The Weekly Newsletter
Menus and Stories for May 5 - 9, 2008
Me and my new toys
WOW!  My bees finally arrived.  Jaime, our Catering Director, drove to Georgia to pick up our bees.  She carried mine to Asheville for me - a very sweet thing for her to do.  My sister Heather and my friend Ken were at my house with me and stood by, encouraging and documenting, as I installed them in their new home.

Here I am with my new bee jacket, new gloves, and new smoker.  (Jaime, much more courageous than I, didn't even use gloves or a suit when she handled her bees - an inspiration to be sure.)

Lighting the smoker
You might have seen pictures or movies of beekeepers puffing smoke into a bee hive.  This makes them quiet, docile, less concerned about intruders.  Lighting the smoker is easy, but keeping it lit is more challenging.  I didn't do very well with the second part, but Heather stood by, happily lighting match after match to keep me "smoky." 

Opening my first "nuc"
The bees traveled in this plywood box, called a "nuc"  which is short for nucleus, the center of the colony, as it were.   The white box is the actual bee hive. 

There were a few hitchhikers who hovered, concerned, perhaps, about their sisters.  After smoking the opening to the nuc, the bees slipped down to the inside of the box, making it easy to open the top with little interference. 

My heart was pounding at this point.  This might be the biggest thrill I've had in some time.  Utter pleasure, utter excitement.

Dinners to go
Dinners, as you know, come with a freshly-made green salad, salad dressing of the day, and made-right-here bread of the day. We take reservations until noon or so. Please order by phone (252-1500), by FAX (252-02002) or stop in to speak to one of us in person.

As a reminder, every time you order a dinner to go you are eligible to enter our drawing. Just drop a card in our drawing jar (a business card works or fill out one of the cards that we have right here) and, at the end of the month, we'll pull one card which will be good for two free dinners-to-go.

Maybe you'll win next month.

Order a lot? Enter a lot!
Good luck!!

Here is this week's menu:

Monday           May 5              Pecan Chicken in Citrus Cream 9.95

Tuesday           May 6              Eggplant Parmesan with Risotto 10.25

Wednesday      May 7              Oven BBQ Pork Roast with Balsamic Onions 11.25

Thursday          May 8              Shrimp, Arugula and Potato Scampi 12.25

Friday              May 9              Five-spice Tuna in Tuxedo Sesame Seeds 14.25

Our website
Special casserole of the week
We make a special casserole each week, usually on Wednesday. Order before noon and we'll have yours ready to pick up between 4:30 and 6:00 that very afternoon. (Yes, you can order in advance too.) Order a full for 9 portions or, if your gang is smaller, opt for the half-sized one, which serves 4 or so.

Say, we'll happily make a salad and provide bread for you if you like, just let us know when you call and we'll get you all set up.

Wednesday, May 7

Guinness Beef and Butternut Stew

Full: 38.75

Half: 19.50

Picking up the first frame
There are five frames of honeycomb and bees inside each of the nucs.  My actual beehives will accommodate ten frames for honeycomb and bees.  For now, the bees will be in my hives with a lot of extra room.  But soon, maybe today, I'll put the remaining frames in place.  Bees, it turns out, like to have a very specific amount of space.  If you give them too much, they'll fill up the extra with "burr comb" and that's messy and not so good in this setting. 

I LOVE learning these things.

Bees!!
Isn't this great? 

Here is one frame, filled with these very gentle creatures.  Each frame of this nuc hummed as I moved them from the nuc to the hive.  The second nuc's bees were not quite so calm, but Jaime told me later that they had been a bit more agitated for some reason.  I have heard beekeepers talking about the personalities of different hives.  This initial incident makes me understand that a tiny bit.

The installation
Frame #1 gets put into hive #2.  If you look closely, you will see a whole lot of bees in the nuc who did NOT feel like leaving their old home for their new home.  It took some cajoling and finagling but they finally cooperated and moved in.

Life is grand!

A Note From Laurey

Good morning.

Life is good here this morning.  Jaime is just loading up breakfast for the Obama folks.  Richard and marty have been here for a long time, making small quiches and big muffins and all kinds of great breakfast things.  Gladys Knight is going to be at teh breakfast and so are a whole lot of folks who, once fed, will spread out around town, encouraging voters to support their man.  It’s an exciting time around here these days.  The primary is on Tuesday and Asheville is wild.  Hillary was in town last week (I saw the top of her head) and Michelle Obama was here yesterday.  It’s fun to have this time of thrill.  And I’m sure we’ll all be glad, in a way, when it is Wednesday.  Do not forget to vote.  It really does matter.  Each vote matters.  Really.

Last night, instead of joining the Obama folks, I went home and tended to my bees.  It’s complicated, learning what to do.  As you see in the pictures, I got five frames of bees in each nuc, which I put into my beehives.  The beehives accommodate ten frames of bees. When I got my nucs I got caught off-guard.  It turns out that the wax foundation I HAD was the wrong size for the kind of bees I got.  Standard size is what I have but “small cell” is what I need.  I didn’t get the right kind in time and then it got cold here and bees don’t like cold.  It was not until yesterday that I could add the additional frames. 

Hive #1’s bees were genteel, greeting me with a warm buzz and polite indifference.  But Hive #2 showed its personality when I opened it, bees all over the place, lots of talking, lots of curiosity, lots of activity.

Bees like to have a very specific amount of space.  Give them more and they fill in with excess comb.  Hive #1’s bees had stayed on their frames, doing their work in a tidy fashion.  But the bees in hive #2 had other ideas.  They had made wild wax bridges in the extra spaces, trying madly to fill in.  Those extra formations get in the way eventually, so I had been told to cut them out.  I kept them and they are here next to me on my desk – crazy oval discs of very tidy honeycombs.  There is no honey yet so the discs are light as a puff of cotton.  I can’t stop looking at them.  What beauty.  What creations. 

Say – speaking of mothers, don’t forget yours this coming week.  Sunday is Mother’s Day.  We’ve designed a special Mother’s Day basket, all kinds of nice “Laurey’s” things, arranged, this year, in a shiny red colander.  My mother, like yours, maybe, is no longer here, but there are others who stand in for me.  Maybe that’s the same for you.  In any case, if you have a mother in your life, don’t forget about her.  She did a big thing for you or for someone else at one point.  She might like it if you remembered her on Sunday.

So – have a fine week.

I’ll be in touch in a few days.

 

Bee Geek
Ken couldn't resist this snap.  I think it's kind of dorky, but it does capture my glee of the moment.  It's nice to be filled with this silly pleasure.  Hmm, maybe YOU should think about keeping bees.

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