Bees and Mites

A TED talk with great bee footage and some clarification.

My friend Megg tagged me in a Facebook post that included a link to a TED talk titled “A Thrilling Look at the First 21 Days of a Bee’s Life.” If you haven’t seen this yet, you should watch it. It includes the most amazing footage of a bee hatching from an egg and developing from a larvae to an adult bee.

Watch it now. I’ll wait.

Wasn’t that amazing?

But I do need to set the record straight. During the presentation, the speaker, Anand Varma, says that beekeepers use chemicals to treat for mites. Although we can use chemicals, not all of us do. There are other non-chemical treatment methods. I use a combination of drone frames and screened bottom boards.

  • I’ve blogged about mites and drone frames:
    Bees: Installing Drone Frames
    Bees: the Drone Frames Really Do Work
    Bees: More about Mites

    Drone frames encourage the queen to lay more drone eggs, which the mites prefer because they have a longer gestation period. I then kill the developing drone larvae and the mites with them by freezing them (or feeding them to my chickens). I can reuse the drone frames.

  • Screen bottom boards replace the solid bottom of a hive with a screen that bees can walk on but mites fall through. Once they fall through, they can’t climb back into the hive. Sticky boards can also be used beneath screens to catch the mites and count them to estimate infestation levels.

A third technique I’ll try this year is using powdered sugar. You dust the bees with sugar and they clean each other off. As they clean off, the mites fall off and, if there’s a screened bottom board, they fall thought and exit the hive.

I believe that consistent and proper use of all three methods can reduce mite infestations without chemicals.

So while genetically engineered bees might be one solution that could be better, beekeepers have other cheaper and easier options available to us.

The Cricket Wars

Because crickets belong outdoors.

It started the other night at 1:50 AM. The sound of a cricket so loud that it woke me out of a sound sleep.

Like most people, I like the sound of crickets. To me, it’s a country sound, a sound of the natural world. It reminds me of childhood and camping and the great outdoors. It reminds me of star gazing and warm summer nights and forests.

A symphony of hundreds of crickets is a wonderful blanket of white noise to lull a person to sleep.

But not when a cricket is making its noise from the inside of your bedroom closet.

It was loud. Very loud. And because my home has very high ceilings, the sound seemed to echo around the place. Indeed, when I finally got out of bed to try to put a stop to it, it took me a while to zero in on the bug’s location. But I found it in the corner of the closet, hidden under some temporary shelves I’d put in there to stow my clothes until my official move.

This was not a small cricket like the ones you might buy in a pet shop to feed your caged reptile. Its body was at least an inch long.

A shoe made short work of it. I picked up its carcass with a tissue and flushed it.

And then I went back to bed.

I never did get back to sleep. Another cricket started up soon afterwards. This one wasn’t in the closet. I had no idea where it was but I knew it was indoors. Somewhere. Possibly in the living room.

I got out of bed to start by day. At 3:15 AM.

That night, on Facebook, I mentioned my cricket situation:

Found and killed the cricket in my bedroom, but the one in the living room is still at large. For now.

One of my friends commented:

Oh no! I’m sad to hear that, I love me my crickets! All they do is make music for you!

My response:

I suspect you haven’t had them in your bedroom with you. At night. When you want to sleep.

My friend Alix, who is in a doctoral program for entomology, said she could use one for her collection. She’s required to collect, identify, and mount several hundred insects for her degree. I’ve been collecting interesting bugs on and off for her for the past two years. I even bought special zipper snack bags to store them in.

So the next morning, when the cricket somewhere near my hallway started up again before 4 AM, I grabbed a snack bag and went hunting. The trick, I realized, is to be very quiet. If they hear you nearby, they shut up. It took about 10 minutes, but I finally zeroed in on my second victim. It was in my future linen closet — currently shelfless — against one wall. I put the baggie down in front of it and coaxed it in. Then I zipped it shut, took a photo, put it in the freezer, and showed it off on the Facebook thread.

Cricket Post

Alix later identified it as a male Gryllidae. (She is seriously into bugs.)

Later that morning, I heard a third one. I found it in my bedroom closet again. The ShopVac I had sitting in the hallway made short work of it.

That night, it was quiet inside. In fact, it was quiet for the next few nights.

Until 3:30 AM on Monday morning.

I found it in my closet, conveniently close to my household vacuum and closet power outlet. I plugged in the vacuum, positioned the hose nozzle, and turned it on. Whoosh!

After a quick tweet, I went back to sleep.

Since then, I haven’t been bothered by indoor crickets at night.

I did find one by my bedroom door to the deck yesterday afternoon when I went outside with a glass of wine to watch a rainstorm and listen to the rain on my roof. I scooted it outside with my toe.

And I’m pretty sure there’s one stuck inside the wall or possibly between the wall and door jamb downstairs in my entrance vestibule. I can’t find it and it doesn’t make noise at night. As I type this, it’s silent and I’m beginning to think it either found its way outside or has died.

