Honey 'n Beans

These are Blodgett Canyon Baked Beans and there is a story attached to them. This recipe is from Lonnie Gillette who posted the recipe and story on Camp-Cook.com

 The Story from Lonnie Gillette: "I call this recipe Blodgett Canyon Baked Beans in honor of my good friend Don Mackey. He and I spent much time in Blodgett Canyon in the Bitterroot Mountains while we were growing up. He went on to become a Missoula Smoke Jumper and was killed in the Storm King Mountain Fire in Colorado. A bronze statue memorializes him about 1/4 mile up the canyon trail and you can read about his death in the book, "Fire On The Mountain" by John Maclean. Raise a glass to Don prior to comsumption."

Blodgett Canyon Baked Beans

Combine the following ingredients in a large mixing bowl:

3/4 lb. bacon ends & pieces or thick cut bacon, trimmed of excess fat and fried
1 med. onion, chopped and fried with bacon
1 16oz. can pork & beans, drain excess liquid but do not rinse
1 16oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 16oz. can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 C. ketchup
1/2 Tbl. honey mustard
1/2 Tbl. cider vinegar
1/4 C. brown sugar
1/4 C. molasses
pinch of salt
pinch of freshly ground pepper
1 shot of bourbon

After mixing thoroughly, transfer to a bean pot or 10" dutch oven and bake at 350 F for 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. Stir once or twice during the cooking process and a little water can be added to obtain desired consistency or if the beans are drying out.

The beans as they went into the oven ( this is can be done with charcoal but I am inside today.)  A new high end organic food store, Sprouts, opened down the road so I got my supplies from them today.  That meant making a few adjustments to the recipe.   I did not have honey mustard so I added Dijon and some of my own honey.  I resisted the temptation to add garlic but I did toss in a small can of chopped green chili peppers.  Sprouts is too organic for Pork & Beans.   I used canned Great Northern beans and doubled the molasses and brown sugar.  Then I added another 1/3 cup of honey, just because.  Found the Wild Turkey American Honey last week.  It is little too sweet for my tastes but it served as the bourbon called for in the recipe. That shot of Wild Honey on the stove, that was for the Chef and a salute to Don MacKey.

Pour your own and join me in a toast.  Slainte!

Honey Of a Fourth

 

Pure Honey

Originally uploaded by dmb90260

The Playa Vista bees had swarmed earlier in the month even after I had added a third super.  I had done it too late and neglected to move some of the frames with brood or honey up in to the new super. In the dog world we refer to this a "handler error."  Bees do what bees will do but sometimes we mess up and make it harder for them.  As noted in "Bees In Lavender" I had captured the swarm three weeks ago. They were still in that nuc sitting in the lavender bushes and needed a new home.   My neighbors are very close and I did not have enough space to justify keeping them.  I needed to check into the Playa Vista hive and fix some frames with messed up comb and I also wanted to inspect the Twitchy Bees.  I had not been deep into the hive for a long time.   I made a deal to handle all of this.

                             

On July 3,  John Lyons arrived with  his 11 year old son Arguna (with his own bee suit).   We would inspect the hives, make any honey decisions and he would leave with a nuc of nice gentle bees.  This was a win-win-win situation.  Arguna would learn more about beekeeping, so would I and I had time to take some pictures.

The #4 super on the twitchy bees had some activity and comb but not much so we left it alone and set it off to the side.

This is what we found on the end frame of #3 super.  Beautiful full capped honey.

A couple of frames in and it looked like this with brood surrounded by capped honey.

It was like this all across the super.  We did not go deep enough to look for the queen.

With another full capped frame on the other end, these bees had been busy.  I think the number of bees was down from before and they were no longer twitchy.   We had almost no aggessive behavior out either hive.   I think they may have swarmed and I did not know about it.  In the process the new queen may have mated with nicer bees.  I am guessing about that but I am very happy with the quality and amount of honey they are producing.

We harvested two combs.  When John cut the comb off he left a 1/4 inch of comb on each to use as a guide.  Those two frames were put into the #4 super to encourage the bees to move up and then we closed that hive.  Other than a quick peek we did not bother the brood nests on supers #1 & #2.

On to the Playa Vista hive where John and Arguna checked everything very closely with a head to head inspection.  (Is this a form of mind melding in the bee world?)

They were able to spot the queen swarm cell.

John also spotted the queen on this frame  but she kept moving back and forth on the bottom and I was never sure I got a shot of  her.

 One of the frames was missing on the bottom super due to odd honey comb.  We fixed that and then Arguna swapped a couple of full frames up to the top super to encourage the bees to move up more.  The hive was closed and that part was done.

John and Arguna wrapped up their nuc of bees for transport home.  

 But first the comb had to be crushed.

That brought out all sorts of four legged and two legged honey inspectors present,

 Arguna gave his taste of approval.   The honey was left to drain while I took the dogs out of town away from the noise of fireworks.

The honey is great and a small harvest is better than no harvest.  This honey is from the Twitchy Bees which I got from Kirk in September of last year, it has been a while but well worth it.

You have to good to your workers.  While I was gone with the dogs I found Some Russian Sage to reward the bees.    

This really was a honey of a Fourth.
(Special thanks to John and Arguna)