I knew you were serious. Interesting, are they good? I ate various insects abroad and never found them objectionable I have to admit.
Hi Olly, I have another video on how to make your own sea salt
Life will go on, however not as we knew it. As some industries close, others will open. I think social distancing will be the biggest thing we’ll have to get used to. As well as washing our hands, especially after handling money. I might offer a tray for my customers to place money into.
Ha! Evaporate sea water in salt pans.
Not me. I’ve been self isolating for the past 40 years.
Hi Olly, they ARE good. We haven’t eaten any since making those videos. When you think about it. It would have to be the cleanest, greenest, most nutritious food we could acquire.
Greenest on account of zero kilometers required to get it onto the plate. Zero litres of water used to produce it compared to thousands of litres of water required to produce 1 kilo of beef. On top of that, I don’t believe bees produce methane.
No. Never heard a bee fart.
I won’t be trying it myself, but at the same time I’m curious what they taste like. Insects are indeed a very healthy and sustainable food source and we better get used to eating them.
I’ll have to add this to my list of swarm management techniques !
It was a good technique to use foundationless frames. In recent years I’ve been selling nucs, therefore I no longer use foundationless frames as a means of swarm control.
It’s the wires, rather than the foundation that’s good not to have if you want to harvest larvae with your technique. I use nylon fishing line, which is easy to cut anyway.
If I’m following this tread correctly, you wanted to buy stainless steel tanks to store your honey, you didn’t find any… so now you are eating your bees???
Just in case you haven’t eaten them already and still chasing tanks, I have one tip - do not get a tank much bigger than you need if you are going to store your honey in it. The less air there is the better so you don’t mess the water content of honey, and make sure it is air tight.
Bon apetit.
There’s no need to use wire or fishing line if you want the bees to make drone brood, or any brood for that matter as a means of swarm control. All you really need is wax under the top bar, just to make sure the bees build on that frame as you want. If you’re not quite ready to eat bee larvae, I’m sure the chooks would love then & no doubt would produce tastier eggs.
That’s all provided you don’t want to expand your apiary & have no one wanting to buy nucs etc.
That’s great advice @Zzz, my thought exactly.
Yes. That’s why I didn’t want one larger that 20L and I rather have two smaller tanks than a larger one. Easier to handle too. I have two hives (max maybe three) and usually harvest 3 frames/hive at a time.
I never sold nucs (I did sell a complete hive), and I’m very unsure what’s the market for nucs like here. You have to sell nucs in a certain time frame and I do not want to end up with more bees than I can handle.
I sometimes see them for sale on Gumtree but do not know whether people trust nucs from Gumtree. I prefer to buy from reputable sources myself.
Having more bees than you can handle is not a bad problem to have. You don’t have to house them in nuc boxes. I house them in 10 frame brood boxes so there’s plenty of room for them to expand into. I sell nucs on a byo box basis. Sometimes the colony is too large to sell as a nuc. In that case I sell the nuc sized colony, including the queen. Then let the remainder make a new queen. That’s what happened with the last one I sold last week.
Thanks all for the chat.
I got one stainless steel drum today. Not flash, but for $59.90, not too bad.
It was advertised that it can hold 25kg of honey, but calculated volume at 40L, so that’s more like 55kg of bee sweat…
I’m gonna need another hive…
I’ve eaten raw bee larvae out of curiosity. Not much of a taste… I reckon marinated and seasoned, it would be nice.
Hi Fred, it has a certain sweetness. They say you are what you eat. If that’s true, bee larvae is royal jelly, pollen & honey. When you look at it like that, bee larvae/pupae can’t be all that bad.
Just picked up this thread Olly. Not sure I would put honey in 202 grade stainless steel. 316 stainless steel is the only one approved and used in commercial kitchens over here. I would be worried about corrosion with anything less over time.
Cheers
I reckon he’ll be fine. A hobby beekeeper settling honey at room temp is very different from a commercial kitchen cooking acidic foods at high temperatures.
It may last 900 years instead of 1000.
I remember a post about someone getting a metallic taste after straining their honey thru a ss strainer from memory it was put down to oxidation.
Not saying 202 will, just a heads up.
Hi skeggley. 300 series stainless is more rust resistant that is why it is used in commercial kitchens and marine applications. 200 series will definitely not leave a metallic taste, definitely not any more than plastic. It may however superficially rust on welds especially around the handles. Not stirring and using sharp utensils inside the tank will also help prevent pitting.
My understanding is that these tanks are only used for decanting not long term storage because they are not air tight.
Any off taste might come from not cleaning properly before use especially the chinese stuff that usually come with a thin film of oil on them.