Is the Cricket War over? I doubt it. I am more careful about leaving the doors open downstairs, though. I know I have crickets in my garage and I don’t really mind. But since I suspect they might have come in through one of my two vestibule doors to get upstairs, I now keep those doors closed. And the front door.

But I know who the winner of this war will be — and it isn’t the crickets.

Why I Buy So Much on Amazon

It’s all about quick and easy shopping.

I buy a lot of the things I need for my home and garden on Amazon.com. It’s gotten to the point that the UPS truck is at my place several times a week to drop off packages.

For a while, I felt kind of guilty about that. After all, the Wenatchee area where I live, has plenty of shopping opportunities. I should be supporting the economy by shopping locally.

Trouble is, the things I need aren’t always easy to find. Or they might take several stops to track down. Or — worse yet — I may simply forget to look for something I need while I’m out and remember a day or two later when I actually need it.

Hose Fitting
I went nuts looking for this $3.25 item in stores around town. Found it in five minutes on Amazon.

Here’s an example. I needed an irrigation fitting that would enable me to connect my automatic chicken waterer to my garden irrigation system. The idea is that when the timer starts up the irrigation system twice a day (for 10 minutes each time), it would pressurize the waterer’s water feed and top off the chicken’s water trough, which is shared by my barn cats. The irrigation hose already runs right past the waterer. Why run another hose across the garden entrance? One fitting and 10 minutes of effort and I don’t have to worry about water for my chickens or cats for the rest of the summer.

One fitting. You think I’d be able to track it down on one of my many visits to Home Depot or Lowes, right?

Wrong. Try as I might, I couldn’t find what I needed. In any of the four stores I tried.

Then I sat down at my computer and, in less than five minutes had found and ordered exactly what I needed. It would be at my doorstep in two days without any more driving or searching or frustration.

Do you know how many stores I visited, looking for a microwave that would fit on my kitchen’s microwave shelf without looking like it belonged in a dorm room? Home Depot, Lowes, Sears, Save-Mart (the local appliance store), and even Walmart. Basically, every store that sold microwaves. But again, a few minutes on Amazon and I’d narrowed down the search to the ones that fit and matched my other appliances. Then it was just a matter of picking the one I like best. A few days later, it was on my doorstep.

I bought the wrong vacuum cleaner bags for my old ShopVac three times (and returned them three times) before I did an Amazon search, found what I needed, and ordered them. I didn’t even bother trying to find the vacuum cleaner bags for my household vacuum; I just ordered them on Amazon.

I needed ghee — a clarified butter used in Indian cooking. Local supermarkets didn’t have it. Amazon did.

New battery for my Roomba? Where could I possibly find that locally? Found it on Amazon in minutes.

Want to help support this site?

Use this link when you shop at Amazon.com. A tiny percentage of your purchase will be sent to me as a referral fee. It won’t cost you anything extra and you’ll still get the great product selection and service you expect from Amazon.

And I think this is the reason online shopping poses such a threat to brick and mortar stores. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s affordable, and it often comes with free shipping — including return shipping if you decide you don’t like it.

It’s Friday and the UPS guy has been at my home four times (so far) this week. I’m expecting him today with that irrigation fitting. Yesterday, I apologized to him for so many trips down the two miles of gravel road to get to my home. He said he didn’t mind. When I jokingly suggested that it was people like me keeping him employed, he laughed along with me and agreed.

And I’m just happy to be able to save time shopping so I can get more important things done.

“Street Style” Breakfast Taco

Quick and easy hot breakfast for one (or two).

I go through phases with my breakfast choices. Although I don’t mind yogurt with granola or fruit or even cold cereal with milk and fruit, I do enjoy a hot breakfast. The trick is coming up with something that’s relatively healthy and quick and easy to make.

Preferably something that uses eggs. My chickens make five per day, on average, and they accumulate quickly.

That’s how I came up with the idea for a breakfast taco. I’m talking about a so-called “street style” taco that uses a soft corn tortilla — not crunchy “gringo Mexican” taco shells — with the ingredient tucked inside. Fold it, pick it up, and enjoy.

Here’s my recipe for one.

Ingredients

  • Breakfast Taco IngredientsSmall amount of oil or cooking spray. I usually use olive oil spray to keep the fat down a bit.
  • 2 tablespoons chopped onion or sliced scallions. About once a week I chop up an onion and store it in an airtight container in my fridge. This keeps chopped onion close at hand. Some folks use frozen chopped onion and I don’t see anything wrong with that. Sliced scallions work, too, and have the benefit of cooking faster. The taste is milder, though.
  • 1 large egg.
  • 2 tablespoons shredded cheese. I use a Mexican blend, but you can use any kind you like.
  • 1 taco-size corn tortilla. Get the real thing if you can, in the Mexican food area of your supermarket or, better yet, in an Hispanic food market. I buy them 10 in a bag and keep them in the fridge or freezer. (Just noticed that these are “hand made style” — whatever the hell that means. That’s what happens when you shop without your glasses.) I’m pretty sure my tortilla press is around here somewhere; I might actually make them from scratch one of these days.

