Time to Start Thinking about Fall

Tomorrow is August.  The sultry heat saps your energy.  The lack of rainfall is concerning as the grass withers and is 'crispy' when you walk on it.  We wonder out loud, "when will we get respite from the heat?"  We patiently wait.  But, we prepare, too, for cooler days ahead.

With a change of season and, hopefully, rainfall, we anticipate putting in the fall garden.  We begin looking at our inventory of purchased and saved seeds.  We start looking at planting dates for different crops.  We've always saved seeds to plant from our best produce.  This year, for the first time in forever, we saved our snap bean seeds.

Toward the end of the spring crop, I marked several of our best plants and marked them.  We stopped harvesting the snap beans from the marked plants and allowed them to mature and then dry on the plant.  When totally dry, I picked the pods and set them on our drying rack to continue drying.  We had just finished curing our onions on the rack, so we had space.

I cracked open the brittle bean pods to expose the snow white seeds.  This variety is Blue Lake Bush.  We also saved three other varieties.

Some of the seeds had blemishes, but some were absolutely perfect.

We packed them away in dark vitamin bottles that we save for this purpose.  We label the bottles and date them. 

We should have enough saved so that we don't need to purchase any - at least for the fall.  We really enjoy eating fresh green beans that we harvest whole and then bundle and wrap in bacon.  It is a nice side dish for Thanksgiving Dinner.  We'll see what type of germination we get on the saved beans.  In looking at my planting calendar, you can plant a fall crop of snap beans in mid to late August.  Goodness, that's only two weeks away.  If we get a good rain, you can bet your bottom dollar, these seeds will be in the dirt.

Roosters to the Freezer

Saturday morning we woke to the crowing of roosters near our bedroom window.  It has become a frequent and regular occurrence.  With a number of roosters occupying a limited space with many more hens, it's been quite a commotion.  That ends today.  Friday evening I set up all of the stations that we use for butchering: The Killing Cones, The Scalding Cauldron, The Plucking Machine, The Evisceration Station, and the Chill Zone.

Let's get this party started.  I turned on the fire to the crawfish pot and watched it, monitoring for the exact moment when it hit 145 degrees Fahrenheit.  Then I aim to keep it there.  Too hot and you'll cook 'em.  Too cool and the feathers won't come off.  I went and picked out the two roosters we wanted to keep.  They made the cut.  The others will make their places of abode in our deep freeze.  We put the first four roosters in the cones.

Head down, with buckets underneath to catch the blood.  Usually we bury the blood in the garden, but this time, my neighbor wanted it to make catfish bait with.  We slit the chickens' necks and allow their heart to pump out all the blood.  When bled out, they die.  The cones hole them tight.

Time for scalding.  We add some dishwashing liquid to the pot.  This allows the water to get beneath the feathers during the scald.  I dunk them deep into the water for about a minute.  To test, I pull a big wing feather and tailfeather out.  When they both come out with ease, they are ready for plucking.

To pluck, we simply toss the bird in the barrel, turn on the plucker and spray the spinning bird with water.  The feathers start to fly.  Pretty soon, there are no more feathers left on the chicken.

The homemade plucker that me and two friends put together works beautifully.  It literally takes of 99% of the feathers.  During quality control, we may pull a feather or two off, but overall, this machine saves us a LOT of time and effort.  You can see the results here:

Tricia is the Corporate Director of Evisceration Administration.  Armed with a sharp knife and the knowledge of how to use it, she guts the bird efficiently.  Keeping that in mind, I mind my Ps & Qs around her.

Once the birds are gutted, they are washed up and then put in a tub of cold water to continue cooling down.  After we're done, we dump out the warm water and refill with cool water.  We bring the tub inside and pack with ice.  The birds will stay on ice for 24 hours while the birds go through rigor mortis.  Then we cut them up and bag them.  Since (most) of these are small roosters, we don't know how tender they'll be to eat after cooking on the BBQ pit.  Most of these will be used this winter in Homemade chicken soup and Gumbo.  Both cooked low and slow, allowing the meat to become tender.

EPILOGUE:    In the "you live and you learn category," I'll share something with you.  To determine who lived and who died, we selected the two roosters we wanted to keep.  The rest of them would be butchered.  It was hard to count exactly how many roosters with them all moving around.  I thought I counted 8 in total.

