Day 30: Market again

Kwao and I got up at 3:30am to go to the market in Kingston. It was especially tiring becuase we had stayed up late.
I forgot to add to the last market post that someone yelled at Kwao, "How much for the tall one?" as another cat call. Pretty funny. I was called the usual names today with the addition of "Sweetie".

I took a much needed nap after i got back and woke up to thunder and lightening. It hasn't rained yet, but it looks like it will very soon. The thunder is frighteningly loud and booming, with crackling noises accompanying. You can expect to hear little Kofi start to cry approximately three seconds after the thunder. The sky is grey and the weather slightly less hot.

I spent two hours today fussing with Excel to try and figure out certain functions for inputting survey information. I knew more than I did before, like how to add a drop-down menu in. I also did reading today. I like the book The Practical Beekeeper by Michael Bush that I was lent. It is very straightforward and without scientific explanations, rare in a bee book. But it does have a lot of practical information. I didn't know before that people actually eat bee larvae....

Day 29: More bee bites, animals, and food

Went into the bees this morning. The queen rearing nuke had a colony that absconded suddenly. There were a few ants left in the hive, but it was still a mystery as to why they left. One colony was fine and the other was unfortunately queenless. The queen cell that we had given them never emerged and the larvae inside the cell was mummified. When feeding two other hives, we found a good frame of brood to give to the queenless hive in order to encourage them to make queen cells.
Here are some random pictures from the day.
A tiny frog:

Cocoa nut that I tried for the first time. The seed is sticky on the outside and bitter tasting:

I also had fish soup today! Jessica showed me how to make it. Basically, she boiled a few fish heads in water over the stove. Then, she added yam, potato, green onion, carrots, and herbs. It was delicious:

I also spent some time peeling beet roots today for beet root juice. Yummy when it is ice cold:

Another (bigger) frog:

Day 28: Propolis and visitors

Made a propolis tincture today! The family had a ball of propolis in the freezer that they had collected. I made a propolis tincture with rum and shaved propolis. Basically, I grated the propolis finely and added it to about 5in of rum in a rum bottle. Then, I let it sit out in the sun all day. It is supposed to be really good for you for many reasons including minerals, anti-inflammatory etc.
The shaved propolis:

 The rum bottle with rum:

 Me grating the propolis:

 The mixture:

We had a pretty slow day today because we had some visitors come to stay.
Here is a picture of a tiny lizard:

I also went to the beach with lots of local people today. Later, I made more sugar syrup but the kitchen was full of ants. Kwao said that means it might rain soon.

Day 27: Bee bites and candles

Went into the bees this morning to take out the plastic feed bags. Might as well not make them work hard to get all the plastic out. Plus, we did some hive inspections while we worked. I learned the difference between a queen cup and a queen cell. Queen cups are built in preparation for a new queen to be laid. Queen cells are when the egg has been lain inside, which is capped 9 days later. Then, she emerges on day 16. Unfortunately, I got a bee sting on my wrist. They call them "bee bites" here but it means a bee sting. It didn't hurt to badly but limited my wrist movements for the rest of the day. 

My swollen hand:

 

I helped around the house today becuase there is a family coming to stay for a few days tomorrow. I painted the lower cabin and the entire kitchen. The kitchen included the fridge which rusts quickly becuase we are so near the ocean. 

Me painting:

 Close-up:

 We also made candles today with the wax we rendered! We melted the wheel of wax over the stove. We prepared the molds which meant cleaning them out and then placing the wick. This was tricky because the wick had to be straight and sit inside the mold. We tied the wick to a stick across the top to hold it in place.
Me tying the wick to a stick over the mold:

 Melting the wax:

 Me pouring the wax into the mold:

 Pouring the wax into the mold, which had a toothbrush instead of a stick to hold the wick:

 Enoch and I watching Kwao put the top-bar hive we worked on yesterday together. He nailed the front and back onto the sides:

 Nailing the side to the front is tricky because the side has to be held above the ground:

 The finished candles! We didn't put the wick in correctly on the big one but we are going to melt it down and try again...

Day 26: Sand and wax

Sifted sand this morning. We were all in a funk so Agape asked me if I wanted to do some hard work. It actually worked, too! (Don't get any ideas, parents). Anyways, we sifted sand, got our muscles and blood moving and it woke us up pretty well. We shoveled gravel into a sifter and sifted the fine sand into a pile. That sand went into bags (white bags) for use later.

