Friday 27 February 2015

Romania blanket #1 for 2015

I've been making crochet blankets for a charity that helps out in Romania for a while now.  Apart from anything else it gives me a chance to try out new techniques.... and well if it doesn't go perfectly well, well I'm sure if you have nothing a slightly wonky blanket will keep you just as warm as a perfectly straight one.

A chance acquisition of a stack of granny squares meant I could try out joining granny squares together....


Can you tell I've never done this before?


oh well,
hopefully it will keep someone warm!



Thursday 19 February 2015

Rendering wax....

So having fed the bees I found myself left with a whole washing up bowl of beeswax that I'd had to cut,chip and scrape off the top of the frames....


Up close it is possible to really appreciate how beautiful bees wax really is.


Not many people know it is white when the bees exude it from the wax glands in their abdomen.  The bees then strengthen it by adding  propolis, and thousands of "dirty" yellow pollen covered feet walking over it contribute to the gradual yellowing....





 

On these "fresh from the hive pieces that have barely been used the yellow cell rims are really clear.

But however beautiful it is, it isn't much good to me in this state,for a start I need the washing up bowl back!  So its time to get rendering.

In short, that's melting and filtering to clean up the wax.  I got this method out of a copy of Beecraft and it is really quite simple,as long as you can lay your hands on an old slow cooker.  A good friend rescued mine from a charity shop...

Pop a bowl in the bottom and part fill the cooking pot with boiling water, prop a seive over the bowl and line with nappy liners....

 

Start loading the wax,pop the lid on and adjust the temperature so the water is gently simmering...

 

Keep checking,and feed in more wax as it melts through, you can see the scum being held back by the nappy liners...

 

 

Pretty soon a pot of lovely, clean melted wax is accumulating below all the scum...


In fact it seemed to be dripping through thick and fast so I commandeered some old plastic take away boxes to allow it to cool down to one side so I could keep working my way through the whole bowl full...

 

Gradually the bottom of the bowl began to appear....


The cooling wax however had a strange, gritty, shiny granular coating to it....


Which puzzled me for a while.  Then I realised it was probably the remains of the crystalised honey from inside the honey comb.  There was nothing else for it - it needed to be washed away,  (as honey is super concentrated sugar solution then re-diluting it returns it to a wash away fluidity) and after rinsing a second filtering.....


produced a much cleaner scummy residue.....


and a much cleaner bowl of melted bees wax...


which slowly cooled and solidified to a beautiful creamy coloured block of wax....

Though I must confess I was surprised, and not a little disappointed, that a whole washing up bowl of wax came to a mere 10.2g!!!


Maybe I'll just hold it, and stroke it, and breath in its lovely smell occasionally!




Wednesday 18 February 2015

No such thing as a happy hungry bee....

The bees have been active at almost every available opportunity in recent weeks, perhaps I was being overly positive hoping they were finding nectar whilst foraging.

There was certainly a lot of litter from wax cappings underneath the hives, suggesting that they were needing to chomp their way through some of what was stored in there.....



After yet another stretch of dank miserable grey days the sun was shining (with no real appreciable warmth admittedly) today so I decided it was time to investigate what is actually going on in the hives...

As soon as the roofs were off I could see it was significantly different to the last time I opened them just before Christmas....

For a start the bees were beginning to spill up through the holes in the crown board...

 

Bees tend to move upwards in the hive when they are looking for something to eat - the top of the comb being where they naturally prefer to store honey....

Lifting the crown board it was even more apparent that they were hungry....

Hive #1 today....


A good number of them have come up to look for food.  There is some honey in all that brace comb they built - but most of it has been licked clean and they have even chomped their way through the fondant boost I gave them, hence the straggle of clingfilm left behind....

And before Christmas they were all snuggled up downstairs and the comb was full of honey...


Hive #2 similarly all snuggled up and not a bee in sight before Christmas....


completely different story today...


I hadn't given this hive any fondant before Christmas, as it seemed as though every cell in that comb was packed with stores.  But looking closer today I realised that pretty much all of it had crystalised, so was likely to be ivy honey.


There's no particular problem in that - except that the bees need to add water to be able to consume it, and if they can't get out of the hive, because of bad weather to get some water they can quickly be in trouble.  There was nothing else for it, I just had to chip out some of that comb and give them some fondant so I'd know they had something to eat...


Hive #4 hadn't eaten much of their fondant at all....


As soon as I started clearing away the empty comb it was clear why.  Just the slightest damage to the full comb and it started to leak still liquid honey.  I guess  these girls didn't find the ivy source, or didn't stock up on as much of it as their neighbours - anyway they certainly seemed grateful to lick some honey up today!



So there they are....well fed and hopefully happy now!

Sunday 8 February 2015

February early foraging

The weather is due to warm up to about 7'c today, which is a nearly double what its been for the last fortnight.  The sun has also managed to break through so it is nearly perfect for a quick forage out of the hive....for those bees that haven't read the text books about bees not flying under 10'c!!!

There is a choice of winter clematis....


Winter honey suckle...


Crocus galore... 



or snowdrops for those prepared to forage on the shady side of the garden... 


It looks as though the sunshine has really brought out the foragers...



Really glad to see bees flying in and out of all four hives...


I'd rather they were flying than inside reading text books...





Saturday 7 February 2015

Flirting with felting

I got to enjoy a Christmas present today, BIG thanks to 'im indoors who spotted that our good friend, the lovely Yvette at Starjumparts, was planning on running a couple of workshops for beginner felt makers.

I've been fascinated to see the felts that Yvette can make,  how can something so robust and yet so soft come together from the teasing and squeezing of some fluffy woolly fibres?  It would be a mystery to me no more!  Armed with my lunch, an apron and a towel I set off for East Ham.

Red Door Studios is a former glass works that is now used as studio space...It is a fascinating space as there is something new and interesting to look at in every corner...




Yvette was busy organising all the kit we'd be using....

 

 

I realised I needed to pay attention as they seemed to have a particular way of dealing with misbehaving students...


On with the demo!
Thumbs up and wave to separate the fibres and then lay them (overlapping) on their bubble wrap, towelling and bamboo mat...First one way, then the other and add a decorative something....

 


Then it was our turn....


Mine sort of looked like a squished tribble....

 

Having artfully arranged the fibres,  it was time to wet them together...note the high tech wetting gadeget (milk bottle with holes in the lid)


Then it was a case of gentle rubbing to start ot massage the fibres into one another....


Check for lumpy dry bits standing proud of the surface and rub again!


Then straighten the edges...


My tribble is looking a little flatter and soggier now....


Now for the hard work!  The felt needs to be rolled 200 times in every direction ....north, south, east and west....top side and bottom side....

 

Looking quite different after 400 roles....


and another 400, a rinse and a quick press.....


After a quick bit of lunch it was time to get a bit more adventurous!
Strippy spotty tribble this time....


and I discovered its not easy to take pictures of the felt when making it against the clock as your hands are always wet and soapy....

Don't panic -the spots are on the other side.....


Can't believe these are the left over bits!


and as everyone's appeared from out of the bubble wrap I realised I hadn't been very adventurous!



But I did indulge in some bits to bring home with me; so guess what I'm going to be up to during half term?
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