As we kept filling the cones, I realized we had more than that.  At the end, we had butchered 16 birds.  I wanted to make sure I had them all.  On the last pass, I gathered 3 remaining birds.  The had a big comb, long tailfeathers, and the beginning of a spur on the side of their leg.  3 more roosters, I thought.  Got to get those, too.  Since they are young, they're a little hard to tell.

Once we butchered those, Tricia was gutting.  She said, "What is all this yellow stuff?"  I walked over to inspect.  It was egg.  Oh no!  I had mistakenly killed 3 hens!!

You can see all the eggs at different stages lined up within her.

This is a big mistake on my part.  This hen (and the two others I mistakenly killed) would have laid 300 eggs per year.  That mistake cost me almost 1,000 eggs a year.  I should have waited and watched and allowed the ones I wasn't 100% sure of to grow until I was sure of their sex.  This was a teachable moment for me, for sure.  

On the bright side, we added 16 chickens to the freezer and we'll enjoy the fresh, hormone-free, antibiotic free birds in delicious home-cooked meals this winter.  

The Cock's Clock is Ticking

The drama in the chicken tractor is impossible to ignore.  The crowing (loudly) commences at first light.  Then, the romance starts.  The pullets outnumber the cockerels, but they are mighty amorous.  The squawking and carrying on leads to fights between roosters for their 'harem."  Feathers fly.  Tempers flare.  The pullets seem stressed.  It's past time to do something.

I'll talk about that in a minute.  Each day we're picking up three to five eggs from the pullets.  I tried to put a nesting box in the chicken tractor, but they scratch all the hay out of it and lay on the ground.  It's time to move the hens to the pasture.  The eggs the pullets are laying are small.  It takes two pullet eggs to equal one regular egg.

I was talking to my wife about thinning out the herd (or flock in this situation).  You need 1 rooster to service 10 hens.  We have about 30 pullets and to the best of my ciphering, I think we have 8 roosters.  We plan to pick out three of the best looking roosters for keeping.  We'll introduce them to the flock in the pasture along with the biggest of the hens.  The five roosters that didn't make the cut will be butchered this weekend and we'll put them in the freezer for the upcoming gumbo weather this winter.  You can see some of the roosters in this photo whose days are numbered.  Who am I kidding?  All our days are numbered.

Once the excess roosters are processed, things will be more serene on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  There will be peace in the valley.

There will be peace in the valley for me some day

There will be peace in the valley for me, oh, Lord, I pray

There'll be no sadness, no sorrow, no trouble I see

There will be peace in the valley for me

Farewell to Billy Boy

Billy Boy is a Devon bull.  He's got a heart emblem on his right shoulder (see below photo) and that is appropriate, because that's why he's been on our pasture for the last couple of months.  His job was to romance, woo, and breed Rosie and Elsie.  It is time for him to go.  Our grass, with the lack of regular rains, is in short supply.

Our friend that loaned him to us has a sale for him in St. Francisville.  Perfect!  I borrowed some panels from my friend and set up a makeshift corral.  One morning this weekend, I brought some hay and sweet feed into the corral after closing the nosy goats in the barn.  The three cows and Billy Boy followed me into the corral.  I quickly escorted the ladies out and closed up Billy Boy.  It was nice and easy.

He didn't like being confined.  He used his horns to lift the corral, but he wasn't successful in breaking free.  His horns, however, got a nice, green paint job!  I watered him and then called my friend to come get him at his convenience.

He backed his truck up to the gate and I cracked the gate to the corral.  Alfalfa hay was tossed into the front of the trailer.  Ol' Billy Boy sniffed at it and walked slowly toward it.  I got behind him and just like that, he was up in the trailer.  The back gate was closed and Billy Boy was ready for a road trip.

So, was Billy Boy successful in breeding Rosie and Elsie?  That's a good question.  We saw them breed - several times, in fact.  Elsie came back into heat several times, but this last time, it appears she was successfully bred.  We didn't palpate them, so we don't know for sure.

We'll have to wait and see.  LuLu, we think, was bred by the registered Jersey Bull, Nick, who came courting.  She should be calving later this summer.  It has been a drama-filled summer with Billy Boy and his horns.  It'll be nice to have only our docile, horn-less Jersey cows in the pasture.  Peace.  At last.

Plants that Interact With You

I was walking to the mailbox yesterday afternoon and something caught my eye.  It always pays to be observant and cognizant.  That really paid off the other day when I spotted that yellowjacket nest in the wood chip pile!  They would have torn me up.  This particular thing I saw wasn't a dangerous thing, it was something that reminded me of my childhood.  Check out this 'weed' growing on the side of the road by the mail box.

