotic effect, high sugar concentration and polyphenols — all of which actively kill bacterial cells, she explained. The osmotic effect, which is the result of the high sugar concentration in honey, draws water from the bacterial cells, dehydrating and killing them.
In addition, several studies have shown that honey inhibits the formation of biofilms, or communities of slimy disease-causing bacteria, she said. Nike Air Max 2016 Dames Zwart “Honey may also disrupt quorum sensing, which weakens bacterial virulence, rendering the bacteria more susceptible to conventional antibiotics,” Meschwitz said. Nike Air Max 95 męskie Quorum sensing is the way bacteria communicate with one another, and may be involved in the formation of biofilms. nike scarpe italia In certain bacteria, this communication system also controls the release of toxins, which affects the bacteria’s pathogenicity, or their ability to cause disease.
Meschwitz, who is with Salve Regina University in Newport, R.I., said another advantage of honey is that unlike conventional antibiotics, it doesn’t target the essential growth processes of bacteria. adidas ultra boost hombre The problem with this type of targeting, which is the basis of conventional antibiotics, is that it results in the bacteria building up resistance to the drugs.
Honey is effective because it is filled with healthful polyphenols, or antioxidants, she said. buty Asics Męskie These include the phenolic acids, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid and ellagic acid, as well as many flavonoids. “Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between the non-peroxide antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of honey and the presence of honey phenolics,” she added. new balance 997 on sale A large number of laboratory and limited clinical studies have confirmed the broad-spectrum antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties of honey, according to Meschwitz.
She said that her team also is finding that honey has antioxidant properties and is an effective antibacterial. Air Jordan 9 Retro “We have run standard antioxidant tests on honey to measure the level of antioxidant activity,” she explained. “We have separated and identified the various antioxidant polyphenol compounds. In our antibacterial studies, we have been testing honey’s activity against E.
<span style="font-family: georgia, New Balance 996 męskie palatino;”>The Medical Journal of Australia is reporting increasing numbers of parents and carers are presenting with skin problems linked to using disposable baby wipes.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Asics Pas Cher palatino;”>In a research letter published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday, dermatologist Rosemary Nixon from the Skin and Cancer Foundation reports that an ingredient used to prevent bacterial infection in moist wipes is now the most common cause of dermatitis in patients sampled.
methylisothiazolinone or MI, accounted for 11.3 per cent of skin reactions in 353 patients seen at two clinics last year, up on 8.4 per cent in 2012 and 3.5 per cent in 2011.
”We’re seeing an increasing number of allergic reactions,” she said. Nike Air Max 2017 Heren grijs ”It could be because the concentration might be too high because it’s been on the skin too long, Cleveland Cavaliers or because the skin is damaged, allowing the chemical to get through the epidermal barrier.”
Patch testing for the ingredient had begun in 2011, Mochilas Kanken Mini after similar reports surfaced in Europe. The trend was also occurring in America where, asics gel kinsei 4 mujer as in Australia, the preservative had been used in water-based products, baskets ASICS including cosmetics and personal products such as deodorants, shampoos, conditioners, sunscreens and moisturisers since the early 2000s.
Professor Nixon said consumers should look at the ingredients in baby wipes, monitor any rash and try cutting out using the product to see if the dermatitis went away.
It’s not every day you have to make a decision that will change the course of a family business that has been doing things much the same way for about 60 years. Jameis Winston – Florida State Seminoles So it was with a great deal of emotion, and a lot of careful consideration, that we decided to move. So we have relocated from our South Canterbury address and moved the entire operation north to Featherston in the South Wairarapa. Jake Arrieta Jersey Completely aside from leaving behind so much history, there was also the sheer magnitude of the task of moving a small factory, office, personal possessions and two cats to another island seven hours drive and three hours sailing distance away! But we made it, after two months of toing and froing, sixteen hour days of cleaning, packing, moving, unpacking, selling, buying and stockpiling we finally moved the last of The Apiary ‘up north’ where we can now start afresh and work on creating the kind of business we have always dreamed of. New neighbours or existing customers alike have asked us, “why Featherston!?” Well, there are several reasons for that. nike air max pas cher Firstly clover honey has always been our specialty and clover just doesn’t grow down south like it used to, farming practices have changed and it is not used as much but up here we have found there is much more available. Nike Air Max Thea Dames The Wairarapa is also very similar to Canterbury in geography, so we feel much less homesick here with a slightly smaller version of the mountains, valleys, plains and rivers that we’re used to. new balance grigie bambino Featherston itself is synonymous with the word ‘potential’, there is a groundswell of support for business and development here and I have never met so many people so excited and so welcoming before in my life.
We have been assured by everyone we meet that should we need anything we just have to ask, which is a refreshing change when it can so often be a struggle for small business to get a look in sometimes. New Balance 446 mujer Our plans for the immediate future are to establish local suppliers and get to work on new products once our temporary facilities are up and running and find a cheaper deal for shipping for our customers now we are in central NZ and closer to a town center, so keep your eyes peeled for updates! Eventually we hope to set up a completely self sufficient and zero carbon factory with enough space for research and development of new products. air max pas cher pour femme In the meantime you can look forward to the same awesome products with hopefully a few added benefits from our centralised location. ~ Mrs B PS. I feel I must also add a sidenote apologising to anyone who has been trying to get through to us on our 0800 number. air max 90 pas cher We discovered there were some communication problems recently, and unfortunately our switchover between South Canterbury and South Wairarapa wasn’t quite as seamless as he had hoped, resulting in some customers unable to reach us for a few days. nike air max 1 hombre I can assure you it’s all up and running now, so we can still be reached at 0800 80 82 83 if you need to get in touch by phone.
Note: This article was first published in io9 on 3/6/14.
Darwin’s idea of natural selection is simple. Good mutations are passed on, because the animals who have them will survive to reproduce. Philadelphia 76ers But how do you pass on those good mutations in honeybee colonies, where most bees are sterile workers who never have babies? A group of researchers decided to find out.
York University biologist Amro Zayed worked with a team of Canadian and Saudi Arabian researchers to unravel a genetic mystery that has long intrigued evolutionary biologists. nike kd 9 pas cher Worker bees are the most important part of any bee colony, gathering food, building the hive, taking care of babies, and maintaining the temperature inside the hive at what Zayed calls a “balmy 33 degrees Celsius.” If a worker has a mutation that makes it better at finding food in a new region, evolutionary reason would predict that mutation ought to be passed along to the next generation of workers. But how can it be, if only the queen bee is having babies?
In the 1960s, W.D. Hamilton first proposed a theoretical model that could explain how each generation of sterile bees contributed to the fitness of their species. The theory was called “kin selection,” and it suggests that non-reproducing animals still benefit when another member of their group is having babies. As the term “kin selection” suggests, a sterile bee is still helping natural selection along, even if it’s only by making it easier for her queen to lay eggs. After all, the queen is either mother or sister to every bee in her colony.
For decades, kin selection was just a theory. New Balance Niño Recently, however, we’ve accumulated enough genetic information about honeybees that we’re able to analyze how they’re evolving at a DNA level. And a few years ago, Zayed and his colleagues wondered whether they could use genetic evidence to back up Hamilton’s fifty-year-old idea. First, they gathered 40 honeybee genomes from subspecies regions all over Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas. “One researcher even risked great danger to get a honeybee in Syria,” Zayed said.
After an intensive analysis, the team discovered that there are certain regions of the honeybee genome that are undergoing rapid positive selection. That means they found several relatively new mutations that have spread quickly throughout honeybee subspecies because they are so useful. And nearly all of those mutations were associated with honeybee workers’ ability to adapt their behavior to new environments and manage the worker division of labor. Maglie Los Angeles Lakers Essentially, all the most rapidly-changing parts of the honeybee genomes were selecting for traits that gave advantages to those sterile workers.
If you think about a bee colony, the queen bee is living in an almost lab-like environment. She’s fed and groomed by workers. The temperature in the colony is 33 degrees Celsius for most of her life. She’s in this benign environment, afforded by the actions of workers who collect food and nurse the brood and thermo-regulate the hive. Air Jordan 3 Uomo Through their behavior they bear brunt of changes in environment. They have to cope with changes in environment. New York Giants Jerseys And they deal with changes in the environment with changes in worker behavior.“This is the first time anyone has shown workers contributing to adaptation,” Zayed told io9 by phone from Ontario, Canada. And he said it makes perfect sense, considering that workers are the front line when it comes to the colony’s survival in the environment. But the queen doesn’t need to adapt as much, because her environment is always stable. Canotte Boston Celtics Zayed continued:
And indeed, as Zayed’s team found, the DNA regions that are evolving the most rapidly in honeybees are responsible for worker behavior.
Again, we have to ask, how are these good traits being passed on from one sterile generation to the next? The answer takes us back to kin selection. The better the workers are, the more likely their queen’s hive environment will remain stable and benign. Canotte Charlotte Hornet And that means she’s more likely to have more children, many of whom will also have the good mutations that made her workers so adaptable in the first place. nike air max pas cher Among those children will be future queens, who will carry those genes with them when they found new colonies and birth new generations of workers.
This also helps explain why there is such a huge amount of variation in honeybee behavior from subspecies to subspecies — and even from colony to colony. Zayed pointed out that the famously aggressive behavior of African honeybees is a direct result of adapting to an environment full of predators like the honey badger who attack hives. In other parts of the world, such as Yemen, bees have adapted to be excellent at air conditioning their hives in the hot desert air. And in Japan, bees have used the “hot defensive bee ball” to combat deadly wasps. All of these behavior modifications are the result of rapid changes under the pressures of natural selection.
As a result of Zayed and his colleagues’ work, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we have solid genetic evidence that even when animals don’t reproduce, they still contribute to the evolution of their species and their family lineage. Put another way, altruism pays off.
Though humans are very different from social insects, there is still something poignant in the life cycles of honeybees for us city-dwelling Homo sapiens. It’s hard not to ponder the implications of those queens with their static, unchanging behavior inside the hive. Their evolution is entirely dependent on adaptable sisters and daughters, working in the dangerous world outside. And yet the workers can’t pass along the behaviors they’ve evolved without their queen. It sounds harmonious.
The dinner kind of gets in the way of those delicious chocolatey treats. But that doesn’t mean dinner can’t have a sweet touch too. This Valentine’s Day why don’t you impress your loved one with a dinner they’ll never forget, thanks to a lovingly infused touch of honey, care of MassLive and dessert thanks to FoodNetwork.
Start with pasta tossed with a lemon-honey sauce and chopped fresh herbs. Don’t be intimidated by making pasta from scratch. If you enjoy cooking together, dumping the ingredients on the counter and knead them together into a dough. Or for ease, do it in the food processor. Either way, the fun is in rolling it out and cutting it. Kansas State Wildcats No special equipment needed.
While you’re working on the pasta, roast the second course — honey-pepper olives and green beans with shrimp.
Pasta With Lemon, Herbs and Honey
Start to finish: 45 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
For the pasta:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons water
For the sauce:
Zest and juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup mixed torn fresh herbs (such as parsley, chervil, basil, tarragon and chives)
Salt and ground black pepper
Parmesan cheese, to serve
Directions:
In a food processor, combine the flour, salt, eggs, olive oil and water. Process until the dough forms a ball. Chaussure Asics Gel Noosa Tri 11 Continue processing for another minute to knead the dough. Transfer the ball of dough to the counter. Cover with an overturned bowl or plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.
