Speaking of slaughtered pigs, my Appalachian grandfather used to say you can harvest everything but the squeak — a culinary tidbit that was unsettling to my preschool self. It turns out that the plant version of the versatile pig is lovage, Levisticum officinale. Every single part of the plant is good for something, from the […] Read more
I’m an anxious person. I stress over everything, especially this website. So when Rich came home with yesterday’s mail, I imagined bills, registration notices, reminders, and special offers for things I don’t recognize. But among the mundane notices sealed in window envelopes was a card-sized piece. The hand-written address immediately piqued my curiosity. I recognized […] Read more
Recently, I’ve been told that the answer to any beekeeping question should begin with, “It depends.” This always makes me grin because the very first blog post I ever wrote—nearly eleven years ago—is titled, “Well, it depends.” Other beekeepers said it before me, of course, but I’ve repeated that advice thousands of times in the […] Read more
CRISPR headlines make the news every day, served with a side order of alphabet soup that can make your head spin. To say the acronyms and initialisms are off-putting is an understatement. However, CRISPR technology is here to stay and it will change our lives forever, so a basic understanding is worth the effort. At […] Read more
Running a website makes you a target for verbal abuse. Many people cannot—are actually incapable of—leaving a comment or question that isn’t couched in expletives, four-letter words, and insinuations about your intellect and parentage. It comes with the online territory and you get used to it. I usually just ignore these outbursts, but recently one […] Read more
Those new to the world of bees often believe that honey bees can pollinate anything. Some beekeepers are barely aware of other pollinators or the great diversity among them. But the single-pollinator theory couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead, millions of years of evolution have brought plants and specific pollinators together, each trading for […] Read more
Is it true that honey bees will store dry pollen substitute but not pollen patties? Is it possible to overfeed pollen in the fall? To answer the first question, picture a bee’s anatomy. The entire organism—front to back and top to bottom—is designed to collect pollen as dust. In the field, electrostatic charges accumulate on […] Read more