Candy Sushi and Honey Straight from the Hive

I had a really fun weekend. I didn't get nearly as much done as I did LAST weekend, but it was a great social weekend, and I'm content with that.

On Friday night, one of the girls in my ward sent out a Facebook invite to her house to make candy sushi and watch "Miss Congeniality." Liz and I took up the invitation even though we didn't know this girl, and we ended up having a blast.

Shelley (our hostess) had this huge spread to make candy sushi. I didn't actually make any because I'm still steering clear of sugar, but I had a great time watching the others make it. I'm totally going to do this for a party someday because it was a lot of fun. You use a fruit rollup for the seaweed, rice crispy treat for the rice base, and then she had Swedish fish, gummy octopus, licorice, sprinkles, and frosting for the filling and toppings. The end result actually looked a lot like sushi, and from what I saw as everyone was devouring them, they were delicious.

Our hostess, Shelley, showing us how it's done.

As you can see from the photos, there was a good-size group there. And it was one of those rare but wonderful occasions where I met a lot of people and we chatted a lot, and yet when it came time to sit down and watch the movie, everyone war respectful and quiet and we all got to enjoy it! I hadn't seen "Miss Congeniality" in ages, and I had a blast seeing it again and getting to know so many awesome girls in my ward.

Then, yesterday morning, Liz, our friend Shannon, and I went to the Salt Lake public library to watch them harvest the beehives they keep on the roof. It was fascinating! They took out a bunch of the frames to show us how loaded with honey they were, and where the baby bees are raised, and even where the queen bee was!

All these kids and their parents flooded into the library right as it opened and crowded onto this landing to watch, but the kids were really loud and got bored really fast. Most of them were gone long before the harvest was close to being done. 

Notice how you can't really see any bees flying around in this shot. That will change very soon.

Opening up the first hive...

Not all of the frames had honeycomb on them yet, so they got those ones out of the way first to show us the finished ones.

Like these! This hive was cool because all the beekeepers do is put that wooden beam across the barrel, and the bees build the entire comb themselves! No frames to help them! They said that each comb full of honey weighed about six pounds!

They actually didn't smoke the bees nearly as much as I thought they would. They didn't look like they were getting attacked or anything, either. They were very careful not to cause the bees too much stress.

This kid was one of three boy scouts who were there to get their beekeeping badge. This was one of those times when I really wished I could be a boy scout. 

See all the bees flying now?

They said this kind of beehive wasn't great for actual food production, but it looked really simple to maintain. I'd like to have one someday.

Then they got started on the industrial hives. 

This hive only stored enough honey for the winter and hadn't really gotten up to the spare frames, so they didn't harvest any from here, but they took the opportunity to show us how the frames look. 

See that screen over the top of the middle box? That's called a "queen screen." It keeps the queen from crawling up to the spare frames, because if she got up there, she would use the frames to lay eggs, not for storing honey. 

Then they got into the honey frames.

They were all LOADED with honey. Sometimes you could see it dripping off of the frames.

This frame didn't have honey, it had "brood." See the darker orangey part? Those cells are full of bee larvae. 

This is them getting into the final beehive, which had tons of extra honey for them to harvest. They brushed all the bees off of the frames, then loaded up the boxes to take to the beekeeper's house to actually put the honey into bottles to sell.

This last beehive was so full of honey that the bees had even started building comb onto the queen screen.

So many bees!!

Here the beekeeper is just checking to make sure that there's lots of baby bees and everything seems healthy in the center of the hive.

These middle frames are not to be messed with. He actually found the queen on this frame, and after showing her to the scouts, he put it back in super gently. If you upset the queen, she'll just fly away and start a hive somewhere else. Not good.

The scouts getting a look at the queen bee.

So that was all the beekeeping we saw. Fascinating stuff! I totally want to keep bees now.

The absolute best part about this whole event was that they took those combs from the first beehive (the barbecue looking one), brushed off all the bees, brought them inside, and chopped them up for us to eat!

I'd never eaten straight-up honeycomb before, and it was delicious! It was a little waxy (I found wax in my teeth hours later), but it was just so yummy--so much better than any processed honey I've ever tasted. If just watching the beekeeping wasn't enough to make me want bees, tasting their honey definitely won me over.

This was kind of a lame, waxy piece, but still delicious! And I got a much fuller piece later.

Look at that honeycomb in all its glory!!

Oh my gosh, just looking at these pictures again makes me want more. 

They probably only used like three combs, but there was tons of honey to go around!

These were just some of the leftover waxy bits, but look at how perfect those cells are! We're so used to seeing homemade frames that bees use, but this comb was made entirely from scratch! How do they make them so perfectly symmetrical??

Mmmmm!! See how the honey varies in color in different cells? They said that's because the honey came from different kinds of flowers, and each one has its own distinct color!

I learned so much about bees yesterday. Another little tidbit I forgot to mention is that they actually feed the bees sugar water when there aren't any more flowers to be had. For a bee, harvest ends in July, and if they don't have enough food after that, they might not have any spare honey for the beekeeper to take.

So that's enough beekeeping geekery. I'm sure you aren't nearly as fascinated by this as I am. But hey, you'll thank me later when I have fresh honeycomb to feed you in the future.