Rhubarb

I love rhubarb. Everything about it is so lovely. The plants have big, huge leaves that look awesome in your garden. The stalks are a beautiful mulberry hue. You can cook it slowly, softening it with some sugar into a tasty, sweet treat. You can chop it up and saute it in with your stir fry. Then it retains a bit of that celery-like crunch. Rhubarb is spring's perfect treat.

Rhubarb also has the magic of bringing me back to my grandmother's kitchen when I was about 8 years old. My grandmother made everything from rhubarb in the springtime. My sister and I were sent out to her small city lot patch to carefully pull up the delightful stalks. I watched her wash and chop them, getting ready for rhubarb pie, rhubarb crisp, strawberry rhubarb jam and tomato rhubarb jelly. I'm so thankful for rhubarb every spring. It's a chance for me to spend some time reminiscing about my beloved grandmother. It's also my turn to fill my kitchen with those wonderful smells so that my girls can share in a little bit of Grandma Grace love.

If you have a favorite rhubarb recipe, please send it to me!

The Bees' New Home

So, the bees have relocated. I'm sad, sad to say. We got our bees a bit early and were in the middle of permit negotiations with our neighbors when we realized that having them in the city was just not going to happen. There is a lot of fear around bees, mainly, I believe, because we just don't have naturally occurring honeybees around any more. We're surrounded by hornets, wasps, bumblebees ~ all of which are more aggressive than the honeybee. The other fact is that simply, a lot more people are allergic to stings than ever before. One of our neighbors, we found out, carries an epi-pen with her because she is literally deathly allergic to stings. I wondering if humans' growing allergy is at all related to the fact that honeybee populations are on the decline, both naturally and commercially. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse

Since last Friday night, the bees have been exploring their new digs at my parents' cabin in Amery, WI. There are plusses and minuses to this new location. Believe it or not, the city is the best place for bees as far as pollen goes. If you live in Minneapolis, look around. The number of flowering trees and plants in our city is immense. The farm fields surrounding the cabin don't have nearly the diversity of nectar that the city offers. On the plus side, there really are no regulations for beekeeping in their area, so we can expand our hives as much as we'd like in the future.

Following their move, we inspected the hives for the first time after their installation. We were a bit worried because we took the unconventional approach and gave them empty frames with no foundation. Sure enough, both hives are thriving. They have already built out a number of frames with beautiful, natural comb. Back to the comments about nectar abundance, the comb had many different colors of nectar backed into the tiny compartments. Much of the nectar they collected in their first week was from the gigantic crab apple tree across the alley, which was their source for red nectar. It was so cool looking! I took pictures on my mom's camera, so I hope to have those soon.

We're heading up again this weekend because all of our hive bodies and equipment should be arriving this week. We'll be able to give the MN Hygienics a proper hive box.