Get New Midlife Hobbies..... Bee Keeping - Ep 10

In this week's episode, Tish talks about the new hobby she started doing with her adult daughter, Meme.  Tish and her daughter took up beekeeping last year.  And this year Tish and another friend started their own hive.  Tish tells us about some amazing  Bee facts you may have never heard before.  And how many times do you think Tish has gotten stung?

We talk about why in midlife we all need to start a new hobby to keep things interesting in life.  By the end of this episode, we hope to inspire you to go out of your comfort zone and try something new. 

We will also have pictures on our Facebook page The Midsters Podcast

This week's obsessions:
Tish:  Honey Butter Crescent Rolls
Ellen:  Wordle and the New York Post mini crossword puzzle

1  12 oz package
2 tablespoons salted butter
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon powders sugar

Bake the crescents for 12 -15 minutes.  While crescents bake begin making honey butter.  In a small sauce pan, melt salted butter. Then add the honey and powdered sugar. Mix well until incorporated (the sauce will instantly become thicker once the powered sugar is added), remove from the heat and set to the side. Drizzle over crescents.

• While crescents bake begin making honey butter. In a small sauce pan, melt salted butter. Then add the honey and powdered sugar. Mix well until incorporated (the sauce will instantly become thicker once the powdered sugar is added), remove from the heat and set to the side.
• While crescents bake begin making honey butter. In a small sauce pan, melt salted butter. Then add the honey and powdered sugar. Mix well until incorporated (the sauce will instantly become thicker once the powdered sugar is added), remove from the heat and set to the side.

Transcript

Ellen Gustafson: 0:21

Today, Tish is going to share an amazing new hobby that really took her out of her comfort zone, something that she was able to share with her adult daughter, which I think is a really great thing. But before we hear from you Tish, why don't we get right to your obsession for this week? What is it?

Tish Woods: 0:42

My obsession is really something kind of simple, but I am telling you, it is absolutely fabulous. So I had to go to this event, I was actually cooking for it. And I made these honey butter crescent rolls. So again, very simple. It was just like the Pillsbury crescent rolls that everyone makes. But you take salt, and butter and honey, and powdered sugar. And after you cook the crescent rolls, while they're still warm, you coat them in this mixture. And I have got to tell you, this honey mixture, this sweet honey mixture over these crescent rolls. I have a friend who does not eat carbs. She was Wolfing them down. I think she ate five them before she stopped herself. So if that tells you anything yet, they were fabulous. You have to try it for a big group. People will just love it.

Ellen Gustafson: 1:40

I think we can put that recipe in the show notes, right? Yes, for sure. Maybe even a photo on the Facebook page. You know, you had me at honey and then you had me at butter. And then you have crescent rolls?

Tish Woods: 1:55

Yeah, sugar, butter, honey, you know, it's got a it's got it all. It's got all the main things?

Ellen Gustafson: 2:01

Definitely. Well, my obsession this week is something that I think a lot of people have. And it is with Wordle and the New York Times mini crossword the mini crossword not the big crossword. Because I can't I can't seem to do those. But so many of our friends about six months ago, were playing Wordle Tish, and they were posting it on Facebook. And I was kind of like, what's wrong with them? Like, seriously, what is this Wordle thing that they speak of, but I got into it. And I'm now hooked, I am not posting my score on on Facebook. But that in this little mini crossword that I actually can do and do in less than five minutes. So these are free games on the New York Times, and I am obsessed with playing them every day.

Tish Woods: 2:53

So, I can agree with the wordle. And I feel like I am always a little late to the game on some of these things. People will be talking about it for a while. And I'm resistant. I don't know what it is about me. I resist, like just going with it. And then when I do I'm like what took me so long. It was like Game of Thrones, you know, I would not Game of Thrones for forever. And then I was like obsessed. So I don't know, I'm always late to the party. But all what do you what I like about Wordle it just makes you think it makes you feel like you're making your brain think a little bit without a whole lot of effort.

Ellen Gustafson: 3:31

And we all need that at our age, you know, definitely we all need that. Well, maybe I'll just start sharing my Wordle score with you.