Have you ever seen that before.  The leaves resemble that of the mimosa tree.  This is an interesting little plant.  It is called the Sensitive Plant.  It is in the pea family and its Latin name is mimosa pudica.  it makes a pretty little pink puff ball flower.  Something neat happens if you reach down and touch it, like I'm doing below.

Upon touching, the leaves quickly close and stay closed for a few minutes.  Then they open back up.  It is thought to be a protective, defensive tactic to scare off animals that eat plants.  Notice how all the leaves are closed.

As kids growing up in the country, we spent a lot of time touching all the leaves on this plant when we'd find it in the woods and watch as all the leaves closed up.  A time-waster, for sure, but it was something the Good Lord put in our path to keep us out of trouble, I guess.  I crouched by the side of the road like a kid and made all the leaves close.  I'll never grow up, not me.

Like A Cow Lookin' At a New Gate

When a new gate is installed, cows will stare at it in puzzled fashion.  The old saying, "You're lookin' at me like a cow lookin' at a new gate" means simply that - you're puzzled or confused.  I've heard this saying often in country churches when a preacher says something and doesn't get an "Amen" from the congregation.

That saying pertains somewhat literally to our rumination today.  Our back yard butts up against the pasture where the cows, goats and chickens roam.  We have a large gate that you can drive through on the eastern side and a small gate that you can walk through a little west of that one on the east side of the garden.  If you want to get to the western side of the pasture, you must climb over the fence by way of a pool ladder that is placed precariously over the hog wire fence with a tight barbed wire strand running on top.  The pool ladder is rickety and I have nightmares of it falling and causing one of us to be impaled on the metal T-post!

Time to do something about it.  I purchased two treated 4x4's, an 80 pound bag of concrete and a four foot gate.  I dug two holes with my post hole digger, set the 4x4's in the hole using a level to make them true, and mixed up concrete.  I let that cure for 24 hours and then cut the existing fence, and hung the gate, using zip ties to fasten the hog wire I cut from the fence to the gate.  That keeps the chickens from getting out into the yard.  Here is the finished product:

The live oak tree has a big limb that arches over it, making a nice shady place to enter or exit the pasture.  This entry point makes it convenient to let the cows into the backyard to "mow" the grass.  I've only mowed the yard (with an actual lawn mower) two times this year!  You can see the reel for the electric fence in the photo below.

Once installed, the cows indeed looked at the new gate.  All was good.  Or was it?  After the cows looked at it closely, I did, too - with scrutiny.  Do you notice something about that gate?

This American built gate disappoints me.  It must have been quickly welded together either on a Friday, when the workers were eager to knock off or on a Monday after a hard weekend.  The three top horizontal pipes that make up the gate are not level!  Now that I've seen it, I'll never un-see it.  It still functions as a gate, just aesthetically, it leaves a lot to be desired.  I should have scrutinized it more closely upon purchasing.  It is a good reminder to inspect before buying.  It's also a good reminder to always take pride in your work, whatever it is that you're doing.  I'm not gonna sweat it, though, it works and the cows no longer look at it.  I've been running them through it daily to eat the grass in the yard.

What to do with a Broody Hen?

We have a hen in the hen house that is broody.  That means she is in a "motherly way."  She wants to set and hatch out some baby chicks.  Every afternoon when I gather eggs, there she is sitting in the nest.  It's so hot!  I feel sorry for her.  Each day I've been picking her up and collecting eggs and closing up the nesting boxes.  If you don't close them, at night they roost in the boxes and poop in them.  That makes egg collection a mess.  Then you have to clean the eggs which removes the 'bloom' and reduces their shelf life.

When you try to pick her up, she makes agitated noises and fluffs up her feathers.  Lots of animals do this to scare you off and intimidate you.  What to do with a broody hen?  We don't need any more chickens.  I have a number of hens and roosters in the chicken tractor that I'm about to merge in with the flock in the pasture.

Well, my neighbor had an answer for the broody hen.  He has a number of fertilized guinea fowl eggs.  They are lavender guineas.  The eggs should be fertilized.  We'll see if ol' broody girl is going to set on them, hatch them, and raise them as her own.  The day before yesterday, I put all the guinea eggs underneath her while she was setting.  She let me!  Today she got up, but got right back on them once she ate.  Here's all of the guinea eggs:

They are about 3/4 the size of a chicken egg.  I should have counted them, but I didn't.

