Home Sweet Honey

May 17, 2011

On my last post, I neglected to mention another great coastal Ecuador blog being written by Nancy Levin in Salinas called "Finding our Paradise in Ecuador". Because Todd and I share our laptop, and our internet time is somewhat limited at home (or we are paying from an internet café), we often only have time to take care of the most urgent while connected.  I don’t have as much time to cruise the net as I used to, and have only recently discovered this likable and helpful blog.

A few weeks back, Todd and I suspected and discovered a beehive residing in the chimney of our neighbor Big Deck Doug’s beachfront house (the one owned by Doug & Pam, my brother Jack, and a couple of other partners). Fortunately, the abejas (bees) weren’t coming into the house because the flue is shut, but we needed to address the issue. 

 We spent the last weekend watching this most interesting 2-3 day process, which involved removing some cement chimney blocks to enlarge access for hive removal (gulp…we hoped these guys knew what they were doing, and they did “assure” us they knew how to restore chimney after their bee job). It also included a lot of smoke and requests for any and all cardboard cartons, strainers, and empty plastic containers. Even though our bee guys, Faustino (the bee maestro) and Jimmy suited up for the job, they are brave guys in my book, because it turned out to be a HUGE hive. 

Large honeycombs were pulled from the nest (Todd and I suppose probably close to 20 pounds were pulled out) and a few honey combs were put into a “bee box”…Some of the bees followed the honey combs; the queen fled, and the rest migrated with her. The hive was left to calm down for the night, because they were pretty mad. They swarmed all over the area during this part, and observer German Mike got stung twice in the face. Most of the rest of us watched from a distance.

Faustino and Jimmy came back later that night to show us how to hand-squeeze the honey from the combs (which still had a few angry bees adhered). We split the honey with Faustino and strained the rest into all available jars for the rest of us (see pic below). 

We’ve had natural honey here before (which is delicious) and this batch is particularly yummy – sweeter and thicker than that which we’ve tried before, and just a touch of spicy. We’ve been lapping it up and I’m sure the gang at Big Deck’s house are going to enjoy the large jar we have saved for them (they are all coming back down in  a few weeks).

The next day the queen’s temporary retreat was easily located nearby, because she was surrounded by thousands of bees under the carport. Faustino placed the “bee box” (with slit openings) nearby, and eventually the queen and entourage migrated to box during the day. By dark that night, most all bees were in the box and calm enough to be transported back to Faustino’s bee farm on the outskirts of Olon.  Faustino has invited us to come see his bee operation soon, and we are looking forward to the tour. *

Leigh, Kyle and Neville

We also recently had a fun family of three from Texas (Leigh, Neville, and their son Kyle) stay with us for a few days. Leigh H. (yes, first name spelled the same as mine) and I met via this blog and began a lively and friendly email correspondence a few months ago. Their family was planning a trip to the coast of Ecuador, and wanted a rental home for around a week in our area during Easter week (Semana Santa is the week before Easter).  Semana Santa is more or less the “last hurrah” of the coastal busy season and accommodations can be hard and/or expensive to find.  Todd was inundated with requests for that week, and all of our accessible rental homes had been reserved or occupied well in advance (and the best nearby hostels also had no availability). We had nowhere else to go to ourselves with relatively short notice for the holiday week, so Leigh H. suggested we share our house together.  We were initially hesitant because we don’t currently offer any kind of “bed and breakfast” option, and we didn’t know what to expect about sharing a house for a week with folks we’d never met in person, and I’m pretty sure Leigh H. and her family may have had some likewise concerns. But after a few frank discussions, (and she and I hit it off well) we all agreed to try it.

As it turns out, we had a great time together. We gave them the master and second bedroom upstairs (each with an adjoining bath) and we took the downstairs bedroom. Todd and I enjoyed our time with Leigh and her husband Neville (who are from Houston) and their 13-yr old son, Kyle who was so polite, and thoughtful (he brought some of his favorite gifts to share with the kids here) and a ball of fun. Leigh and I got along wonderfully, and it was a joy to share the week with their family. Neville’s hand was injured in Salinas shortly before he arrived, so he was a little down for the count on some activities, but he was a great sport, taped up the injury, never complained, and it wasn’t until they returned to the States that they discovered he had broken several fingers.

Kyle, preparingfor
the zipline adventure

I raised daughters, so being around adolescent boys is always an interesting experience and a fun treat for me (gosh, they have so much energy!). And much like my time with our part-time Olon neighbors Dan and Kelly’s sons (Thompson and Harris), Kyle and I had a ball!  We played twister, went boogie boarding, watched scary movies, and went zip-lining. We had a lot of fun, but I’m telling you - this ol’ middle-aged body hasn’t had that hard a work out in a long time (hey - try playing twister with knees this age…).  The day they left, I was good for nothing but a day in bed watching DVD’s and napping. 

Leigh kindly brought several goodies on my wish list and also a couple of other items I hadn’t thought of: several reusable/recyclable cloth grocery bags and a pack of assorted greeting cards. I brought a couple of the reusable grocery bags with me when we got here, but I’ve worn them out, and they are invaluable on my shopping expeditions for groceries (much easier to carry the heavier items without worrying about the plastic fundas (bags) breaking, and a lot more convenient to condense the various store bags into one a cloth bag while shopping, and for the bus or taxi ride home. And the greeting cards were truly inspired!  Hell, it’s hard enough just finding envelopes around here, let alone stationary cards.  A while back, I unsuccessfully looked all over Olon and Montanita for a condolence card when our friend Juan died ("Going, Going...Juan"), and ended up improvising one from our computer (sans envelope, and before our printer died in our rental apartment flood).

Leigh had a chance to shop for the hammocks she wanted to take back to Houston, and Neville had an opportunity to jam with some local musicians one night at popular restaurant in Montanita.

Warming up before the show

All in all, we had a great time together, and we now share some delightful memories with new friends.

Daisy continues to bring us a great deal of joy, and follows us around where ever Todd and I go. I think she has some herding instincts because it’s more like she’s walking us than the other way around.  A while back I went shopping for dog collar at the only store in Olon that has pet supplies.  I could only see harnesses for dogs. Didn’t know the word for “collar’” and my gesturing included slashing at the harness shoulder bands while saying “sin” (without) and wrapping a nearby leash around my neck (and – now this is really hard to explain….The store owner indicated he understood by wrapping another one around his neck). So there we were when this lady walked in……

Daisy with neighbor kids
Jefferson and Adrianna

*  All bee photos courtesy of visiting guest Terri Ediger