Tish Woods: 3:38

Oh, you're making me feel bad. Anyway, so now that we've gotten our obsessions off, I want to talk about this hobby. Now. My daughter, I love my daughter to death, but we don't have a lot of the same interest. You know, in general, she loves the cosplay and making all these costumes and those kinds of things. And I'm very physical and liked a lot of sports. So even though we we love each other, we get along, we don't have a lot of common interest. So she tells me the one day that she is going to be learning how to raise bees. Wow, she's going to learn how to be a beekeeper. And I thought, oh, that sounds interesting. And really the reason I got started was it was something to do with her. I mean, as our kids get older, we need to find different ways to connect with them as adults. So this was That was my driving interest in doing it to begin with. To be honest, I was a little scared. I thought give this a try. I had no idea what I was in for.

Ellen Gustafson: 4:53

Tish How old is Memie Just to I can't remember exactly.

Tish Woods: 4:58

Sure sure. She is 27 She's going to be 27 is at the end of the end of summer. But she's 27 So yeah, she's you know, she's just getting older. And it was just something different. And you know how I am I love that adventure. I love trying something new. I love getting myself out of that comfort zone. So this time it was going to be beekeeping. So this was actually last year that we did that. And this spring, another friend of mine, and I actually got our own hive together. Because that class, there was a big group of us that started off. To learn how to do this, it was through a local Co Op that was doing it. And we went, we were supposed to be going like a couple of like, it was supposed to be like five different times you were supposed to go. But they encourage you to come whenever you want it to come see the bees and interact with them and do things with them. Unfortunately, my daughter, she was able to be there in the beginning, but then her schedule changed. So she couldn't really finish out the course. And I really just kind of took took it up and was nice for me. It was I was meeting people I would not necessarily have ever met. And I think that's the thing about starting a new hobby or starting anything new is you start meeting new people.

Ellen Gustafson: 6:31

Right? Right. So yeah, people that are you really have nothing in common with until you meet them at something like, like this Co Op is this A Bee Co Op that you took it from?

Tish Woods: 6:45

It was, it was actually a business Co Op. So it's this, this gentleman owns this building. And they have different offices inside. And it's like having a shared office space, almost a couple of churches run out of it, a couple of groups run out of it. It's really like if somebody in the community needs a space, you can go there. So it was his way to draw new people into the space. We were actually behind this space, where is where our bees were. And he was generous enough to say, Hey, if you want to have your personal hives here next year, go ahead and come back and put them up there. And we had actually started with our my friend Casey and I actually started with our hive there. We ended up moving it and I'll explain why later in our show. But we did end up moving it.

Ellen Gustafson: 7:39

So maybe you can tell us I mean, I have this vision of you in like a big Bee hat and a white outfit with like a little oil can smoking and all of that mean were you equipped in that way? Were you kind of rigged out?

Tish Woods: 8:02

Yeah, so this coop, we learned to build the hive from scratch even. And they did have all the wood they call it a bee suit and the bee suits are always white. And they're white for a couple different reasons. One, you can see bees on it so much easier. White is a color that doesn't get bees aggressive. So that's super important. And it just gives you like a peace of mind with the bees. Now I will tell you, by the end or not even the end after a few classes. I wasn't wearing a bee suit. And I'll and I'll actually post pictures. I'm wearing like shorts and a tank top and I'm holding the bees. Wow, we had a very mild hive of bees. So yeah, so very soon into it, you just get this comfort level with them. And it's amazing. The bees can actually recognize people after only a few visits.

Ellen Gustafson: 9:01

That's, that's crazy. Were you scared though, at first, I mean,

Tish Woods: 9:06

terrified, terrified. The very first class, the gentleman who's teaching the class, he has, you know, a hive. And he takes one of the the frames that's filled with bees is his hive. And he takes it and he slams it down on the table. So all the bees go rushing off of it. I thought, here we go, I'm going to be in the emergency room with 100 stings all over me. I mean, the whole class gas Besian do anything they just they left the frame, which is what he was trying to do is get them off the frame. So he could show us, you know, parts of the frame where the eggs were laying where the you know, all that kind of stuff so he can show us, you know the frames themselves. But I was stunned how aggressive he was with it without any repercussions from the bees.

Ellen Gustafson: 10:02

Yeah, fearless, fearless. Yeah. Okay, I have to ask before we go on any further. Did you get stung?