Guinea eggs have a harder shell than a chicken egg.  When I was growing up, we'd use boiled guinea eggs for pocking.  Pocking eggs is a Cajun French tradition.  On Easter Sunday you "pock" your eggs together to see who has the hardest egg.  My great grandma would always bring them.  I always wondered what "pocking" meant.  Pâques is the French word for Easter.  Maybe that's why?  Pocking is the sound made when hitting two eggs together.  Maybe that's why?  

We will see in a little less than 3 weeks if our broody hen is successful in hatching out some lavender guineas.

Save it for a Rainy Day

Do you remember a few short years ago when toilet paper was in short supply because everyone was hoarding it due to a respiratory virus?  Then there was a chip shortage and people couldn't buy or repair their cars.  I work for an insurance company and body shops are still having difficulty finding some parts.  Broken vehicles sit unrepaired and status shows "NO ETA."  My wife was in the grocery store last week and they were having a brown-out due to limited electricity.

As I think about these things, if toilet paper is in short supply, there are other (albeit uncomfortable) alternatives.  If we can't get computer chips or car parts, well, there are worse things.  With lack of power, yes, things get uncomfortable.  But what happens if the grocery store shelves are empty?  With the "just-in-time" inventory method in place, stores don't have a big inventory sitting in the back room.  What would you do?  Have you thought about it?

I have.  You might say, "We'll plant a big garden!"  Stellar idea.  But what happens if you can't get seeds!  THIS ARTICLE tells us that during the pandemic, the Michigan governor banned seed sales.  What if there was a run on seeds and there was none to buy?  "Don't eat your seed corn" is a valuable life principle.  Every seed that you have can either be eaten OR saved to plant for next year's crop.  Make sure you always save seed for next year.  

We do that.  First, you must ensure that you are buying non-hybrid seed.  We buy our seeds from www.rareseeds.com and save seeds from our crops every year.  It's just a wise thing to do.  We've just completed saving a few items.  Here are some blackeyed peas:

These are some black turtle beans:

These are some Ozark Razorback peas (I see I have some blackeyed peas that jumped into this bowl):

These are my new favorites - Blackeyed Butterbeans:

Here are some purple hull peas:

And finally, some purple teepee beans:

Here they are.  I'll store these away and date them.  I did an experiment and planted some Ozark Razorback peas that were 11 years old.  The germination was down, but I anticipated this and planted them super close.  They grew and produced!

It's always good to be prepared and save seeds in the event you can't get them.  You can save some money by doing this, too!  Then, if you have too many, you can always eat the remainder that you don't need for next year's seeds.  The fun thing about it is that you can always trade your seeds for other people's seeds that you don't have.  I like to try new things in the garden.  Time to check your seed inventory for the fall crop.  Save those seeds!  

A Brief Getaway

We've been radio-silent for a few days.  I had a conference for work that I had to attend to get some CE credits to keep my license active.  Spouses were invited.  They put us up in a hotel in Baton Rouge near the river.  It was my wife's 57th birthday, so it was a good opportunity to celebrate and relax.  Russ took care of the animals while we were gone.  We left Thursday at noon and came back Saturday at 3 pm.

On Friday evening they loaded us up on buses and took us to Top Golf.  It's essentially a multi-level driving range with food and drinks.  You are awarded points for hitting the ball into certain targets.  The computer tracks the distance of your hit, the speed, the curve and the hang time.  It was fun, but I am no golfer.  In fact, I'm dangerous.  I teed off and sliced it.  The ball ricocheted off the ball box, hit me in the face and then bounced through the table where everyone was eating.  Embarrassing!

Tricia was much better!

We had a nice time!

On Saturday afternoon, we walked down the Mississippi River levee.  The water level was low.  In the background, the red letters spell out B A T O N  R O U G E.  Sometimes the water level is above the letters.

Here's a nice shot of the Mississippi with the I-10 bridge in the background.  I was checking out the soil at the base of the steps.  No telling where this rich, alluvial soil washed down from.  I was thinking it would be good to take some of that home with me and incorporate into my garden.

There was lots of barge traffic on the river.  The one behind Tricia appeared to be loaded with scrap iron.