 Agape told me to smile at least once:

 The onlookers, quite happy playing with old bike tubes:

We also rendered wax today! I have  been waiting to do this myself to see how easy the process was. It turned out to be very easy.I had gathered some yucky wax from feeding hives yesterday. During inspections, I often have to cut off comb, old comb, or side comb. We end up keeping it so that we can render it all later.
The bag of wax and the pillow case we used:

We boiled the wax in  about 4 inches of water on the stove, nice and hot until it boiled:

 It was hot in the kitchen, we had some visitors:

 After boiling the wax, we poured it into the pillowcase. The pillowcase went into a five gallon bucket which had a small hole on the side right next to the bottom. The part I did not realize was throwing out the initial liquid. We threw out the liquid that first came out of the bucket becuase it was mostly water. Agape showed me how to watch out for the indications of wax like oily surface and it sticking to the sides of the bowl. Once wax started to come out, we pressed the wax out of the pillow using a wooden device that fit into the bucket (there is a picture of it on the previous post about rendering wax).
The bucket system:

 Afterwards, we let the wax sit in the bowl until it cooled. The result was a wheel of wax that was mostly clean. Any debris that came through sank to the bottom of the bowl with the water as it sat. The wax can be melted again and filtered after this.
The wheel of wax:

 Dumplings for dinner, my favorite (as I've mentioned before). I love when there is a huge pile of them:

Kwao and I started on building a new hive using scrap tin for the sides. It got dark pretty quickly but we measured, cut, and assembled the two sides with tin and a wooden frame. Hopefully it will turn out alright becuase the tin was not square and it was a little off in nailing it together. Also, to avoid splitting the wood (if you are using wood that splits, which we were: pineboard) here are two helpful hints: turn the nail over and hit the tip a few times to dull it and don't put the nails in a straight line on the same grain of the wood. Kwao and I both liked the look of tin and wood becuase it turned out really sleek looking. We will build the rest of the hive tomorrow.

Nailing one side together:

Day 25: Feeding more bees and cooking

Got up bright and early today to go and feed the bees at other apiaries. We first did the wild hive down the road up on a hill. They looked pretty good but Kwao was worried about ants getting to the sugar becuase the hive is on the ground. Next, we did two neighbors' hives. One was next door and had been knocked over by goats previously (after surviving the hurricane). Kwao told me that goats often do that if the hives are around them. Other predators include birds, lizards, and frogs that will sit and eat the bees. We have the same thing at home with Blue Jays. The next apiary was another across town that they have with 10 hives (half top-bar, half Langstroth). We did full inspections on all of them to make sure they had queens. All of them most likely did, whether we saw the queen or saw signs of her (eggs or emerged queen cells). We also picked mangoes on the way back! Tons and tons of mangoes...
 Everyone was really happy to get lots of mangoes:

 Yum!

 I made dinner today! Jessica wasn't here so Agape showed me how to make a few dishes. It gets really hot in the kitchen! We made tofu with ginger, turmeric, tomatoes, onion, and celery. We also added in snow peas after. We also made rice with pimento seeds and thyme for flavor. Everything is cooked in coconut oil.
Me cooking the tofu:

 We also made a lime garlic sauce. We used 12 limes and 6 heads of garlic!

 The rice cooking:

 The finished product, with fresh pear on the side:

Day 24: The Market

Part of the intern experience here is going to the market at least once. It is very interesting and fun. After we dropped Tom off at the airport, Kwao and I headed over to the market in Kingston. People come and sell what they grow at stands inside (and outside) of a big overhang. The area is huge so there is a lot of competition for selling things. We walked all around and Kwao knew where to go and whether or not something was a good price. I felt like a peasant becuase all of the women were dressed up and I was in working clothes. One woman even commented, "You look like you got up early and love to work." There are men that stand outside of the market to help you carry things or look out for you. There are also men with long carts that will help you cart all of your goods out to your car (and you give them some money). We needed it for our 14 watermelons and huge bag of oranges amongst other things. We have to go to the supermarket every week to get most of the food for the week. We got lots of veggies like cabbage, peppers, carrots, cauliflower, potato, yam, and garlic. I also finally figured out that avocados are called "pears" here. I bought chocolate balls for making tea. Everyone was really nice and it was interesting to watch the dynamics. I also got called "whitey", "white girl", "pretty white", "China", and "Princess" which I was expecting at this point. I did not see another white person there. Went to the beach when we got home.

I also assembled more feed bags this afternoon but it was a disaster. I went all the way down towards the beach on the other side of the property to mix the sugar and water. It was still light out and the bees found me. Within five minutes, there were bees everywhere. I finished the batch that I was doing and then ran for it. I came back to try and quickly wash everything off and take it somewhere else. Whew! I'm not mixing during the day again. Last time we did it at night and that worked much better.