Once the dough has rested, cut it in half. Using a rolling pin, one at a time roll each half out on a lightly floured surface. Comprar Nike Air Max Roll the dough into an oblong as thin as possible. Using a pizza wheel or paring knife, cut the dough into long strips or irregular squares. nike air max 2016 grijs Sprinkle the cut pasta with a bit of flour or cornmeal to prevent it from sticking.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Drop the pasta into the water and cook until al dente, about 3 to 5 minutes.
When the pasta has cooked, drain it, then return it to the pot. Delanie Walker Titans Jerseys Add the lemon zest and juice, butter and honey. Toss until the butter is melted. Add the herbs, then toss again. Season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with grated Parmesan.
Nutrition information per serving: 430 calories; 140 calories from fat (33 percent of total calories); 16 g fat (6 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 110 mg cholesterol; 60 g carbohydrate; 2 g fiber; 10 g sugar; 11 g protein; 220 mg sodium.
Honey-Pepper Roasted Shrimp With Green Beans and Olives
Start to finish: 30 minutes
Servings: 4
Ingredients:
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives
8 ounces green beans, trimmed
450g large peeled and de-veined raw shrimp
Directions:
Heat the oven to 200C (400F). Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Coat the foil with cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, stir together the honey, red pepper flakes, salt, garlic, orange zest and rosemary. Stir in the olives and the green beans to coat.
Spread the mixture on the prepared baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and add the shrimp, stirring them into the other ingredients. Roast for another 5 minutes, or until the shrimp are pink and firm. Serve immediately.
Nutrition information per serving: 260 calories; 60 calories from fat (23 percent of total calories); 7 g fat (1 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 170 mg cholesterol; 25 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 19 g sugar; 24 g protein; 710 mg sodium.
Chocolate Almond Honey Tart
Since it’s Valentine’s Day, why not try something a little special, and what could be better than the delicious sweetness of honey combined with one of nature’s best aphrodisiacs, almonds.
Servings: 6 – 8
Ingredients
1/2 stick (55g) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, at room temperature, plus extra for coating the pan
160g of digestive biscuits
2 tablespoons slivered almonds
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup honey
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan.
Place the biscuits and almonds in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the mixture forms fine crumbs, about 15 to 20 seconds. Add the butter and pulse until incorporated. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 12 minutes. Adidas Homme Cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes.
In a small saucepan, whisk the cream and honey together over low heat until the honey has dissolved. Increase the heat to medium and bring the mixture to just below a boil. Place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and stir until the mixture is smooth. Pour the chocolate filling over the prepared crust. Refrigerate for at least 5 hours or preferably overnight.
Loosen the tart from the sides of the pan by running a thin metal spatula around the edge. Unmold the tart and transfer to a serving plate.
At this time of year a lot of pumpkins will be getting used, with many of their insides being scooped out and discarded. Tomorrow we’ll be posting some handy tips you can use to recycle or otherwise reuse any various leftovers you have from Halloween, but today we thought we’d share a scrumptious recipe combining the season’s favourite ingredient along with a healthy dash of our own delicious honey.
What You Will Need:
1 1kg pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded and cut into chunks
palatino;”>Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat and sweat the onionswith some salt for 4-5 minutes until they start to soften. Add the pumpkin and continue to cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the stock to the saucepan, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the pumpkin is soft.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Canotte Detroit Pistons palatino;”>Stir in the crème fraiche, asics outlet shop then puree the soup with a stick blender until smooth. nike air max 90 pas cher Adjust the seasoning and then ladle into serving bowls. Whisk together the honey and paprika with a teaspoon of hot water.
Ladle the soup into serving bowls and drizzle this mixture on top. Garnish with a small stack of the julienned carrot in the centre and some Japanese rice crackers, Aaron Murray UGA Jersey croutons or even some garlic bread.
There are some great Facebook groups and pages out there, catering to all kinds of niche hobby or interest. Few are more specialised however than a page dedicated to historical articles about bees and beekeeping. For the past few weeks Historical Honeybee Articles have been posting fascinating spooky or macabre stories involving beekeeping down through the centuries.. Fjallraven Kanken No.2
It really has some great stuff, even if you don’t think you’re particularly interested in beekeeping, there are scary tales abound that will keep you hooked. I strongly urge you to go and check out all the stories posted there, but I’ve selected a few of my favourites below to get you in the mood for Halloween.
Bees Pay Last Respects to a Young Boy at His Funeral
“A strange incident happened at a funeral near Parsons, Kansas the other day. A little son of Samuel Carson, residing southwest of the city, died and was buried in the neighborhood cemetery. There being no hearse the remains were placed in a spring wagon and conveyed to the cemetery.
On the way to the grave a swarm of bees gathered on the lid of the coffin and there remained. When the cemetery was reached, all efforts to drive the bees from the coffin were without avail, and the pallbearers were forced to take charge of the coffin with the bees swarming about them, and before the remains were deposited in the grave every pallbearer suffered, being stung in more than one place on the face and hands. fjällräven kånken Mini The bees clung so tenaciously to the coffin that many of them were buried with the body of the dead boy.
The dead boy was very fond of bees, and whether the bees were thus showing their grief over the loss of their young friend or what the significance of such an act on the part of the bees was, is a mystery yet unsolved.”
– Kansas City Times, 1895.
Bee Tenants of Dead Bodies
Bees have been known to tenant a dead body. A party of tourists along the Mediterranean, exploring the quaint old cemetery of Algesirias, came across a small, uncovered coffin that held the remains of a child. The cavity of the chest had become the home of an industrious swarm of bees, and the honeycomb they were at work on was rapidly increasing. Fjallraven Kanken 7L -New York World, 1895
A Grave Swarm. nike air max 2017 heren groen – A Belfast paper contains an account of a sexton discovering that a swarm of bees had taken possession of a scull in a coffin which was found to be well stored with honey. (This was indeed a sweet head; and what ever was the cause of the persons death, the sexton discovered a great burning in the head, which was much honeycombed.)
– The Age, 1832, London, Middlesex.
Funeral Custom Gone Wrong
“A superstitious custom prevails at every funeral in Devon of turning round the bee-hives that belonged to the deceased, if he had any, and that at the moment the corpse is carried out of the house. Jordan 13 Sale At a funeral some time since at Collampton of a rich old farmer a laughable circumstance of the sort occurred, for just as the corpse was placed in the hearse and the horsemen to a large number were drawn up in order for the procession of the funeral, a person called out “Turn the bees!” when a servant who had no knowledge of such a custom, instead of turning the hives round, lifted them up and laid them down on their sides.
The bees thus hastily invaded instantly attacked and fastened on the horses and their riders; it was in vain they galloped off; the bees followed and left their stings as marks of their indignation. fjallraven kanken mochilas Meantime a general confusion took place, attended with loss of hats, wigs, &c, and the corpse during the conflict was left unattended, nor was it till after a considerable time that the funeral attendants could be arranged, in order to proceed to the interment of their deceased friend.”
– Argus newspaper, September 13th, 1790.
A Thousand Ways to Cut Short Our Days
Among the many curious inscriptions that are to be found on the tombstones that mark the last resting places of some of the early pioneers, one of the most curious is in the town of Manchester New York, in a place known as the Old Greenhouse Cemetery. In the old town cemetery is the grave of one Timothy Ryan who died May 12, 1814. He has secured a place in history as being the second recorded fatality from a bee sting in North America (according to Ripley’s “Believe It or Not”).
On the tombstone erected to the memory of Timothy Ryan appears this haunting epitaph:
In memory of Timothy Ryan who died May 12, 1814 in the 66th year of his age.
A thousand ways cut short our days, None are exempt from death, A honey bee, by stinging me, Did stop my mortal breath.
This grave contains the last remains Of my frail house of clay. Chaussures Nike Pas Cher My soul is gone not to return, Till one eternal day.
Friends one and all both great and small, Behold where I do lie, While you are here for death prepare, Remember you must die.
–
Be sure to go and check out Historical Honeybee Articles for more spooky (and many more perfectly un-spooky but no less fascinating) tales related to bees and beekeeping, and why not drop them a ‘Like’ while you’re at it.
Honey bee colonies are subject to numerous pathogens and parasites. Adrian Gonzalez Jersey Interaction among multiple pathogens and parasites is the proposed cause for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a syndrome characterized by worker bees abandoning their hive. Last year scientists from the San Francisco State University provided the first documentation that the phorid fly Apocephalus borealis, previously known to parasitize bumble bees, also infected and eventually killed honey bees and may pose an emerging threat to North American apiculture.
Scientists say the fly deposits its eggs into the bee’s abdomen, causing the insect to walk around in circles with no apparent sense of direction. The bee exhibits zombie-like behaviour, said lead investigator John Hafernik. Parasitised honey bees show hive abandonment behavior, leaving the hive at night and dying shortly thereafter. On average, seven days later up to 13 phorid larvae emerge from each dead bee and pupate away from the bee. Using DNA barcoding, the researchers confirmed that phorids that emerged from honey bees and bumble bees were the same species.
Microarray analyses of honey bees from infected hives revealed that these bees are often infected with deformed wing virus and Nosema ceranae. Larvae and adult phorids also tested positive for these pathogens, implicating the fly as a potential vector or reservoir of these honey bee pathogens. Air Jordan 5 Uomo Phorid parasitism may affect hive viability since 77% of sites sampled in the San Francisco Bay Area were infected by the fly and microarray analyses detected phorids in commercial hives in South Dakota and California’s Central Valley.
To learn more about how the parasitic fly affects the bees’ behavior, the scientists have built a system to track the movements of infected bees in and out of a hive. cheap fjallraven kanken Each bee has a set of tiny radio frequency trackers — each no bigger than a fleck of glitter — attached to the top of its thorax. Tennis Nike The bees leave and return to the hive through a small tube outfitted with dual laser readers that interact with the individual trackers.
Knowing exactly when bees leave–and whether they come back–is important for understanding how and when the parasites might cause the bees to abandon their hives. The original study found bees disoriented and dying at night, for instance, but the researchers aren’t sure whether the infected bees only leave their hives to fly in the dark. adidas cloudfoam hombre The researchers hope to capitalize on the interest in the bees with a citizen science project called ZomBee Watch.
ZomBee Watch has three main goals. nike air max nederland 1. To determine where in North America the Zombie Fly Apocephalus borealis is parasitizing honey bees. Under Armour Curry One 2. To determine how often honey bees leave their hives at night, even if they are not parasitized by the Zombie Fly. 3. To engage citizen scientists in making a significant contribution to knowledge about honey bees and to become better observers of nature. fjallraven kanken mochilas If you live in the United States, they need your help finding out where honey bees are being parasitized by the Zombie Fly and how big a threat the fly is to honey bees. So far, the Zombie Fly has been found parasitizing honey bees in California and South Dakota.
It seems the only time honeybees make the news nowadays is when yet another region declares a crisis in their numbers, Texas A&M Aggies with varroa mite or colony collapse disorder (CCD) chief among the culprits for the decline. 2017 nike air max pas cher Well thankfully Hawke’s Bay is bucking the trend and has come good news on the honeybee population front. The motto for the eastern North Island region is “Safeguarding Your Environment”, Adrian Peterson – Oklahoma Sooners and that’s just what the good people of Hawke’s Bay are doing for the honey bee too.
Since varroa mite has hit managed hives in the area, hive treatment have subsequently allowed them to withstand the disease, Mochilas Kanken Big and numbers have actually grown, Nike Free Run Homme with hive numbers rising 7% to 450,000 since last year. Honey crops are also on the up, asics gel lyte 5 mujer negras with the 2011-12 season reaching approximately 10,300 tonnes, a further 10% increase on the year before.
Beekeepers are required to send information to Assure Quality, the food safety and biosecurity organisation, asics gel nimbus uomo while aerial inspections of hives are encouraging beekeepers to keep more accurate records, so more beekeepers have registered and are filing paperwork for the hive sites.