Then it was back to a half day of classes.  The last one was interesting.  They were talking about investigating electric vehicle fires.  The presenter, a fire chief, asked if any of us owned an EV.  It was a room of about 125 people.  No one raised their hand.  He told us that it was the wave of the future and than Canada plans to make it illegal to sell an ICE vehicle in Canada after 2035, I think.

He told us something very interesting.  He said that his fire department and many others have a policy of allowing an EV to burn down without trying to put them out.  The reason?  Water reacts violently with the Lithium batteries.  It takes approximately 3,000 gallons of water to put out the fire, but then the water is contaminated and toxic and runs off into the soil and drinking water.  So, to combat this, they just let them burn out.  

I'm trying to figure out how EV's are good for the environment???

Go Yellowjackets!

Yellowjackets was the mascot for my high school.  We often said, "Go Yellowjackets!" in relation to sports teams competing at my high school.  Today, we'll use that phrase in a different context.  The other afternoon, I was talking on the phone.  I don't like to sit down, especially while talking on the phone.  I'm in a habit of walking around and talking.  If I can do two things at once, all the better.

I was walking down a river rock path that leads to the garden in an area of the yard we call "the grove."  There is a canopy of shade that's cast by live oak trees, Bradford pear and pecan trees.  We have some piles of wood chips that have been decaying into good, rich compost for a couple of years now.  I'll move this stuff into the garden with a pitchfork and wagon, and it will turn into topsoil in the garden in a couple more years.

As I was walking, talking, observing my surroundings, something caught my eye.  Thank the Good Lord that I noticed.  Something was flying.  At first I thought it was bees.  It was not bees.  The insects flying were going into (and out of) a hole in the mulch pile.  Can you see it?  It is in the center of the photo below:

I got up close and zoomed in.  Can you see 'em?  Those are bad boy, right there!  Some call them yellowjackets.  Some people call them ground hornets.  Whatever you call them, if you stir up a cloud of these angry critters, you'll be sorry.  If I had busted into that pile with a pitchfork, you would have seen this ol' boy run!  Notice that you can see they made some "paper" to round out their hole.

I told Tricia to watch her step around the mulch pile.  I'd hate to see the little lady get tore up by yellowjackets.  I promised her that I would deal with them after work on Tuesday.  I made good on my promise.  

We haven't used charcoal lighter fluid in years since getting a 'charcoal chimney.'  I had a bottle of lighter fluid that has been sitting in the garage for years, aging.  This will be its defining moment in lighter fluid lore.  I stealthily crept up to the yellowjacket nest, opened the top, and squirted a long, straight stream into the entrance to the nest.  It was like Luke Skywalker flying his X-wing starfighter into the Death Star to deliver a fatal blow to the Empire.  Perhaps I'm being a little dramatic, no?

Numerous yellowjackets came out of the nest, before succumbing to the fumes and perishing.  I didn't get stung, fortunately, nor did anyone else.  Go yellowjackets!

Madder Than a Wet Hen!

So we're going to lay all the cards on the table in today's episode.  Sunday is a day of rest at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  We sleep a little later, then get up and feed the animals, have a cup of coffee and a good breakfast at a leisurely pace.  Then we get cleaned up, put on "church clothes" and leave for Sunday School at about 9:45 am.  Except this past Sunday, the routine wasn't as leisurely and relaxed as it normally is.

It was a little after 7 am and I was deep in REM sleep.  The fan was blowing on me, the bed was oh so comfortable and I had just flipped the pillow over to the cool side.  Then, all of a sudden, there's loud banging on the french door to our bedroom.  I groggily walk over, lift the shade, and peer out.  It's Tricia.  She says, "All the chickens are out!  I need help!"  

"But it's the Sabbath," didn't seem like the right thing to say at the moment.  I'm especially glad I didn't try that after thinking of our Lord saying the following: 

"And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?"  Luke 14:5 KJV

I got dressed with the quickness and headed out for our first annual chicken rodeo, grabbing two crabbing nets from the garage on the way out.  We have a chicken tractor in the back yard with approximately 50 birds in it that we hatched out of our incubator.  I'm about to butcher the roosters and set the hens loose in the pasture, but the last batch of hens aren't quite big enough yet.  Note to self: I need to speed this process up.

Everyday I feed and water them 3 times a day and move the tractor to fresh grass.  Apparently, somebody (OK, it was me) forgot to close the door securely the previous night and in the morning all 50 birds were out, scattered around in the yard.  By the time I got out of bed, Tricia had filled the gutter with feed and had about half of them back in.  She's quite a chicken whisperer.