Tish Woods: 10:12

Okay, so, out of the, you know, several months of doing it, I got stung one On time, and it was really kind of my fault. Because we would go in part of what we would do when we were checking on the hive, you take all the different frames out, you're looking for different things, you're looking for the queen. So we were looking for the queen, and we saw her, and I stuck my cell phone down into the hive to take a picture of her. Well, I found out later bees do not like the whatever the signals are coming out of the cell phone, they can feel them, and they don't like them. So basically, I got stung on my little finger just once just one beat got me is to kind of said, you know, get that out of here. You know, they didn't want that cell phone near them. So I was careful about the cell phone use around them afterwards. But that's how I take pictures. But that was it, it was just one time

Ellen Gustafson: 11:12

and anyone else in the class or Did did you all just become so kind of acclimated to being around bees.

Tish Woods: 11:18

A couple people got stung here and there. But it really wasn't too bad. And we even brought little kids around and you know, we would put the bee hat with the bee Vail on it. And so I think you know, that piece more than anything, because I think if you have a beef lie to your face, you're much more likely to panic and react. If you get stung on the arm or whatever it's going to hurt but you're not going to like I don't know something about getting hit in the face. Yeah, so you know usually that's good to have but you can still get stung through be clothes. I can just tell you that but we would use the smokers the smoker the smoke itself calms the bees down. So we would use the smokers on the bees as well. So we had one of those we would like the the cedar wood chips up and I always liked the way it smelled too. But we we smoked the bees before we started pulling things apart. But it did it took a while to get comfortable with it. And even this year, getting comfortable with the new set of bees was also a challenge though. It's a different set of bees, they react differently. So what we found this year is my friend Casey and I were sharing a hive and then my friend Bridgette she's doing her own hive will Bridgette has found a swarm that she captured as well. So now she has two hives. Wow. The hive that she bought is super aggressive. And what we were finding is when we went over there, her bees were going after us I was shocked because of my experience here before how gentle and docile our bees were. And Bridgette works with a mentor because she is a certified beekeeper. And she found out that maybe her Queen may have maybe more Africanized bee. So she was getting recommended to capture the Queen and put in a new queen. And eventually it would, you know, change the hive around great producers, great producers, but it wasn't as enjoyable. And she even said even for her. It wasn't so enjoyable. So Casey and I moved our hive got because our hive was docile bees and we've moved them to a different location just to kind of get away from the more aggressive bees.

Ellen Gustafson: 14:00

Can you share with us? Maybe some quick Bee facts? I know you have a few things that maybe were interesting about bees that we might not know.

Tish Woods: 14:10

So I was surprised to find this fact out. In order for a bee to produce one teaspoon of honey, they will have to go and visit 500 Flowers 500

Ellen Gustafson: 14:26

That's insane. It's,

Tish Woods: 14:28

I mean, it's a crazy amount for that little bit of honey. So when they say busy as a bee, they're not kidding. Okay. And for a hive to produce 2.2 pounds of honey collected collectively, the whole hive will have flown the equivalent of three times around the globe.

Ellen Gustafson: 14:49

Okay, that's unreal. Honestly, I'm not even sure I believe that stat like it's,

Tish Woods: 14:56

it seems very unrealistic, but again, you know, they're able to kind of track these and stuff like that and what they do, but they are constantly busy, you know, during their day. So yeah, I guess we could all learn a little bit from the bee.

Ellen Gustafson: 15:10

It's definitely

Tish Woods: 15:14

but it was interesting too, about the hives and In terms of moving a hive, so once you place a hive, you cannot move it more than five feet away, or the bees will abandon that hive. So say you put it in your yard and you decide you need to move it to the other side of your yard for some reason, you're going to have to trap the bees in at night, you're going to have to move that hive three miles away, let them out, trap them in again that night, and then move them to the part of your yard that you wanted. The bees will be okay with that. But they will not tolerate you moving it like, you know, 20 yards across across the side of your yard.

Ellen Gustafson: 16:05

What happens with the three miles is that like a thing, it takes them far enough away from the hive location or

Tish Woods: 16:16

so the Three Mile thing that was explained to me is a typical bee will go three miles of within three miles distance of their hive during the day as they're collecting all these flowers. So that is I think that you need to go beyond that, in order for them not to think not to get confused about where they should be that orientation. But yeah, so they're very sensitive, the bees are to the you know, the hive has to be placed, you know, you know, facing the sun and all that. So there's a lot of considerations when it comes to learning that. And that's why I say if you're interested in doing something like this, you want to find a co op that's doing something like that you want to seek out a class, there are so many online resources. There is a Facebook page for beginner beekeepers, and people will post videos and ask questions. And it's so informative, you know, other beekeepers, you'll get different opinions. But you'll see there's pretty much you know, a standard way that we do things here in the US.