As Federated Farmers North Canterbury chairman Barry Hantz says, wild bee numbers had been virtually wiped out by varroa and that meant more nectar for commercial hives:
The rise of dairying has reduced pollen sources in Canterbury and beekeepers were providing supplementary feeding of “protein paddies” for the bees to feed their eggs, until the clover flowering came through. However,
natural protein through pollen is believed by scientists overseas to be the best deterrent for safeguarding bees against diseases such as colony collapse disorder,
With such good processes in place to ensure the sustainability of commercial beekeeping, and research like that being done by Otago University into breeding varroa-resistant bees, let’s hope the trend of healthier numbers continues across the country.
There are an almost innumerable amount of facial masks out there, all with a whole slew of ingredients to help your skin, but as with most things the fewer the ingredients the more effective the result. Ernie Banks Jersey So if you want to rejuvenate your skin and give your face a refreshing boost then here’s a simple recipe for a simple homemade facial mask.
Crush the aspirin tablets up, but not too much. air max pas cher You don’t want a fine powder but a nice and chunky pile, all the better to buff around and exfoliate your skin with. Georgia Bulldogs Then mix the honey and cream up with the aspirin until you have a good paste. air jordans free shipping Leave it on for around 10 to 15 minutes so it feels like a properly congealed mask (sound weird yes, but you’ll thank yourself later), then simply rinse off with warm water and your face should be feeling reinvigorated!
The salicylic acid in the aspirin (which is also found in pretty much all acne treatments) helps you clean out your pores and exfoliate your skin. New Balance 009 mujer It also works as an anti-inflammatory so can help with any redness you’re experiencing. nike scarpe 2017 The anti-bacterial properties of our honey combined with all the benefits of our moisturiser also mean if you’re having any trouble with acne, the facial mask can help reduce breakouts.
Of course, if you’re allergic to aspirin then we don’t advise you use this as a facial mask. Garrett Richards Jersey Even if you’re not allergic but have sensitive skin, remember that aspirin is an acid so this shouldn’t really be used all the time; three times a week is more than enough.
If there’s one thing that makes Halloween really memorable for kids it’s all the treats they get. new balance 997 on sale Most of the time that comes in the form of bags upon bags of sweets the neighbours give them if they’re brave enough to knock on their door in the dead of night. Sometimes the haul they get at the end of the night can be just ridiculous, and worse yet, it’s usually all gone within the week.
If you’re hosting a Halloween party or simply want to give your kids some treats that are a little more imaginative than your average lolly scramble, then here’s a few recipes to share with your little terrors. They still pack plenty of sweetness, but instead of processed sugary candy, it comes in the form of delicious honey.
Honey Caramel Apples
People have been enjoying toffee apples for over one hundred years, and as treats go they’re not bad at all. Of course when they started out they were traditionally made with a whole bunch of sugar and corn syrup, but at least kids were getting a piece of fruit when they eventually got through that tooth-destroying later.
Well thanks to Nourished Kitchen there is now a wonderful little recipe for “candy” apples that is much healthier for teeth, and much more delicious for tummies. Not to mention they look way cooler.
1/2 cup crushed pecans (or easily crushable nut of your choice)
6 spooky sticks or wooden dowels
Directions:
Whisk the Davidson’s honey, cream, butter and salt in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat until it begins to bubble, then immediately reduce the heat to medium. Chaussure Adidas Stir in food coloring, adjusting the volume to match the intensity of color you like.
Continue to whisk the caramel frequently to prevent scorching and to prevent it from bubbling up and out of of your saucepan. Continue to cook until the caramel reaches a temperature of 125C (260 F) – about 25 minutes. Kanken No.2 Baratas The caramel should be a rich brown or red-brown if you also used food coloring; the bubbles should be small and should uniformly cover the surface of the pan and the caramel should be thickened.
Prepare an ice bath. Nike Air Max 2017 Kopen Then pour the hot caramel into a mixing bowl and place the bowl in the ice bath, taking care not to splash water into the hot caramel. Stir the caramel until it is uniformly cooled and it begins to thicken just a bit.
Plunge a wooden stick or dowel into the core of your apples and roll them, one by one, in the caramel until uniformly coated. New Balance 1300 męskie Roll them in chopped pecans and place them on some baking paper to cool completely before serving.
If you’re hosting a Halloween party full of kids then getting everything ready is always a scarily busy time. You want something that’s simple to throw together, something you can chuck in the fridge and forget about until you need it. This recipe is perfect for you; it’s easy, requires no baking, and can be stored for as long as you need.
Place a sheet of waxed paper on a cookie sheet so cookies won’t stick.
Combine the powdered sugar, Davidson’s honey and peanut butter in a medium bowl and stir until mixed well, then stir in the cereal and raisins.
Using your hands, shape the mixture into approximately one-inch round balls. Roll balls in your Halloween sprinkles and place on the cookie sheet and refrigerate for one hour.
After an hour or so the cookies should feel firm when touched. Serve right away or place in tightly covered container and store in the refrigerator. This recipe will make about 30 crispies.
For the rest of us, there are many different varieties of popcorn, but you just can’t beat the delicious buttery sweetness that comes from beautiful honey-baked popcorn. It’s possibly the most indulgent of the three recipes, but if you’re getting full at this point, popcorn is the perfect sharing snack.
Pre-heat your oven to 150C (300F). Combine the salt, olive oil, and popping corn in a bowl, mixing thoroughly until the corn is evenly coated. Then pour the bowl into your brown paper bag.
Fold over the top of the bag and stick it in the microwave on high for 1m 30s.
Mix the Davidson’s honey with the vanilla, and pour into a saucepan with the milk and butter. Heat the saucepan on a medium to high heat until it starts to bubble and turn a golden brown colour (about 120C).
Once the mixture is boiling, take the saucepan off the hob and immediately pour out evenly over your popcorn (either lay your popcorn on a flat surface and pour evenly, and have it in a bowl and be prepared to shake it around as you pour – so long as it’s evenly covered).
Lay out some baking paper onto an oven tray and pour the popcorn evenly over the tray.
To celebrate Halloween and get in that spooky mood, we’ll be sharing a couple of posts this week about all kinds of scary goings on and how they relate to bees and honey. This week, it’s Halloween costume time!
Halloween isn’t hugely popular here in New Zealand, which is a shame. Many see it as more of an American tradition, and sure enough they can go absolutely nuts for it. Minnesota Timberwolves For me, it’s the versatility of the holiday that I find so appealing; you can celebrate it by carving up a pumpkin, watching some scary movies, or simply scoring free sweets off the neighbours. Another massively popular thing to do is dress up and go to a Halloween costume party.
We’ll get to some of the more bizarre bee-related costumes you can try out while scaring the night away, but first I thought I’d share some amazing t-shirt designs I’ve found recently, all to do with what is now my favourite new word, Zombees!
A cute design by panda3y3 after their daughter came up with the idea. Nike Air Max 2016 Dames grijs Perfect for your own little zombee this Halloween.
A pretty slick looking design from LucyDynamite warning us of the impending invasion of the zombees!
A nice use of letters and images in the rebus style to create a pretty snazzy little tee from bungeecow.
This one’s a personal favourite, the gormless look on the zombee’s face coupled with the wonderfully gruesome exposed brains make this design from Ely Prosser a winner.
Cute and horrible all at the same time. The purple and green make this zombee look truly undead. New Balance 993 damskie Nice work from designsalive.
Last but not least a great design that evokes those wonderfully bad B-movie horrors from the 50s. Zombee Madness!!! indeed from sadmachine.
If you’ve ever been to a Halloween fancy dress party, then you’ve probably seen someone wearing a bee costume. Hey, if it’s good enough for Beyonce then it’s good enough for us common folk. Usually you’ll get two types of people who wear bee costumes; either the “crazay” guy who dresses like a fat bee and bounces into you all night, or the girl trying to look sexy in her black and yellow striped stockings and short black and yellow corset/miniskirt combination. Both are pretty boring, so I thought we’d have a look at some more “imaginative” bee costumes we bedeck ourselves or others out in. First off…
Kids
As we all know, the best thing about being a parent is dressing your kids in the most ludicrous clothes you can find to make them look utterly ridiculous, then sitting back and laughing at them as they look dumb-founded as to why you’re laughing. There are only a few short years you can do this for before they’re old enough to realise they’re being made fools of for your amusement.
I’ve noticed that the problem with many of the bee costumes you see is that our silly old human legs get in the way. Asics Gel Lyte 5 damskie A bee costume can look great but the effect is somewhat ruined by two big legs sticking out the bottom of it and making it look like a bizarre humanoid bee on stilts. Thankfully this is where babies come in. chaussures de foot umbro Since they don’t really need their legs for the first year or so, you’ve only got one Halloween with which to dress them up as the most authentic bee a human can muster. May we present some offerings…
This little guy is cute, and he’s totally rocking this bee costume, with a little flower just to bump up the cuteness or maybe make some kind of statement about the importance pollination. Either way he’s a little too cute, so much so that he looks more cute than he does ridiculous. That’ll never do, time to move on.
That’s more like it. Ill-fitting clothes are always the first port of call when making your child look ridiculous, and the fact that he looks like he’s actually being swallowed by the bee costume rather than wearing it really adds to the overall effect.
The face says it all. Crocheting was a bold choice, and it’s made this poor little guy look like one of those toilet roll dolls. adidas gazelle hombre Even his antennae are sad.
Ok so they’ve reneged on covering up the legs, which should rule them out of this list, but it was just too ridiculous not to include. I mean come on, who in their right mind would dress their kid up like this? I like to make my kid look silly as much as the next parent, but this is just cruel.
What The..?
Some Halloween costumes have a ridiculous amount of thought and energy put into them, and those that are pulled off are always greatly appreciated. The creativity some people show with an original idea brilliantly executed can be quite staggering. Then you get these guys, who make you stop and stare just as much, but for very different reasons…
This guy has never been familiar with the word subtle. Gone is the attempt at looking like both a bee and the letter B, and in its place are lazy fake muscles. Not to be outdone by our previous effort’s machete, this bee will slaughter us with a chainsaw because WHY NOT!
I don’t know what it is – maybe it’s the dead lifeless eyes and raised eyebrows staring into our souls. Perhaps it’s the creepy frozen smile. Or maybe it’s the bizarre and mutant duck feet that make this costume utter nightmare fuel. If you saw this freakish bee-duck apparition standing around smiling at everyone at a Halloween Party, don’t tell me you wouldn’t be freaked out.
Animals
That’s right, people even go so far as getting their animals in on the action. New Balance 574 Pas Cher It makes a weird kind of sense really. You can only dress your kids in a ridiculous bee get-up for so long, but with animals you can do it every Halloween, or every day if you’re completely insane. May we present some of the greatest attempts from around the interwebs…
I think this is a dog, maybe? It could just as easily be a baby Wookie, but whatever it is, it’s looking mighty suspicious of being forced to look like a bee.
If you’re going to dress a cat up as anything, let alone as a bee, then you can’t expect any other look on its face than this.
This little guy looks like he has already formulated his plan for getting revenge on his owner. Rats are wily at the best of times, but a rat dressed as a bee is downright vengeful.
Ok this guy is great. Anyone who has guinea pigs (and are so inclined) knows that they are the best animals to put little clothes and little hats on. This great effort has gone even further, because it’s the little glasses that really tie the whole look together, and elevate this guinea pig to looking like some kind of well-read guinea-bee librarian.
