Feeding Bees with Bent Nails kind of

Were in the midst of a winter that isnt overly harsh, but that is following what apparently was an epically bad summer for honey production.  As a result, our bees went into the winter with less than one deep hive box, and were starting to look pretty hungry last weekend (judging by the weight of the hive).  We figured it was probably time to put some emergency rations out for them in the form of some no-cook candy.

We started making a candy board from the instructions here and here, but then realized our staple gun was out of staples!  Should we panic, run to the store and get some more staples?  Or should we practice a bit of whatchagotamology and make something to serve the same purpose, but thats even sturdier than those flimsy staples?  Wait--before you answer, consider this: weve also got a whole pile of bent-up nails, pulled out of free wood from Craigslist, that weve been itching to find a use for.  If you guessed the second option, congratulations.  Hooray for #2!

If wealth were measured in nails like this one, wed be rich!

We cut the head of the nail off, then the shank into two pieces.  Its possible to do this with just a pliers or wire cutter, but its a lot easier with a bolt cutter.  Also, the pieces dont go flying around as much with the bolt cutter, so if you go the pliers rout, wear safety glasses (and maybe a helmet).

We bent the two shank pieces into a generally parabolic shape using two pairs of pliers...

...then held onto each one with one pair of pliers and used the other to squeeze the parabola until the sides were parallel.  Sort of like taking a graph of a parabola and changing the independent-variable axis to a log scale.  Definitely use a pliers to hold the nail while squeezing.  If you use your fingers in place of the first pliers, they will force you to yell expletives when the second pliers slips off and squashes your fingers instead of the nail.

The resulting products are the head of the nail (any ideas for what to do with that?), and two beefy-looking staples that could be used to hold barbed wire onto a fencepost...

...or hardware cloth onto a candy board.

Heres what she looks like all together.  We smeared pollen on the top of the candy instead of making a proper patty like in the link above, mainly because we couldnt find the pollen until after we had the candy in the board.  It turns out one of those nonstick pie crust roller-outer mats is big enough to keep everything off the table while the candy dries, and also makes it pretty easy to unstick the candy board when dry.

This is the configuration on the hive: the candy board goes between the top deep box and the inner cover, hopefully right on top of the cluster. (But dont squash it!)  The moisture quilt is based off a design like this.

What is your setup for emergency bee feeding in the winter?  Let us know in the comments section below!

A Different Kind of Weed Brownie

Last April, we said that it wasnt really spring until we had had our dandelion fix, which is an assertion we still stand by.  But what happens when we havent fully scratched our itch, but Katie is tired of eating dandelion pancakes (or possibly just pancakes in general), and the dandelions are still blooming?  Weve got to figure out other foods to put dandelions in.

Weve been intrigued (and impressed) by desserts that feature vegetables: carrot cake (obviously), red velvet cake with beets, frosting colored with spinach or beets, and Katie even makes a pretty mean zucchini brownie.

So we thought, "Hey!  It seems like we can take a recipe for some kind of cake-type thing, add a bunch of shredded veggies (which would also be a good name for a band), and have a dessert for which its easier to justify eating four or five pieces at once!"  Also, it was April 20 last week here in Colorado, which seemed to carry some sort of significance that we cant quite put our finger on...and so the concept of the dandelion brownie was born.

We started with about 3.5 cups of dandelion flowers, which gave us about 3 cups of petals

Then we started making a regular brownie recipe.

We added the dandelion petals at the same time as the flour and chocolate chips, but the batter was really dry so we also added a half cup of milk.

The milk brought the batter back to the right consistency, despite all the extra nutrition (also here) we packed in.

We spread the batter out into a greased pan...

And baked it!

Since the petals are so mildly-flavored, they hardly affect the rich chocolatey taste at all. The brownies taste just like brownies, but the petals are visible as little yellow streaks.  Theyre like little pieces of confetti for celebrating healthy desserts!

The recipe (based off brownies from Glorious Treats):
4 eggs
1.25 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup butter
2.25 cups sugar
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 cups (one 12-oz bag) semisweet chocolate chips
3 cups dandelion petals
0.5 cup milk

Beat together eggs and cocoa.  Melt butter, mix in salt, sugar, vanilla, and baking powder, then mix together with eggs and cocoa mix.  Add flour, chocolate chips, dandelion petals, and milk, mix well.  Smooth batter out into a 10" x 16" cookie sheet, and bake at 350 °F for 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.



What types of vegetables do you put into your desserts?  What other dishes do you put dandelions in?  Let us know in the comments section below!