Day 14: Snorkeling

Went snorkeling today down the road near the Robins Bay Hotel. Kwao took us after we had gathered all the gear we needed. We started at a calm beach and swam around until Kwao knew where he wanted to be headed. It was truly amazing. Kwao describes snorkeling as visiting another world, almost like another planet. I agree entirely. The sensation of floating on the top of the water, observing other life forms with the sound of your own breathing, and the feeling of only the roll of the currents is unique. It was hard work, though, and a great workout.

Some cool things I saw:

• Lots of interesting coral
• A starfish
• Sea fans
• Lots of urchins
• Fish: needle fish, Sergeant Major Damselfish, Caribbean Blue Tang, pufferfish (only ones I could identify by asking or looking online) but saw many more. A few in particular struck me: one very dark blue with electric blue spots, bright yellow fish, long silvery fish with a blue head, and dark brown fish. 

Yesterday I recieved lots of interesting websites and PDFs from Agape as resources for reading. It all looks so interesting and I have already delved into it all. I am constantly learning in one way or another here. 

Day 12: Nuke check

This morning, Taylor, Lauren, and I checked the nuke that we had placed queen cells into. I did not know what to expect, so it was really interesting. Out of the three sections, the first queen cell had emerged and the colony looked just fine. The second section also had an emerged queen but the bees were making supercedure cells. These might be mistaken for swarm cells, but are quite different. Taylor gave me a really great explanation of the difference. Swarm cells are relatively easy to tell and they are on the sides of the comb. These are for when the bees might want to swarm. Supercedure cells, as we saw, are in the middle of the comb. These are for an entirely new queen becuase the current queen is old, worn out, or weak. The bees in this section might have made the supercedure cells before the queen emerged as an insurance becuase they had no queen yet. The third section was in the worst situation, with no emerged queen and multiple supercedure cells on each side of the comb (again in the middle). We did not know why the bees would do this. One possibility was that the queen cell that we placed in there was not that great.
We did not want to do anything, such as squish down the extra queen cells, until we had talked to Kwao. It was very interesting and am I reading up more about the process and the types of cells. I have found beesource.com to be useful except that the article I was reading was about Langstroth instead of top-bar. The article is here: http://www.beesource.com/point-of-view/walt-wright/are-they-supersedure-or-swarm-cells/

Went to the beach today and did lots of reading as well.

Keep the Bees.

What is Top-Bar beekeeping?

There are many ways to "keep" honey bees, one of which is called Top-Bar because of the structure that is built. The white boxes that are seen in orchards are Langstroth hives, which is the hive of choice for most beekeepers. These are boxes with 10 frames inside that are standardized. Skeps, or wicker hives, are no longer used much (and illegal where I am) because they are difficult to monitor for disease and the colony often has to be completely removed to get the honey. To learn about Langstroth hives, I recommend reading The Hive and the Honey Bee by Langstroth himself. Quite an interesting fellow from Pennsylvania that studied bees in the 1800s and considered the father of modern beekeeping. 

Anyways, Top-Bar beekeeping uses a completely different structure that is considered more "natural". The structure allows the honey bees to construct comb entirely on their own in a more natural shape, which is hanging. I will learn more about it hands-on in Jamaica but I have read about the concepts in two books.

I read a lot and will reference books throughout my posts.

Day 1-Long post about everything

Some tidbits about my stay so far:

Woke up today to a fresh ocean breeze. My cabin is very comfortable and a great set-up with tile floors, a bathroom, and wide windows. I am staying with two other girls, both interns. Our cabin is down the hill from the kitchen so I walked up this morning for breakfast. The meals are cooked in the kitchen and this morning was rice and dumplings which was very satisfying. I entertained the boys (there are five of the little rascals) for a bit so that Agape (Mom) could get a break. 

There is a flow here of people, food, and work that is hard to describe, but easy to fit into. Meals are three times a day and the family and interns wander in and out of the kitchen. There are also lots of visitors of friends, family, and neighbors that wander in and out. The big, wooden kitchen table is used for eating, reading, games, and computers and is the main gathering area on the farm.

We got ready for the summer camp kids to come and view the bees as a field trip day for them. There were two large groups of kids from a local summer camp that came, got on veils, and took a look inside the hives. It was really fun and the camp is led by a Christian group, so there were volunteers visiting to see the farm as well. It went pretty well, but there were around 50 kids (in two groups) so it was a little hectic. We had lunch afterwards which was very low key with everyone hanging around the kitchen and doing things.

I helped the other intern water the plants, becuase she is the insecticidal soap project intern. They are looking to establish a working recipe of an insecticidal soap that works (there is none right now). People in the area that don't want to use pesticides try essential oils etc and try things from word of mouth, but nothing has worked as of yet. Afterwards, us three girls went down to the beach and cooled off. They have been collecting sea glass for awhile, and I just started to. The water has lots of rocks which most of the beaches in this area have. But the water felt amazing, we picked up a sea urchin, and had to run inside becuase it rained for about 5min. There is clearly a storm coming in from the north (grey mass of clouds) and it is supposed to rain tonight. Shouldn't be too bad though.

Everyone here talks about the hurricane, and a common topic of conversation is "before the hurricane....". It really affected the farm here, destroying many plants and the family had no time to prepare to store water, food, tie up everything etc. Hurricane Sandy was the most devastating by far.

There is lots of reading. Everyone reads, there are books scattered everywhere, and there are hours in between activities to read in a hammock or during a meal. I am in heaven. Or paradise, considering a ripe mango fell of a tree right in front of me today, and I picked it up and ate it...so delicious and juicy.

Beekeeping:

• The smoker smelled SO good, I couldn't believe it. We use lemongrass (they call it fevergrass) to fuel to smoker and it smells amazing.
• I barely wore anything and was just fine, it was too hot to fuss around and the bees were calm (as usual).
• The bees looked Italian to me at first, but I noticed when one was in the kitchen that is was much darker looking. I could not see any stripes on it as it was flying but they are there. I don't know what kind of bees they are, but apparently most think that it is a native Jamaican honey bee not related to European or other common honey bees.
• I can't wait to learn how to build a top-bar (the other interns have learned) and about upkeep and harvesting. The other interns are leaving by August 1st so I will be alone for three weeks doing fun things with the bees.The hives have bamboo covers on top of the metal covers for shade. There are about 40 bars across one 5-foot hive. 
• Langstroth hives have one standard size for comb because it is imprinted on the frames. In nature, though, bees make different size cells based on their needs. Top-bar beekeeping is based off of that knowledge and mimics nature by letting the bees make thier own. Comb is never re-used becuase it is all harvested. Langstroth hives are done in such a way that comb is reused. Extractors are used to save the comb, but the cells are used so many times that debris builds up and the cells become increasingly smaller and dirtier. Top-bar avoids that and comb is always rebuilt.
• One comb broke off (comb failure) so I watched Agape repair it by using a repair frame and tying the comb back in with twine. Once they harvest from that hive, the comb from that frame will be harvested and the repair frame will no longer be needed. VERY cool. Nothing wasted.

So much in just one day! I am learning about the farm and settling in still. I am relaxing and loving it. Looking forward to Saturday becuase we are helping the neighbor with a big fun day they are having.