But for every superb guinea pig dressed as a bee, there are about six depressed dogs dressed as bees. This poor little guy looks like he has given up all hope of revenge on his owner, and is simply crying out for help through those sad and dejected eyes.
In 1905 when archaeologist James Quibell uncovered the tomb of Yuya and Tjuya, the parents of 18th dynasty Egyptian Queen Tiye, who was Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III, among the items he discovered was a jar of honey. It was noted as still being liquid, and even still preserving its characteristic scent, despite being 3,300 years old. Stephen Piscotty Authentic Jersey
So how can honey remain perfectly edible for thousands upon thousands of years, seemingly without an expiry date? The Smithsonian Magazine endeavoured to find out, and came up with a very interesting – and very complex – answer. asics gel pulse 7 męskie It all boils down to the sugar in the honey, sugar that contains very little water in its natural state, therefore providing an impossible environment for any external bacteria to live in.
As Amina Harris, executive director of the Honey and Pollination Center at the Robert Mondavi Institute at Univeristy of California explains;
Honey in its natural form is very low moisture. San Antonio Spurs Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like that, they just die. They’re smothered by it, essentially.
It has a pH that falls between 3 and 4.5, approximately, and that acid will kill off almost anything that wants to grow there.
So what is it that honey bees do to the honey that makes it so apparently everlasting? The answer is in the nectar. sac kanken pas cher This first material collected by bees to make honey is naturally very high in water–anywhere from 60-80%. Canotte Los Angeles Clippers But through the process of making honey, the bees play a large part in removing much of this moisture by flapping their wings to literally dry out the nectar. Asics Gel Lyte 5 damskie On top of the behavior, the chemical makeup of a bee’s stomach also plays a large part in honey’s resilience. Bees have an enzyme in their stomachs called glucose oxidase. New Balance 530 męskie When the bees regurgitate the nectar from their mouths into the combs to make honey, this enzyme mixes with the nectar, breaking it down into two by-products: gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. Then hydrogen peroxide goes in to work against all other organisms that could possibly grow.
A jar of honey’s seal, it turns out, is the final factor that’s key to honey’s long shelf life, as exemplified by the storied millennia-old Egyptian specimens. C.J. Mosley Ravens Jerseys As Harris explains, ”As long as the lid stays on it and no water is added to it, honey will not go bad.
As soon as you add water to it, it may go bad. Or if you open the lid, it may get more water in it and it may go bad.”
We’re assuming by “bad” Harris means “ready to spread on our toast or have in our tea”. Adidas buty sklep We estimate that since our Raw & Unheated Honey is as pure as honey can get, with as little processing as possible, this is the honey in our range most likely to be able to retain all its goodness for the longest.
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You hear a lot in the news about the decline of bees, and it’s the kind of issue that is easy to assume we can do nothing about. Asics Gel Quantum 360 Dames But one simple way people can help is via their gardens, by growing ornamental plants that are also attractive to flower-visiting insects. fjallraven kanken pas cher Although individual gardens are relatively small, collectively they comprise a substantial area. If public parks can get in on the act then the collective positive effects could be potentially staggering.
Which plant varieties are attractive to flower-visiting insects? Given the great public interest, many lists of recommended plants have recently been produced. For example, in 2011, the UK’s Royal Horticultural Society produced a Perfect for Pollinators list. But where did this information come from? On closer inspection, it appears that these lists are based largely on personal experiences, opinions and anecdotes.
Now a study by the University of Sussex researchers has attempted to put these recommendations on a firmer scientific footing. Air Jordan 2 Retro Scientists planted an experimental garden of summer-flowering garden plants on the university campus. Asics Gel lyte 3 Heren Thirty-two varieties were compared, each in two patches of 1×1m, in 2011 and 2012. fjällräven kånken Laptop 13 All varieties were easy to purchase and considered attractive to humans. Throughout both summers they made repeated counts of the numbers of insects on each patch. As they were counted the insects were also identified into nine categories (honey bee, 4 sub-categories of bumblebees, other bees, hoverflies, butterflies & moths, other insects).
The most simple and striking result was that garden plants vary enormously, approximately 100-fold, in their attractiveness to insect flower-visitors. The most numerous insects by far were bees which comprised over 84% of all insects seen. Bumblebees 47-62% and honey bees 26-32% were the most numerous, with all other bees only 3-5%. nike free 5.0 hombre Their results did lead them to make some horticultural recommendations – Among honey bees, it seems borago (borage) came out on top, with origanum and a variety of different species of lavender also performing well, while overall the least attractive flowering plant for insects was the geranium. Colt McCoy – Texas Longhorns Marjoram, the researchers say, was probably the best “all-rounder”, attracting honey bees, bumble bees, other bees, hover flies, and butterflies. The team put a number of varieties of lavender to the test and found that highly bred hybrids, including some with novel colours – such as white or pink – that have been carefully bred into the plants proved the most attractive to insects.
Dr Nigel Raine, from the Royal Holloway University of London, commented that with bee populations declining across the world, “we can all give bees a helping hand by planting the right flowers to give them the nectar and pollen they need. This study highlights that it’s important for bee-friendly gardeners to choose what you plant with care. Washington Wizards Gardeners and town planners should think carefully about the mixture of flowers they plant to ensure food is available for a wide range of bees and other important insect pollinators. asics gel stratus mujer It’s also important to cater for the needs of the rarer species and provide food at times when there might be fewer wild flowers in bloom.”
Flowers attractive to bees and other insects are by and large also attractive to humans, and are no harder to grow or more expensive than any others. nike air max femme pas cher Therefore, choosing insect-attractive varieties over less attractive varieties is a zero cost option, and is a practical and simple way of helping bees and other flower-visiting insects in your own garden.
<span style="font-family: georgia, adidas chaussures femme palatino;”>Everyone is familiar with Rimsky-Korsakov’s famous interlude, however scientists from Harvard University have been studying an actual flight of the bumblebee in an effort to work out how the insects manage to remain steady in adverse weather conditions. Dr Sridhar Ravi filmed bumblebees as they flew in a wind tunnel allowing him and his team to control the airflow the bees had to contend with.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Hogan Rebel palatino;”>Dr Ravi says “As we have all experienced, the wind speed and direction outdoors can be very variable, Nike Air Huarache [so] maintaining stable flight can be extremely challenging. The best micro air vehicles available today struggle to fly stably when there is even in a light breeze.”
The team filmed the bees using high-speed cameras and replayed their flight in super slow motion, discovering how the insects adjusted their flight according to the airflow. Interestingly the footage revealed that the bees reduced their speed in unsteady winds, which seemed to allow them to expend more energy correcting their flight path.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Billige Nike Sko palatino;”>“The bumblebees also seemed to be more susceptible to disturbances that pushed them sideways as opposed to up and down,” explained Dr Ravi. “The bees rolled considerably to change course and correct for the disturbances induced by the wind.”
<span style="font-family: georgia, adidas zx flux męskie palatino;”>Ravi says their research will enable them to design much more efficient robotic micro air vehicles that are faced with adverse and changeable weather conditions. Currently the smallest autonomous MAVs in use today are about 15cm, adidas yeezy heren and are mostly used for meteorological or military purposes such as the UK Military’s mini helicopter drones.
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Honeybees utilise floral odours when foraging for flowers, and scientists from Britain’s University of Southampton have investigated whether diesel exhaust pollution could interrupt these floral odour stimuli. A synthetic blend of eight floral chemicals, identified from oilseed rape, was exposed to diesel exhaust pollution. Within one minute of exposure the abundances of four of the chemicals were significantly lowered, with two components rendered undetectable.
Honeybees were trained to recognise the full synthetic odour mix; altering the blend, by removing the two chemicals rendered undetectable, significantly reduced the ability of the trained honeybees to recognize the altered odour. Furthermore, they found that at environmentally relevant levels the mono-nitrogen oxide fraction of the exhaust gases was a key facilitator of this odour degradation. Such changes in recognition may impact upon a honeybee’s foraging efficiency and therefore the pollination services that they provide.
The percentage of forager honeybees which, after learning the full synthetic floral blend, extended their proboscis (indicating recognition) when presented with the synthetic blend minus either α-farnesene (-αf), α-terpinene (-αt) or both chemicals (-both). Nike Seattle Seahawks jerseys
“This could have serious detrimental effects on the number of honeybee colonies and pollination activity,” Tracey Newman, a neuroscientist who worked on the study, said. Guy Poppy, an ecology professor who worked with Newman, said that to be able to forage effectively, honeybees need to be able to learn and recognise plants – a process their results showed could be disrupted by the so-called NOx gases, particularly nitrogen dioxide, found in diesel exhaust and other pollution.
Chemical odours are central to communication in insects and their interaction with the environment. A prime example of this is the floral odours that are produced by flowering plants to manipulate the behaviour of insects and facilitate pollination.
Globally the economic value of pollination has been estimated at [euro]153 billion a year, with 70% of the world’s principal food crops relying upon pollination, equating to 35% of global food production. Clemson Tigers Pollinator populations are declining on a global scale and anthropogenic anthropogenic substances, such as synthetic insecticides, are implicated as key contributors to the reductions of both wild and managed pollinators.
Air pollution is one of the most ubiquitous environmental human impacts, however its effects on honeybees are unknown. Honeybees have a sensitive sense of smell and an exceptional ability to learn and memorize new odours, enabling them to use floral odours to help locate, identify and recognise the flowers from which they forage. There is a huge diversity of floral odours, therefore any disruption to these blends could impact upon the ability of plants to communicate with their pollinators, which may have a negative impact on both parties.
Theoretical models predict that anthropogenic emissions (including ozone, hydroxyl radicals and nitrate radicals) are likely to reduce the detection distances of plant emitted odours available to pollinators, and empirical data has demonstrated that such compounds can interrupt plant-to-plant odour communication.
Despite advances in filtration technology and tighter regulations on airborne emissions, diesel exhaust remains a major environmental pollutant. nike pas cher Many countries have guidelines in place to limit the emission of toxic gases produced as a result of the combustion of diesel and other fossil fuel. Air Jordan For Sale Of these gases the NOx fraction is the most reactive and is known to have deleterious effects on both human health and plant growth.
However the emissions limits for one of the NOxgases, nitrogen dioxide, are regularly exceeded especially in urban areas. Whilst there is an overall downward trend in nitrogen dioxide emission in Europe, it continues to be a significant environmental pollutant, particularly in countries undergoing rapid economic growth, such as China.
Honeybees are known to use the whole range of chemicals found in a floral blend to discriminate between different blends, and this research indicates that some chemicals in a blend may be more important than others in this discrimination process. Nike Air Max 2016 Heren blauw Whilst these results are the outcome of an artificial manipulation of the odour blend, the fact that removal of such a minor constituent can have such a profound effect on the ability of honeybees to recognize a floral odour may have significant ramifications for the ability of honeybees to efficiently forage for floral resources and therefore provide pollination services.
In nature honeybees use a combination of visual stimuli and floral odours to locate a flower for the first time. Honeybees associatively learn that a floral odour is concomitant with foraging success by gaining a reward of nectar whilst on the flower in the presence of high levels of floral odours. new balance shop firenze Learning a floral odour remotely from the flower is less likely, because it would require a honeybee to remember an odour that occurs at a time distinct from the reward. Degradation of an odour source by pollution is likely to be more pronounced at distance from the flower, where concentrations of the odours are lower. Foraging honeybees may then be incapable of recognizing that the floral odours it detects remote from flowers are those that it associates with reward. This could result in a greater dependence upon other senses critical for foraging behaviour, such as vision, to compensate for the reduction in olfactory stimuli.