Ellen Gustafson: 17:25

Any other fun facts, quick to leave.

Tish Woods: 17:28

So the other thing and I think I kind of alluded to this before, is bees can actually start to recognize people. So after two or three times, if you're coming to see them, they recognize you. They know, they know who you're going to be. And you can see they react different when we were going all the time they react different to us. They were much calmer around us than if it was somebody new. So you know, amazing. They're such tiny little creatures and such tiny little brains. But amazing, just absolutely amazing what they can do.

Ellen Gustafson: 18:05

So smart. You know, I know you and I have talked about the environment quite a bit and how it's good to plant bee gardens. I think we chatted a little bit about that in another episode. But you know, why should people become beekeepers? Why is it important?

Tish Woods: 18:23

I can't even begin to tell you just how important it is. It's so important to our food supply. Like if we don't have our bees are the ones that are pollinating everything so we need them so much. There's intensive farming going on that is is disrupting the bees, mono cropping, that's not good for the bees. Bees need a variety of flowers, they you know, the mono cropping, you know, will will cut down on the amount of honey that they can produce the agro chemicals, the sprays that are going on plants, the sprays that people are putting in their yards and on their lawns. These all have a very negative impact with bees. I know one of our instructors for the bees lost several hives after one of his neighbors had his yard sprayed for their grass. So in order for him to have nice pretty grass. Unfortunately he lost several hives had he known the spraying was going to happen. So if you know if your neighbor has hives, you know near them, you want to let them know if you're going to have any kind of special sprays. Because what you can do is like wet a sheet for your bed and put it over the hive. It kind of keeps them in they can still get out but it'll keep them kind of in and also it will trap any of the residue that blows near the hive. And then once the spring and everything is done, you can just remove the sheet. So that's like super important. And also the change in global temperatures is hard. It's definitely affecting you know where bees can be. The destruction of natural habitat is creating a huge issue. So you even see now where a lot of highways will have wildflower areas. These are really for the bees. I mean, yes, a pretty for us to look at. The bees are really for the bees. Because there's so much development going on in the loss of these meadows has made an impact. I think they all

Ellen Gustafson: 20:38

Yeah, you were talking about cell phones earlier to and cell towers, I would imagine would also contribute.

Tish Woods: 20:46

Yeah, there's there's a lot of because of all the cell phone towers, and I really wonder some of those, the windvines, I wonder how much they affect bees? I'm not really sure. So, so between the chemicals that are being used, and the environmental changes, you know, bees are under a lot of duress. And what you're seeing is a lot more, you know, just individual beekeeping going on. So that's really great. So, um, you know, definitely consider doing it. Support your neighbors, if they're doing it. I know, it scares people. We went, we went over near our hive, and there were some friends that were there. And they were terrified. I'm like, really? It's fine. No, no, I'm close enough. No, no. You know, it's that, you know, I think understanding that, you know, the bees aren't. I think people confuse the aggressiveness of like Hornets, with bees,

Ellen Gustafson: 21:56

or wasps or wasps to me, can you tell me, you know, is Meme still into beekeeping with you? Or, and, you know, how did this affect your relationship with your daughter.

Tish Woods: 22:09

So like I said, it was just something she was so happy when I had suggested that we do this together. Because like I said, you know, some of her hobbies, I just not really embrace them as much. So it was just so nice to have something that we were both excited about doing. Um, I'm anxious for her to get involved with the hive that we have now. The new hive, she's had, again, her work schedule has been a little daunting for her. So but we'll get her, you know, re involved with that. But I can't say enough about, you know, if, if you're feeling at a point in your life, you know, I talk about a lot of times that, you know, midst or women kind of feel lost. And I think, you know, finding some of these interest, finding new relationships with people who are doing, you know, this new hobby, establishing relationships with your adult kids to do these things together. I think these are great things to re energize and read, you know, just get that passion about life going again.