If you’re one of those people who likes salsa on your tacos, get some of that, too. I’m not a fan of salsa on anything other than chips so I don’t use it.

Instructions

  1. In a small skillet over medium heat, heat the oil or cooking spray.
  2. Add the onions or scallions and cook until softened and just starting to brown at the edges.
  3. Cooking EggGather the onions or scallions into the middle of the pan and drop an egg on them. You might want to use this opportunity to break the yolk so it cooks. I don’t scramble my eggs before cooking, but you could if you want to. Just make sure the egg stays together in the middle of the pan so it doesn’t get larger than the tortilla.
  4. When the egg has cooked on the bottom, lower the heat and flip it.
  5. Immediately sprinkle the cheese on the egg and lay the tortilla on top.
  6. Cook until the egg is done the way you like it — over easy? over medium? — and then flip it again so the tortilla is on the bottom.
  7. Cook until the tortilla has heated through and the cheese is melted.
  8. Remove to a plate, spoon on salsa (if desired), and fold in half.

Enjoy!

I used to wait until after flipping the egg to break the yolk. That kept the yolk in the middle. Now I break it right away. I also use a pot cover to speed up the cooking process.

You can make two or three of these at once if you have a larger skillet or a griddle.

Is this a healthy meal? Well, I don’t think it’s unhealthy. After all, it uses a minimum of added fat and has fresh ingredients such as onions and eggs. Minimizing processed foods is one way to keep your diet healthy — who knows that’s in those “hand made style” tortillas I bought? The way I see it, it’s a lot healthier than breakfast pastries or sugar-filled cereals.

How to make it better? That should be obvious: skip the oil/spray and sauté the onions/scallions with some chopped bacon. Now we’re talking.

Two-Language Packaging Done Right

An example.

I’ve always been interested in marketing. I think it goes back to a marketing course I took in college when I was a freshman. That’s when I began to realize how the choice of words in marketing copy could mislead potential buyers without actually lying. It’s also where I learned how packaging colors and styles could influence purchase decisions. I still think all that is fascinating.

The trick with packaging is providing all the information a potential buyer needs when in a store making a decision. I’ve been buying a lot of items — including small tools — as I continue working on my living space so I find myself relying, over and over, on what’s written on packages to determine which options go into my cart.

I should point out that it’s not only this part of Washington that has a large Spanish-speaking population. It’s any agricultural area in the United States. It’s also many major population areas where hispanic immigrants do the kind of labor Americans simply don’t want to do. While some folks can argue that “Mexicans are taking our jobs,” the truth of the matter is that if immigrant labor disappeared, a lot of jobs would be left unfilled and a lot of work simply wouldn’t be done. (This was the topic of the 2004 movie, A Day Without a Mexican.) I’m not trying to start a political debate on the topic here — I’m simply pointing out my thoughts on the matter based on what I’ve seen over the past few years in the farms and cities of Arizona, California, and Washington.

This area of Washington has a large hispanic population. It’s all because of the agricultural work done here. Let’s face it, Americans don’t want to get their hands dirty planting orchards, running irrigation lines, pruning trees, spraying pesticides, or culling, picking, or sorting fruit. Much of this work is done by migrant farm workers, especially in the busy picking season. But year-round there’s a core hispanic population. These folks live all around us, send their kids to our schools, and shop in our stores. And while most of them have some English-speaking skills — or even speak English fluently — their primary language is Spanish.

A lot of Americans get angry when they see a preponderance of signage and packaging in two languages. Oddly, they seem more angry when the second language is Spanish than if it’s French, but this post isn’t about the politics behind their anger. It’s about finding a compromise that provides the necessary information in both languages without putting the second language in your face.

And that’s where I think this product’s packaging succeeds.

English Packaging
The front side of the packaging is entirely in English.

Spanish Packaging
The same information is provided in Spanish on the back side of the packaging.

It’s a tool I bought in Home Depot, a pad with a handle that’s designed to paint along edges. I bought it because I need to caulk and then re-paint the area around my windows. I don’t want to get paint on the window frame. Based on the information on the front of this package — which is entirely in English — I decided that this tool would do the job and I bought it.

It wasn’t until I opened it up today that I realized the back of the package pretty much duplicated the front — but in Spanish. The name of the tool in big, bold letters (Edger = Bordes); a list of suggested uses (Doors, windows, ceilings & baseboards = Puertas, ventanas, cielos razos y zócalos) the three steps to use (Load, Paint, Release = Cargue, Pinte, Despreda); and even the tag line (A PERFECT EDGE EVERY TIME = ¡Un Borde Perfecto Siempre!). Even the actual numbered instructions were in two languages, but with Spanish played down in a smaller font size. It was all there, in black and white instead of color, on the back instead of the front.

How could that possibly offend a flag-waving, anti-immigration American? Yet it provides the information both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking people need to know that the tool is, what it does, and how it works.

Anyway, I thought I’d take a moment to share my thoughts on this great solution to a politically charged issue. Well done, SHUR-LINE. ¡Olé!