Disruption of odour communication by components of exhaust pollution could be detrimental to many insect species. Baylor Bears In the case of pollinator species, including the honeybee, these effects would have major economic and ecological impacts, particularly when in conjunction with other stressors detrimental to pollinator health.
Giles Budge of Britain’s Food and Environment Research Agency said Newton’s study highlighted a fresh issue to add to the many problems facing insect pollinators. But he said that since the study was based in the laboratory, more research is needed to see if the problem is occurring in the wider environment.\
You could almost be forgiven for thinking that there are two types of bee in the world; honey bees and bumblebees. Canotte Los Angeles Clippers Almost. Canotta Oklahoma City Thunder However, there are over 20,000 known species of bee, and of the 4,000 of those native to North America, only the minority bear the distinct yellow and black marking that makes them so recognisable. nike tn requin pas cher Now the full spectrum of bees’ stark beauty has been captured by photographer Sam Droege from the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring program.
Less is known about these more colourful varieties of bees, but many live solitary rather than hive-oriented lives, and their size can vary just as greatly as their colour scheme, with some as big as bumblebees, and others smaller than a grain of rice. Nike Air Huarache What they all share in common however, thanks to these amazing images by Droege, are some spectacularly vibrant colours. Canotta Dallas Mavericks Here’s a sample from Droege’s full portfolio.
Augochlorella aurata – One of the most common bees in Eastern North America. Nike Air Max 2017 Heren rood A particular lover of open fields, they measure around 5mm.
Augochloropsis-metallica – A little bigger, coming in at around 9mm, they range from Ontario in Canada, throughout the US and as south as Mexico and Panama.
Agapostemon angelicus – A more recognisable abdomen, but the thorax is a shimmering blue-green. new balance 1980 zante roma Little is known about this one, but they are known to be fairly solitary and can change foraging habits to suit conditions.
Hylaeus volatilis – A native species of Hawaiian bee found at mid elevations on East Maui. air max pas cher This species is particularly interesting in that it is a nest parasite of other native Hylaeus species.
Anthophora affabilis – Again, very little is known of this species, with only a few solitary males observed.
When people think of bees, they usually think of the humble Bumble or Honey Bee, but in fact there are only around 250 species of the former, and an even smaller 10 species of the latter. Nike Air Max Thea Dames The vast majority of the other approximately 19,700 species of bees come in all shapes, sizes and colours, some of which we’ve mentioned before.
Now an article published in Auckland by an Ontario-based researcher has identified 21 more, pushing the world’s total known bee species past the 20,000 mark. All the newly identified species belong to the genus Mexalictus, which are mostly found in high elevations between Arizona and Panama, asics gel nimbus mujer with some being discovered in Guatemala, Honduras, New Balance 1600 damskie and Nicaragua.
<span style="font-family: georgia, nike air max 1 uomo palatino;”>Unlike your common or garden Honey or Bumble Bee, Nike Air Huarache Dames these new species are very rare, some only known to science due to the discovery of one specimen. New Balance 515 hombre Like most other bees found in the world, these new species are likely solitary and nest in the ground or in twig hollows, Nike Air Max 2017 Dames roze however no nests have yet been found. As the researcher Sheila Dumesh says, “Because their habitats are often imperilled from deforestation and climate change, finding them before they become extinct is a race against time.”
<span style="font-family: georgia, chaussures asics homme pas cher palatino;”>Despite not being as well known to the general population as their honey-making cousins, many thousands of other bee species also pollinate plants and crops. York bee lab leader Professor Laurence Packer explains, “Documenting what these wild bee species are and what they do, as well as understanding their role in agriculture and our planet’s overall ecology is all extremely important.”
<span style="font-family: georgia, Air Jordan 9 palatino;”>The great thing about honey mustard sauce is that it is so versatile. Anything that works equally well as a dipping sauce for some homemade chips or burgers, or as an accompaniment to a more substantial gourmet meal is the perfect thing to have on hand when you’re hungry.
This quick little recipe will take you no time at all to throw together,
The organisation which live streams the daily activities and behaviours of everything from beluga whales to puffins to even weedy sea dragons has turned its attention to the humble honey bee. Canotta Squadra USA
Setting up two cameras, the team is capturing images from both the entrance to a hive that has been established inside a large hollow log, and the other actually streaming from inside the hive. lunette de soleil ray ban
The best time to see them coming and going from the hive is between the hours of 6am to 9pm Central European Time (about 4pm to 7am New Zealand Standard Time), but even if it’s dark out, it is still fascinating to see them working away inside the hive at all hours. Nike Scarpe Italia
You may notice that they seem to be working harder than usual ( well spotted!) That’s because the hive recently suffered a collapse. nike pas cher Not the kind of collapse normally associate with Colony Collapse Disorder; the bees didn’t disappear, but rather, the comb toppled over.
The honey bees are now working their abdomens off to get the hive re-established and, as of writing this, they look to be doing a great job.
From what we’ve seen so far, the camera positioned at the entrance to the hive doesn’t move at all, but nonetheless effectively captures the ceaseless hustle and bustle of the bees’ daily trips, taking off and landing as they collect pollen for the colony. New Balance Pas Cher But it’s the cameras inside the hive that is the most intriguing. I’ve had the stream open all day on my computer and have caught myself being hypnotised watching them go about their business inside, building new combs, protecting the queen, raising new generations of workers and drones, crawling around doing general maintenance, and of course producing honey.
The hive is situated in the small town of Wall, Bavaria, Germany but now anyone from around the world can get a glimpse of live in the hive.
It was a Friday evening, goedkoop nike air max 2016 I’d been looking after some chickens for a friend who had gone overseas for a while and everything had been smooth sailing until someone pointed out that one of my charges, Amy, was looking a bit under the weather.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Case Keenum – Houston Cougars palatino;”>I’ve never kept chickens before and only know the basics, my friend could not be contacted and all the vets in the area were off until Monday. Google was of little help as all of Amy’s symptoms were pretty common to every bird illness known to humankind. Maglie Atlanta Hawks Lethargy, not eating, Nike buty drinking or preening and refusing to move. She wasn’t egg bound, her crop was fine but by the next morning she looked even more miserable. What to do? The only thing I could think of was watering down some New Dawn and figuring out how to syringe feed a grumpy bird. nike air max 2017 femme noir For many years New Dawn has been our go-to treatment when people aren’t feeling well so I figured it was worth a shot with a chicken.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Maglie Miami Heat palatino;”>Once you get past the initial challenge of wrangling a bird, Canotte Atlanta Hawks a syringe, a beak attached to said grumpy bird and some sticky spillage it’s easy enough to treat a chicken with honey water.
After day one of the New Dawn trial Amy had stopped getting worse and looked brighter, billig nike air max by the end of day two she was at least trying to fight me off which was a good sign, and by Monday morning she was up and out of her box, and eating with the other chickens as if nothing had happened – And I no longer had to hand feed and wash down a chicken three times a day! She was now back to her normal self and giving the other hens a rough time over her favourite water feeder, hooray!
So I still have no idea what was wrong with her or how exactly the New Dawn helped but I can say for sure that if you have a sick animal and no access to a vet then it’s worth a go. It has natural antibacterial properties and can help our immune systems so it makes sense for it to do the same for animals too – the boost of sugar probably helps as well.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Air Jordan 2 Retro palatino;”>In Part 2 of our Animal Related Stories I’ll be talking about a gorgeous ex shelter cat that had been given a week to live and is still going strong much to the amazement of his vet and delight of his new owner!
There are around 250 native species of bee in Britain but just a single honey bee – the Apis mellifera. The isles of Colonsay and Oronsay are currently home to around 50 colonies and have now been named in a new Scottish Government order to protect the species from cross-breeding and disease.
The Bee Keeping (Colonsay and Oronsay) Order 2013 comes into force on 1 January and will make it an offence to keep any honeybees on the islands except Apis mellifera, whose hardiness allows them to survive the harsh climate of Scotland’s west coast.
Beekeeper Andrew Abrahams has campaigned for the islands to be recognised as a sanctuary for the species.
He began keeping bees on Colonsay 35 years ago, but the island has an even longer tradition as a haven for the black bee. Air Max 2017 Dames Its isolation and lack of an existing honeybee population saw it chosen as the site for an experimental breeding station for the native bee in 1941.
Welcoming the new legislation, Abrahams said: “It’s the government’s acknowledgement that native bees should be conserved because they are much more suitable to our difficult environment, and the increasingly difficult environment global warming will bring us.”
Most of Britain’s native honeybee species were wiped out in the early 20th century by the “Isle of Wight disease”, caused by a parasitic mite which spread throughout the country.
A few isolated populations survived and formed the basis of apiaries set up by Abrahams in 1978.
The biggest threat to bees kept in apiaries today is the deadly Varroa mite, which was first discovered in the UK in 1992 and has led to the virtual elimination of feral bee colonies in many areas. Adidas Scarpe Uomo Colonsay was chosen as a reserve because its bees are free from the disease and are genetically pure.
The Scottish Government granted the order after a public consultation received overwhelming support.
Nigel Southworth, New Balance 574 Pas Cher editor of the Scottish Beekeeper magazine, said: “This is great news for beekeeping, Asics Gel Lyte 5 męskie not only in Scotland, but the whole of the UK and beyond.
“Congratulations to Andrew for achieving this and full credit to the Scottish Government for going ahead with the reserve.
“At a time when honeybees are facing perhaps the greatest threat to their survival, this very positive move could be seen in future years to be one of the landmark decisions that helped not only to save this kind of bee, but triggered new initiatives to help both the honeybees and mankind.”
Eric McArthur, vice president of Glasgow and District Beekeepers’ Association, said: “The need for this reserve has been a long time in coming.”
McArthur added that the Colonsay and Oronsay reserve ranks in importance with Australia’s Kangaroo Island, which was designated as a reserve for the native bee of Italy, Apis mellifera ligustica, which was imported there in the 1880s. It is now believed to hold the last remaining pure stock of the species anywhere in the world.
McArthur said: “The honey bees on Colonsay and Oronsay have the same significance for future Apis mellifera mellifera genetic purity as Kangaroo Island has for Apis mellifera ligustica.
“These islands will become a Mecca not only for worldwide beekeepers interested in seeing the pure race Apis mellifera mellifera for themselves but also for scientists investigating the limits of genetic diversity in any closed and isolated population.
“The importance of the Colonsay and Oronsay honeybee reserve to Scotland’s economy cannot be stressed strongly enough and the islands should be developed as a Centre of Excellence for the black bee of Scotland.”
Environment and climate change minister Paul Wheelhouse, who signed the order, said the new reserve fits in with wider work being undertaken on bee health in Scotland and would be significant in ensuring a bright future for black bees on the island.
“The Bee Keeping Order illustrates how our non-native species legislation can be used to protect our native wildlife,” he said.
“The order is a targeted measure to protect an important population of black bees on Colonsay from hybridisation with non-native bees.
“We are working in close collaboration with the Scottish Beekeepers Association and Bee Farmers Association to deliver the ten-year Honeybee Health Strategy, Jordan 11 Pre-School which aims to achieve a sustainable and healthy population of honeybees for pollination and honey production in Scotland.”
Over the last few years, the plight of the honey bee has had its profile raised in a number of ways. air max pas cher The importance of our food producing friends cannot be overstated, but one result of this public sentiment to help save them may actually end up doing them harm according to scientists. adidas gazelle uomo rosse The rise in popularity of urban beekeeping has seen many big names get in on the act and start up their own rooftop operations, among them the London Stock Exchange, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, and even the White House.
There’s even an entire honey company that relies solely on the efforts of urban beekeeping.