Ellen Gustafson: 23:22

Well, I mean, beekeeping, you're outside, you're in nature, you're with animals. I mean, it has like all of the great ingredients, other than perhaps fear. You've definitely shared, you know that a lot about beekeeping that I didn't know about today. And

Tish Woods: 23:44

I remember when I mentioned that the bee stung me, right. Yeah. So Bridgette, who I was doing the hives with last year, she tells me Oh, you're so lucky. I was like, Excuse me. She said, Well, you know, bee sting therapy. I said, I do not understand what you're talking about. But there's actually a whole you know, holistic look at using bee venom for therapy. So rheumatoid arthritis on different different skin conditions, eczema, acne, all kinds of different things that they're actually starting to use. bee venom for, you know, again, it's natural. It's you know, not putting a lot of chemicals on you. So I thought that was so fascinating.

Ellen Gustafson: 24:35

You know, that is really interesting. I didn't know about that. But I love manuka honey. I think it's called manuka honey. Right? It's from it's from New Zealand and one of our Midster Friends Kathy, got me into it and it is so delicious. I'm not somebody that could eat honey like with a spoon. But this honey is amazing. The taste in it. I think the bees mainly get it from this one flower or Bush the manuka. It is so good. And my understanding is that it has like a anti microbial kind of, you know, part to it. Were for sore throat oat or just other kinds of, you know, medical uses people use it. So I'm just going to put it out there that the manuka honey from New Zealand is delicious, and it has a lot of good medicinal qualities to it if folks haven't had that.

Tish Woods: 25:37

Yeah, most of the medicinal honeys, as you speak of do come from New Zealand. I know my daughter does home health care. And she was talking about how they use the medicinal honey, for bed sores as opposed to using again, more antibiotics, more steroids to get away from the overuse of those, so they're not effective for the elderly, that she's actually using medicinal honey. So I thought that was so interesting, but there's so many things that honey can be used for medicinally it's amazing.

Ellen Gustafson: 26:17

It it is. And you know, I think it really goes like the full gamut of auto immune to, you know, things like a common cold to, you know, stomach issues. And so, really good too. To understand a little bit more about honey, I know that you are going to share some recipes on our Facebook page. I think a great drink that you make with honey, some hot honey, and to your honey Crescent butter rolls, right?

Tish Woods: 26:53

Yes, yeah, I'm going to do some video clips, showing you some recipes. And I'm going to use some my local honey here, they always say it's good to use local honey from wherever you live. And that also helps with allergies. So if you have seasonal allergies, and you are eating local honey, it will help your symptoms reduce because you're getting tiny, tiny bits of what is making you allergic, but you're getting tiny bits. So it's it gets your system acclimated to it. But kind of I just wanted wrap up. Why this is so important. Like, again, I all the Bee stuff. But why it's so important to go out and find yourself a new hobby, a new something to do. You know, we want to make sure that we're just keeping our minds going. We're keeping new interests that get us excited. I can't tell you how many new people I have met through doing us. And actually the one girl Bridgette she's the reason that I started pickleball No way. Are you coming from? Yeah, she had mentioned that she was going to take this, you know, pickleball introductory session, I said I'll come to you know, you're you're getting out there, you're meeting new people, you're exposing yourself to new experiences. So it really reminded me of that movie, I think it was from was it early 2000s. From Jim Carrey, called The Yes Man. And if you haven't seen it, you really should, because it's this idea that he has to say yes to everything. You know, he was this negative kind of person. He was always saying no. And he's going to turn around and say yes to everything he can say no. But by the end of the movie, he's just so embracing this Yes, philosophy. And I want every one of our listeners to really start embracing this Yes, philosophy of trying new things and getting out there. And it it's not about being perfect. It's just about finding your joy. That's really been the gist of, of, of my last few years, finding joy in those little things and everything that you can do.

Ellen Gustafson: 29:20

I like that. It's so so inspirational for me. I'm going to be going to my first pickleball class tomorrow. So maybe I'll meet someone there who invites me to a beekeeping class.

Tish Woods: 29:36

You never know where all these things can lead to. So no, but I want everyone to be a little bit of Jim Carrey this week. And I want everyone to find something that they would have typically said no to. I want you to say yes. And see what happens.

Ellen Gustafson: 29:55

All right. We'll report back next week. How about that?

Tish Woods: 29:58

Well, misters I want everyone to have an absolutely joy filled week. And until next Wednesday.

Unknown: 30:06

See ya