This is where things got dicey.  Normally, we're a good team and work together well.  But she had a plan to get them back in.  I had a plan that differed.  Her plan was to work together and gently "herd" the chickens in, leaving the door to the tractor open.  I immediately saw a fatal flaw in that plan.  My plan was to use the nets to catch them one by one.  She didn't like my plan.

While trying her plan, which involved leaving the door open, she walked behind the tractor and all the birds that were in the tractor got out!  I might have criticized that maneuver.  I went out to the barn to do the normal chores and let the situation cool down a little in the back yard.  When I got back, I got the net and chased those doggone birds until we caught all but four.

Tricia was legitimately upset with me because she said she's not a man and can't run around catching birds on a Sunday morning before church (especially when I left them out).  She's 100% right, you know.  I apologized profusely.  I didn't want the sun to go down on anger even though it wasn't even 9 am yet.

After Sunday School, we sit together in church.  But, I perceived something was awry.  There was a Bible and a Sunday School book between us.  Where we generally sit close together on the pew, there was a sizable distance between us.  A neighbor came up after church and noticed the wide neutral zone between us and asked "if there was trouble in the camp?"

Tricia told him about the chicken rodeo and the resulting fall-out and we all got a good laugh out of it.

All is good now.  There are several morals to the story:

1. Communication is key!
2. Teamwork is crucial!
3. Remembering to secure the door to the chicken tractor is a top priority to achieving Sabbath rest!
4. I have a gracious, loving, forgiving wife.

Mid Summer Bee Update

The "flow" is over.  In our area, when the Chinese tallow trees bloom, things kick into overdrive in the hive.  Bees are bringing in nectar and honey production is on!  We had one major problem this year.  A drought!  It rained less 0.3 of an inch in June.  The grass stopped growing.  Plants stopped flowering.  Things slowed down in the hive.  Trouble in Beeville, indeed.

We began fervently praying for rain.  Not only does it affect the bees, but our cows, goats, and chickens enjoy fresh, green, tender grass growth.  I reluctantly rolled out the last round bale we had from last year.  I was rationing it for a special occasion - sort of an emergency pantry, you might say.  Well, this is it.  The cows promptly ate it in less than a week.

An experienced beekeeper friend stopped in for a visit and wanted to check in on the hives to see how they were doing.  Good idea!  We opened the two boxes and inspected.

I'm not too big of a man to admit when I make mistakes.  I made one.  The 'super' is the box that you put on top of the deep brood box on the bottom.  Really, you want to add the super once your bottom box gets 80% full.  If it gets too full, the bees could leave.  We didn't want that to happen, so we added a super.  It was too soon.  The bees moved up.  So now they are in the middle 3 or 4 frames of the bottom box and the middle 2 or 3 frames in the top box.  The other frames haven't been built out yet.  

We did see capped honey, pollen, eggs, larvae, and capped brood.  The colonies are healthy, yet small.  It is for this reason that we may not pull any honey this year and simply allow the size of the colony to grow.  I can get honey from my friend in exchange for labor when I help him pull honey from his boxes.  Sweet!

One note of bad news before we move on.  The colony of bees that live in the column on the side entrance of our home is gone.  They have been there for years and years.  On certain years they have left, but always another swarm eventually moves in.  We're hoping the same thing happens again.

In our little herb garden, we allow the herbs, like mint, dill, and parsley, to flower and go to seed.  Here is a honey bee on the parsley.  Busy as  a bee.

As I looked across the garden, I spotted more honeybees that had made a bee line for the dill that was flowering.

They are working hard!  One more thing I wanted to show you.  When you work your bee boxes, you have to use your hive tool to break the glue-like material (propolis).  It is made of bee saliva, beeswax, and material bees get from plants.  They use it to make a sealant.  It has great health benefits.

When you break the boxes apart, most of the time, you break open honeycomb, exposing the sticky sweet goodness.  The bees don't like it much that you've broken apart their home and have disturbed their food.  They gather around it to pick it all up and to repair their broken home.  Pretty neat photo below of them circled up around the honeycomb.

The trouble with this is that if you left it alone, when you go to put the boxes back together, you'd crush these ladies.  We don't want to do that.  So, we use the hive tool to scrape the honey and the comb off of the frame and put it in a cup.  When you walk far enough away from the hive, the bees will leave.  At that point, you can take off the suit and enjoy a nice sweet snack of honey and comb.