However scientists from the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) at the University of Sussex have written in The Biologist that such a burgeoning practice may end up doing more harm than good. Kole Calhoun Baseball Jersey Major cities like London, New York and Toronto have brought about a 220% rise in beekeepers since 1999, while in five years alone beekeepers in Greater London tripled from 464 to 1,237. asics scarpe 2017 Professor Francis Ratnieks and Dr Karin Alton from LASI argue that such a huge increase could put a strain on the nectar and pollen supplies available to the bees in those areas.
The scientists recognise that many urban properties set up rooftop hives in order to strengthen their ‘green’ image, or to help with team-building exercises, but they point out that simply introducing more bees is not the answer. nike air max pas cher With 75% of all the land in the UK being agricultural, there is a distinct lack of areas rich in wildflowers, so introducing a greater population of honey bees into urban areas without doing anything about their source of pollen could spell big problems.
“If a game park was short of food for elephants, you wouldn’t introduce more elephants, so why should we take this approach with bees?”
Ratnieks explains; “Since World War Two the spread of intensive farming has greatly reduced areas rich in wildflowers, such as hay meadows. nike air max 2016 goedkoop
“If the problem is not enough flowers, increasing the number of hives risks making that problem worse.
Having a high density of honey bee hives is not only bad for honey bees, but may also affect bumblebees and other species feeding on the same flowers.
Furthermore, Ratnieks and Alton warn that with so many rooftop hives being set up in metropolitan areas, the rise in inexperienced beekeepers could end up spreading certain honey bee diseases, especially American foulbrood (AFB), a highly contagious bacterial infection of the honey bee larvae.
Each new hive placed in London would need the equivalent of one hectare of borage or 8.3 hectares of lavender, so Alton suggests the honey bee cause would be better served if those concerned introduced more bee-friendly flowers and a welcoming habitat for them.
Spring is well and truly here. The daffodils are out and the lawnmower is getting worked overtime. In keeping with the theme of new life, we at Davidson’s Apiaries are absolutely chuffed to welcome another addition to our extended clan. sac kanken pas cher Rosalind River is a happy and healthy little cherub who was safely delivered only a few short weeks ago.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Fjallraven Kanken Large palatino;”>In celebration of her arrival, Canotte Detroit Pistons we at The Apiary are giving all our customers the opportunity to enjoy something Rosalind has already benefited from. In her first few days she was suffering a bit of nappy rash, but with a daily application of our Infant Skin Care after every other nappy change, the redness is gone and she’s back to being a bouncy little thing, without it making a reappearance.
<span style="font-family: georgia, air max 2017 goedkoop palatino;”>So if you spend over $40 at The Apiary then we’ll throw in a sample jar of the infant range in with your order so your own little poppet can benefit from its soothing formula on red or otherwise itchy bums (or anywhere else for that matter).
Also, since it is Spring, gardens will be blossoming in full colour soon, if they haven’t already done so. So expect to see more honey bees frequenting your own patch. In conjunction with this increased traffic, fjällräven kånken Laptop 15 we”ll soon be posting about organic, nike air max pas cher bee-friendly insect sprays you can use on your flowers and veges, as well as what plants to have in your garden that will attract our beloved pollinators. soldes air max 1 So keep an eye on the blog for handy tips and advice on having a healthy and thriving garden, nike air max 2016 blauw and get out there and enjoy the sun!
We in New Zealand are currently in the midst of Winter, but for those of you in warmer climes, it’s still a good idea to prepare for the colder months ahead.
One, if not the best way to soothe a sore throat is with a hot toddy. Nike Air Max Italia This warm and frankly delicious cocktail has reportedly been around since the early 18th Century, and like many a great wonder, its origin is shrouded in mystery. Was it borne out of an Allan Ramsay poem that mentioned the Todian spring, or did it come about as some kind of Scottish variant on the Indian palm wine drink known as toddy?
Well to that we say “Who cares?” One thing that is indisputable is that if done right, the hot toddy is entirely delicious. Nike Lebron 13 These days there are many great detoxification drinks like wheat grass tea or vegetable smoothies being touted, and that’s all fine if you want no joy in your life. Fjallraven Kanken Big A clue to what is so special about the hot toddy is found in the name. chaussure Asics Gel-Lyte III It’s hot! As you’ll see, the water you mix in with the recipe has to be boiling to properly infuse all the elements.
This deliciously piping concoction can then be enjoyed for an entire evening, warming the senses and easing the muscles.
So what did I mean by ‘done right’? Can it be done wrong? The short answer is yes. The long answer is you could try slapping some honey and liquor together and hope you have your measures right, and then despair as you nearly choke on your burning lemon-tinged whisky nightmare. fjallraven kanken backpack sale Or you could follow this recipe to the letter and soon be basking in the most toddiest of hot toddy glory. Behold!
The tea and lemon will help with congestion, while is it widely known that honey helps with a sore throat by providing a nourishing coating. Nutmeg and cinnamon have also been known to help with coughing. Some have argued that gargling whisky helps with a sore throat, and you may want to try this on your own, but the hot toddy option is just so much more refined, better to let it guide you peacefully off to sleep.
Sick and tired of having to leave your mobile phone perched precariously near the plug socket, getting tangled up on the floor, or within reach of grabbing toddler hands? Have you ever thought ‘there must be an easier way to do this by now!’ before getting on with more important things in your day? Well good news! The internet has provided yet again with a great simple upcycling idea for keeping your phone tidily tucked away while it charges no matter where the plug socket is.
You Will Need:
Empty New Dawn bottle
<span style="font-family: georgia, Air Max Zero palatino;”>Spray paint and stencil OR Colourful laminate
Once you’re finished, clean it out and draw your desired outline of where you will cut it out (don’t forget to draw the ‘loop’ that will go over the plug).
Step Three:
Decorate your bottle, Cheap Nike Shoes Sale UK either spray paint (or just paint) it in one colour or if you want to get your creative groove on cut out some stencils and make it really pretty! If you’re lucky enough to have school aged kids try using a bit of left over laminate from covering school books. I thought I’d be clever and spray paint the inside a different colour to the outside which wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded as the paint ran (serves me right for not getting into graffiti I suppose or I would know these things) but it still turned out nice in the end.
Step Five:
Cut out the shape required and smooth down any rough edges with a nail file or sandpaper to make it neat and tidy.
As you may or may not know, garlic is a powerful immune-booster. Nike Air Lebron 13 Ep It is very effective against nasty bacterial, viral and fungal infections. Honey, especially that of the raw and unheated variety, also has anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal properties, so when you combine the two, you’ve got a great aid to help you fight sore throats, colds or the flu.
To be most effective as an antibacterial/antiviral/antifungal, though, garlic needs to be eaten raw and in rather large quantities. This is tough for most of us.
Who is really prepared to have garlic breath, even if it is all in aid of good health?
So here’s a tip: when infused in honey, raw garlic becomes far more palatable. adidas cloudfoam hombre Yummy even. It is a great idea to keep a jar of this on hand at all times. Maglie Los Angeles Lakers At the first sign of a sore throat (or a cold or the flu), start popping your honey infused garlic and if you can, try to eat one clove every hour or two all day long.
Decrease the amount the next day, but continue to eat a couple of cloves a day until you’re all better.
So make up a jar of this and keep it in your fridge and you’ll be all set for next winter (or the next time you get sick). The garlic is ready to eat after a few days but tastes much better when it has hung out in the honey for a few months. 2017 asics pas cher Try to replace the garlic cloves with fresh ones whenever you’ve taken some out for use, so that the jar remains pretty much full at all times.
Ingredients:
3 heads of garlic, peeled and separated into cloves (about 24 cloves)
1. Fill jar with unpeeled garlic cloves and then pour the honey over the garlic. Under Armour UA Curry 2 Allow mixture to infuse for at least several days before using, then store in the refrigerator where it will keep for a year or more.
2. asics femme At the first sign of illness, start eating a clove every hour or two. Aim for about 6 cloves per day. Nike Air Max 2017 Heren rood The honey can be taken on its own by the spoonful as a cough syrup. You could also mix a teaspoon of the honey with some raw apple cider vinegar and hot water and drink this as a tonic when you’re sick; feel free to add a dash of cayenne pepper, too- this is excellent for your sinuses.
Summer is well and truly upon us, which means getting outside and enjoying the weather when it lasts. But you’ll want something delicious to come back inside for when the sun goes down and it’s time for dinner, and this recipe, while somewhat involved, will pay dividends in the taste department.
Coming from Ambitious Kitchen, this delicious gluten free Summer meal is great if you want to impress your friends. The only potential downside is that the prep time may be disproportionate to the amount of time it takes to consume this delicacy.
1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce, gluten free if desired
1/4 cup fresh pineapple juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon red chili pepper flakes, if desired
1/2 of a whole pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into small chunks (so you don’t have to cut later)
For quinoa:
3/4 cup uncooked organic quinoa
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Fresh limes to squeeze, if desired
1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds, for topping
Directions
In a large bowl whisk together the marinade ingredients: brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, pineapple juice, mustard, sesame and olive oil, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes if desired. Place salmon in large zip lock bag and add marinade. Asics Pas Cher Place in refrigerator for up to 8 hours but at least 1 hour. You can also marinade it in a baking pan.
Preheat oven to 200 degree C (about 400F). Spray baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Remove salmon from zip lock bag and place skin side down on large baking pan lined with foil. Yadier Molina Authentic Jersey Line pineapple next to salmon and brush leftover marinade on salmon and pineapple. chaussures nike Sprinkle with a little bit of extra brown sugar for extra caramelization. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until salmon easily flakes with fork. It is best to broil the salmon for a minute or two at the end to get an additional caramelisation on top.
Just be sure not to dry out your fish! 18 minutes is usually perfect timing! *See notes for additional information on cooking times.
While salmon is cooking, prepare quinoa. A.J. McCarron Alabama Football Jerseys Bring water and coconut milk to a boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat to low; add quinoa and cover; simmering until all liquid is absorbed. Adam Wainwright Jersey Remove from heat and let stand another 5-10 minutes. Air Flight 89 Fluff the quinoa with a fork and set aside. Add in red onion and cilantro to quinoa. Adidas ZX Flux Heren Once salmon is finished cooking, remove pineapple from baking sheet and fold into quinoa. Season with salt and lime juice to taste.
Spoon pineapple quinoa evenly into 4 bowls or plates. Cut salmon into desired serving sizes and serve with quinoa. Aaron Murray Jerseys Garnish with a tablespoon or two of toasted almonds. Drizzle with extra honey if desired.
*Notes
Salmon is very sensitive and can dry out easily if overcooked, so make sure you watch your fish! For every inch of thickness of the salmon, generally it takes about 10 minutes to cook.
Usually salmon fillets are about 1 1/2 inches thick. Preparing quinoa ahead of time makes this dish even easier.
Manuka honey has long been held up as a powerful natural antibiotic with healing properties but it seems it’s facing competition from bees on foreign shores. According to new research, Scottish heather honey is at least as effective for treating infections as its New Zealand-based cousin manuka.
Dr Patrick Pollock, an equine surgeon from Glasgow University’s School of Veterinary Medicine who conducted the research, said the new findings suggest that the honey could be used for treating humans and animals. “A heather honey surprisingly came out fantastically well. It was actually killing bacteria at concentrations of less than 2%, which astounded us.”
Up until now the most famous honey used for medical purposes was Manuka honey from New Zealand, but it is expensive for overseas importers. adidas gazelle damskie Dr Pollock says, “we are transporting honey all round the world and it is expensive to incorporate it into dressings. If we could show that other honeys were just as effective we could potentially open up this treatment to people and animals. Honey helps to promote healing, cleaning the wound and keeping it infection-free. If vets were able to use locally sourced, cheaper honey as a wound dressing, it would be very beneficial particularly in poorer countries.”
The researchers took 29 honey products, including commercial medical grade honeys, supermarket honeys and honeys from local bee-keepers, and examined them for bacterial contamination before testing.
Of the 29, 18 were found to contain bacteria that excluded them from the trial and the remaining 11 were tested against 10 equine bacterial isolates at concentrations varying from 2 percent to 16 percent. Eight of the honeys were effective against all the bacteria at concentrations ranging from 2 percent to 6 percent. Heather honey from the Inverness area was shown to be particularly effective – killing MRSA microbes and three other types of bacteria at concentrations of 2 percent. mochilas kanken baratas
Pollock says, “honeys derived from one type of flower were shown to be the most effective, and while manuka is currently the only medical grade honey, the study reveals that other honeys may be just as suitable for such purposes. In future, it may be possible to identify honeys with activity against specific bacteria. asics gel lyte 3 uomo This would allow the clinician to select the most appropriate honey type for the infecting organism.”
New Zealand manuka producers are understandably worried about this development, especially John Rawcliffe, head of the Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association, which represents New Zealand manuka honey producers. Tom Brady College Jerseys Honeys largely get their antimicrobial properties from the hydrogen peroxide they contain, but manuka is thought to benefit from other factors, including an as yet poorly understood phytochemical property and, or, the presence of methylglyoxal. Dennis Pitta Ravens Jerseys When comparing the history of wound treatment by manuka and heather honeys, Rawcliffe has warned against the claims of research on other honey, saying, “there will always be pretenders to the throne. Nike air max pas cher
When you consider that Manuka honey commands prices 10 to 20 times higher than other types of honey because of its anti-bacterial properties, such concerns by other honey producers are only natural. The Manuka sector is estimated to earn New Zealand as much as $120 million a year, with it being arguably the world’s most studied honey. Maglie Washington Wizards The Glasgow University research showing the effectiveness of different honeys on equine “bacterial isolates” could therefore look likely to herald a new era in honey research as producers of other honey types seek to discover if they can also successfully market them for their medicinal properties.
<span style="font-family: georgia, asics gel nimbus donna palatino;”>Kickstarter, the crowd funding website that has helped get all manner of creative projects off the ground, from new technologies to movies to video games to even video game consoles, has now turned its attention to helping save honeybees. The Save the Honey Bees Project in Dallas-Forth Worth, Air Jordan 4 Retro Texas aims to raise $6,000 in order to gather information about bee populations kept by beekeepers using off-the-shelf technology and electronic sensors.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a much bigger problem in the United States than it is here in New Zealand, so the project’s founder, Barry Litherland, hopes that the information gathered from the technologically advanced beehives he plans to set up will go some way to understanding the problem and preventing it from getting any worse.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Womens Air Jordan 5 palatino;”>When the hives are assembled, they will be outfitted with a bee counter at the hive entrance and at least one temperature and humidity sensor inside the hive. Each hive will have a computer attached to it to control and monitor the sensors, Authentic UGA Jersey store this data, and transfer it to the project website and other test equipment.
As Litherland explains;
<span style="font-family: georgia,
palatino;”>The sensor data will be helpful in characterizing bee behavior during both normal and environmentally stressed situation.
For instance, the sensors should be able to show that the bees respond to the presence of the beekeeper and his/her smoker during visits to check the hive health and honey production. My hope is that we might learn a few new nuances about bees that will assist in nursing the mega-population back to a thriving species.
Barry admits that his project is currently small-scale, Denver Nuggets but if it’s a success then there would be little reason for it not to expand in the future. He also makes a point of mentioning that everything he is putting together is open source, meaning that others can learn from and possibly even improve upon his work.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Nike Air Max 2017 Dames palatino;”>So let’s hope Barry is successful that people in the area and beyond get behind the project.
When most people think of honey bees they either consider them being horrible stinging death machines, or serently flittering from flower to flower collecting pollen amid a picturesque scene of pastoral beauty. Neither is very true, as the life of the honey bee is a difficult one, with many predators to stay away from.
A new study from the scientific journal PLOS ONE suggests that such fear drives bees to avoid food sources closely associated with predators and, interestingly, makes colonies of bees less risk-tolerant than individual bees.
In bees, fear is shown through foragers avoiding dangerous food sites, thereby reducing the fitness of pollinated plants. Vêtements Adidas Pas Cher Pas Cher However, it remains unclear how fear affects pollinators in a complex natural scenario involving multiple predator species and different patch qualities.
James Nieh, a professor of biology at UC San Diego, worked with scientists at Yunnan Agricultural University in China to study the impact on foraging Asian honey bees of the monstrous-looking Asian Giant hornet, Vespa tropica, and a smaller hornet species known as Vespa velutina, which has invaded Europe and now poses a threat to European honey bees.
“This strategy of colonies collectively exhibiting significantly more caution than the riskier individual foragers may help honey bees exploit all of the available food sources, with some intrepid foragers visiting more dangerous food while the colony judiciously decides how to best allocate its foraging,” Nieh.
“The Asian Giant hornets are dangerous, heavily armored predators,” says Ken Tan, the first author of the paper. “Bee colonies respond by forming balls of defending bees, encasing the hornet and, in some cases, cooking it to death with heat generated by the bees.”
The researchers found that bees treated the bigger hornet species, which is four times more massive than the smaller species, as more dangerous. nike tn requin In a series of experiments, they presented bees with different combinations of safe and dangerous feeders—depending on their association with the larger or smaller hornets—containing varying concentrations of sucrose.
“Bees avoided the dangerous feeders and preferred feeders that provided sweeter nectar,” says Nieh. “However, predators are clever and can focus on sweeter food, ones which bees prefer. So we also tested how bees would respond when sweeter food was also more dangerous. What we found was that the individual bees were more risk-tolerant. They avoided the giant hornet at the best food, but continued to visit the lower quality food with the smaller hornet.”
The study demonstrated two classic effects of fear: changing prey foraging durations and space use. Fjällräven Kånken Salu Predator presence reduced the bees spent collecting food by 17–33% and elicited bee avoidance, decreasing visitation to dangerous feeders by. This falls into line with such avoidance techniques by other animals, such as Redshank birds which spend less time foraging in saltmarshes on days with high predation risk from sparrowhawks. Wild herbivores in the African savanna prefer low tree density areas where predators are easier to detect. Nike Air Max 2017 Dames blauw
Aerial predators of honey bees, like hornets, can capture bees in flight and may therefore have a larger spatial influence than sit-and-wait predators, which are more localised.
This fascinating study showed that colony foraging, the result of mass recruitment, was more affected by fear than individual foraging choice. Mass recruitment is a key foraging strategy of highly social bees, which are also important pollinators in ecosystems around the world. Thus, understanding the emergent effects of fear at the superorganism level, how colonies differ in fearful behavior from their individual members, will provide a better understanding of how fear has shaped the evolution of bee foraging and how the effects of fear can be amplified at the colony level, thereby exerting a wider effect on a vital ecosystem service, pollination.
Summer is just around the corner here, and while frozen yoghurt can be full of hidden calories and strange ingredients, this homemade fro-yo is healthy and easy to make. Just put frozen peaches, a little honey, some vanilla, a pinch of salt, and your favorite kind of yoghurt in a food processor,
blend, and in a few minutes you’ll have thick, creamy homemade frozen yoghurt. Dress it up with a sprinkle of granola for breakfast or a drizzle of strawberry sauce for a low-fat dessert.
Preparation:
To freeze fresh peach slices, arrange them on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a single layer and freeze until solid. Transfer to a resealable plastic bag or airtight container and store for up to 1 month.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Maglie NBA palatino;”>Directions
Place the peaches in a blender and drizzle with the warm honey. New Balance 993 damskie Add the yoghurt, vanilla, New Balance 515 mujer and a pinch of salt. Process until smooth, nike tn femme stopping and scraping down the sides of the blender with a spatula at least once, about 1 minute total.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Goedkoopste Nike Air Max 2017 palatino;”>Serve immediately or transfer to a container with a tightfitting lid and freeze for up to 1 month.
Perfect for what is shaping up to be a lovely Summer!
<span style="font-family: georgia, Nike Air Max 2017 Heren groen palatino;”>When a honey bee colony loses its queen, Canotta NBA researchers at the University of Illinois and Macquarie University in NSW, Australia have found that the rest of the hive still retains its altruistic behaviour, cooperating with each other and remaining selfless workers right up until that colony eventually fails. Illinois Uni’s Department of Entomology even discovered that worker bees will develop their ovaries and produce male offspring if a queen is absent.
palatino;”>As Dr Andrew Barron from Macquarie University notes; “Although selfish behaviour did increase, we saw that altruism did not decrease. Fjällräven Kånken The colonies effectively became worker communes – collective societies where bees became generalists, maintaining and defending the colony together, to the end.”
Kin selection theory dictates that altruistic behaviour is based on the number of offspring produced compared to the number an individual can produce by supporting others.
The theory predicts that the degree of altruism in queenless colonies should be reduced because the relatedness of workers to a hivemate’s offspring is less in queenless colonies than it is to the daughters of the queen in queenright colonies.
<span style="font-family: georgia, asics donna palatino;”>However the study found queenless bees generalised their tasks more and had a greatly reduced individual specialisation, with workers sharing personal reproduction, social foraging, and defence tasks for the colony. This resulted in laying workers also producing larger wax glands, showing metabolic investments in both colony maintenance and personal reproduction. Adidas Goedkoop
The researchers say the social structure of such a queenless colony is similar to certain species of bees of a more primitive social structure, Canotte San Antonio Spurs thereby giving a unique snapshot into what colonies looked liked before the role of the queen evolved to take its place as the most successful organisational structure for colonies.
It may seem like a very simple and obvious thing to say, but you’d be surprised at just how much honey is thrown out when it’s perfectly edible. Some people mistakenly think that because honey has crystallised it has somehow gone off but this couldn’t be further from the truth. So what is actually happening when honey crystallises and what can be done about it?
There are a few reasons why honey can crystallise, but the most common ones likely to affect the honey in your kitchen are moisture content and temperature.
To put it simply, honey is basically a concoction of sugar and a little water, and such a low moisture environment discourages bacteria from growing (which is the key to its longevity as we recently posted). Goedkoop Nike Air Max 2017 However, such a dry environment means crystallisation is likely to occur.
If honey is stored in a very warm environment, it will generally take longer for the process to occur, however the honey may not retain all of its original goodness for as long. But stored in slightly too cool an environment and crystallisation will begin much sooner. Boston Celtics The ideal temperature to store honey is generally considered to be around 21°C (70°F).
Since honey normally exists below its melting point, it is a supercooled liquid, and at very low temperatures, honey will not freeze solid. Instead, as the temperatures become colder, the viscosity of honey increases, and below 5°C (41°F), the honey will not crystallise at all, so the original texture and flavor can be preserved indefinitely. Soldes Chaussures Asics Even shaking the honey can affect the crystallisation process, with crystal nuclei (seeds) tending to form more readily if the honey is disturbed rather than if left at rest.
So is crystallisation bad for honey? Basically, no. Jarrett Lee – LSU Tigers In fact honey producers, The Apiary included, need to crystallise some of our honey in order to create products like our Creamed Clover Honey. New Balance 997 damskie It’s done by using a method of controlled crystallization, whereby honey is alternately cooled and heated in order to produce that rich and creamy honey you’re probably more likely to have on your toast. Our Raw and Unheated Honey is unprocessed and so in its natural state remains perfectly runny and yummy, but if left in too cool a place will begin to crystallise, however fear not as it’s still perfectly enjoyable.
If you open your larder one day and find that your honey has crystallised, there are a few things you can do.
First off, you could try using it as an even simpler facial mask recipe idea than our three recipe facial mask we mentioned recently; the crystals will help with exfoliation and the anti-bacterial properties of the honey will soothe the skin.
But really, honey is best enjoyed when eaten, so if you want it reverted back to its natural runny state then you can either place the jar in a bowl of hot water for five to ten minutes, or for an even quicker solution, pop it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Note, one other benefit to using glass jars, as well as their upcycling potential, is that it rules out any possibility of anything leaching out of a plastic container into your food when microwaved, albeit a very small possibility.
Here’s another handy tip we’ve found on our many years of enjoying honey, for those of us who like it in our tea or coffee instead of sugar. Nike Air Max 2017 Heren wit If you’re down to the last of your honey then simply pour in some of the hot water you’re going to use for your cuppa into the jar. Pop the lid on, give it a good shake, then pour it out into your tea. It’s an easy way to both rinse out your jar while wasting as little honey as possible.
We at The Apiary are sad to say that my Grandfather Mr Davidson passed away on 27th July at the ripe old age of 82, new balance store buenos aires he had surprised doctors countless times for living as long as he did with terminal cancer (something to do with smoking since the age of 16 I think) but he finally went peacefully with his family at his side in Timaru.
palatino;”>Mr Davidson was a typical genius if there is such a thing; always full of new ideas schemes to rope people into, all in the name of science, Nike Air Max 2017 Dames zwart curiosity and discovery. His children, grandchildren and great grandchildren are lucky enough to be left with this legacy of curiosity and the insatiable need to tinker with things, observe, Canotta Charlotte Hornets improve upon, and challenge the status quo.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Canotte Selección de USA palatino;”>He was also a man full of stories about his time as a deer culler in the mountains of the South Island of NZ, the adventures he got up to and near misses that only a level headed man of his intelligence could have found a way through in many cases. I’ve no doubt this has contributed a lot to the tendency of his descendents to look at a dangerous or challenging situation and approach it more as a problem to be solved than something to be afraid of or avoided.
<span style="font-family: georgia, Goedkope Nike Air Max 90 palatino;”>Many adventures and interesting times have certainly been had as a result of the inspirational nature and endless curiosity of Mr Davidson and he will definitely be missed by those who knew him.
Attending his funeral on Wednesday also brought home just how many people in the community here are so thankful for his work in developing the health care range we sell, with many coming to show their appreciation for his friendly and forthcoming nature while they were going through difficult times, and for the products they believed helped them to overcome their illnesses.
<span style="font-family: georgia, nike air max pas cher palatino;”>Everyone who knew Mr Robert Davidson will have something deeply personal and unique to keep with them after his passing and he will certainly not be forgotten by friends, Stephen Piscotty Jersey family, colleagues or customers. If you have a memory of Robert or a story of your own then we’d love to hear it, nike air max 2017 femme blanche so feel free to get in touch and share your thoughts on our departed proprietor.
<span style="font-family: georgia, New Balance 997 damskie palatino;”>So here’s to Robert, a remarkable man who’s just starting out on the next great adventure!
As well as coming up with a snappy and in no way cumbersome promotion title, we’re offering you 15% off every item purchased with us until the end of September*.
It’s as a way of rewarding your efforts in finding us on the web. If you want great tasting organic honey the way it used to be made, healthy honey-based foods that are not only delicious but good for your body and mind too, and natural skincare that sooths and protects the skin without the need for any nasty chemicals, then you’ve come to the right place.
Hurry though, the sale won’t last forever. You have until the end of September to get your 15% off whatever items you buy, but it can be used as many times as you like until then, so feel free to keep coming back!
At the checkout simply enter THEBEE15 as the coupon code (handily placed in the Coupon Code field), and you’re all set. If you have any questions or queries then don’t hesitate to contact us over on the Feedback Page.
If you like what you see, then don’t forget to Subscribe To Our Newsletter to stay informed about any future promotions, hear what’s making the news, or find out about exciting company developments.
There’s a reason the saying “busy as a bee” exists, and now New Zealand Post has commemorated the country’s hardest workers, our honey bees.
In 1913 regional groups of beekeepers formed the National Beekeepers Association of New Zealand, so to celebrate their centenary, New Zealand Post has released six commemorative stamps, which highlight the process of making honey; from bees pollinating the plants through to the production of sweet nectar.
According to the NBA, honey bees contribute about $5.1billion to New Zealand’s economy, attributable to pollination by honey bees, domestic honey sales and exports, beeswax and exported honey bees. Their value really can’t be understated, and without them we wouldn’t have access to half the foods we do in the supermarket.
Ahead of next month’s Bee Aware Month campaign, there couldn’t be a more perfect commemoration of our hard working little food providers. The stamps can be bought from the New Zealand Post website.
As glass jars account for about half of our packaging I thought I would share some of my favourite ideas for upcycling jars of all kinds, they happen to all be as candle holders or vases but really can you have too much ambiance in your house? I think not, and once you see how easy these are you’ll just have to give some a go!
The Quick And Easy One
The simplest and just as effective as the rest, perfect for when someone gives you a bunch of flowers that don’t quite work in your current vase. Would also look fantastic with peonies, hydrangeas or other old favourites
You will need – some strips of burlap, mod podge, twine
Method – Simply cut out enough burlap to cover the jar, stick it to the jar with mod podge and tidy up the top edge by winding the twine around it
Almost as simple and involves minimal paint work for a thoroughly stylish result
You will need – yarn, spray paint, ribbon
Method – Wrap yarn haphazardly but tightly around jar, spray with at least two coats of spray paint in white or pastel colours, when dry remove yarn and tie ribbon around neck of jar.
Let your inner artist run free and add your own personal touches to this one
You will need – coloured paint in at least two colours, sandpaper, craft knife/scalpel, pencil, paper, dark wax (optional), ribbon
Method – Give your jar two coats of your primary colour, gently sand away some paint for a nice textured finish and if you want an old weathered look apply a little of the dark wax to the surface. On your paper draw out whatever design you would like stenciled on the surface in your contrasting colour/s, cut out with knife and hold against the jar while dabbing paint on with (preferably) a fine sponge (a paint brush will work but is slightly less defined). Tie ribbon around neck of jar once dried.
By far my favourite and a little trickier but well worth the result, especially if you have some special printed napkins or have seen some around that you wish you had a use for.
You will need – Pretty napkins, mod podge, brush, twine, charms, wire
Method – Pull apart napkin to just one layer, start applying your mod podge in small sections and carefully line up and stick your napkin over the top, ensuring you don’t start at an angle to the jar or create any wrinkles. Keep applying mod podge in sections and repeat until jar is covered. Once finished add another layer of mod podge to the surface of the napkin, tear away excess at the top and glue any overlap underneath the jar. You can hang a charm or other bits of jewellery around the neck before winding around and securing twine to give it a really fancy finish.
As health is part of our motto it’s important to remember that while honey makes for tasty treats, it’s also perfect for dressing up a healthy detox salad.
Here is a great looking recipe we found on our internet travels recently, you could get creative and substitute the Brussel sprouts for something like raw cabbage but why pass up the opportunity to be adventurous with food? The recipe calls for maple syrup but a friend of mine who gave this a go assures me that a drizzle of our raw honey did just the trick, and considering it is quite hard to come by actual maple syrup in NZ rather than the flavoured corn syrup kind it’s probably a better idea too.
Ingredients:
400 grams brussels sprouts (about 18), washed and stems removed
280 grams carrots (about 2 large), peeled
1 apple, diced (I used Honeycrisp)
1 large celery stalk, diced
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
4-6 tbsp raisins
2-4 tbsp fresh lemon juice, to taste
1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt or Herbamare, or to taste
1 tsp fresh Thyme leaves (optional), or other herbs of choice
1. Add the grate/shred blade to food processor. Turn machine on and drop in the brussels sprouts to shred. Now drop in the carrots to shred. Alternatively, you can finely chop brussels and shred carrots with a hand-held grater. Transfer to a large mixing bowl.
2. Stir in the diced apple, celery, sunflower seeds, and raisins into the carrot and brussels sprout mixture.
3. Add lemon juice, salt, pepper, and optional fresh thyme to taste. Add a small amount of maple sryup (about 1/2-1.5 tsp) to take the edge off the lemon juice. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Serve & enjoy!
If you love our hexagonal jars and don’t want to just throw them in the recycling bin then an upcycled spice rack is a fantastic way to make use of them.
Apart from being rather pretty, hexagonal jars can also be arranged together in a nice honeycomb pattern, and what better way to make use of this than as a spice rack, with all the different coloured spices filling up the jars it will not only organise your spices but brighten up the kitchen as well.
Luckily making the spice rack is incredibly easy! Here is a step by step tutorial in making your own:
You Will Need:
Clean hexagonal jars – As many as you want
Stainless steel metal sheet
Four screws for mounting on wall
Flat neodymium magnets to fit within top of jar lids
Superglue
Labels – This is where you can get creative; Marker Pen? Post-its? Stickers? Embossing? You decide!
Spices
Putting it Together:
Once you have collected enough empty glass jars give them a good wash in hot soapy water, you won’t need to sterilise them as long as they are clean. For a metal sheet you can visit a hardware store and buy one yourself but you may need to round off the edges at home which will require a decent tool set (tin snips may suffice depending on the thickness of the metal). Alternatively you can purchase ready made sheets of metal on the internet that even have holes drilled in for the screws. Try Etsy or Amazon which both sell magnetic plates for this very purpose if you’d rather take the simple route. Make sure that however much metal you have there is plenty of room for adding to your spice collection in the future.
They even look cool when empty!
The next important step is finding the right place to put your spice rack, make sure your designated space will be out of direct sunlight so the spices maintain their freshness and quality longer. You can avoid the metal sheet altogether by using the side of your fridge but 9 times out of 10 this will be in a place where your jars will be knocked off the fridge on a semi regular basis, it also isn’t a good idea to stick them to the front of your fridge as opening and closing the door can also lead to a high chance of knocking your jars off.
I haven’t had one break from dropping it yet but better not to chance the mess! Fixing a stainless steel sheet with four screws to a spare bit of wall in the kitchen in a handy place will not only be a safer spot for your jars it will also fill up some bare wall with a bunch of pretty spices.
It is important when searching for the right magnets to ensure they are not only flat and round to make the most use of the lid but are also very very strong as they are holding a considerable glass jar, neodymium magnets are best and will provide an amusing challenge for you trying to glue them to the centre of the magnetic lids. Make sure you give your magnets plenty of time to dry out and set and then all you need to do is fill your jars, affix the appropriate labels and your jars are finished! Simply screw on the lids and stick them onto the metal sheet and woohoo, you have a pretty new spice storage system!
The potentially endless array of colours is truly staggering.
Alternatively if you can’t wait to collect enough of our jars or don’t have the time for the DIY, the fantastic Etsy seller Beth Weisberger in the United States has done the whole thing for you, and she ships internationally! She has a wonderfully vast array of spices and gift ideas, with a great focus on sourcing local produce and being as environmentally sustainable as possible. You can check out her store here.
For more DIY and upcycling inspiration of all kinds you can visit our Pinterest Page.
Honey Oat Biscuits – Simple, easy, yummy and with a little added sweetness they are quick to prepare and even make a good snack for kids and toddlers. Plain honey can be substituted for flax honey but with the extra nutritional benefits of flax meal I highly recommend it. You may also omit the added sugar altogether and use an extra tablespoon of honey instead, however this will result in a softer biscuit.
