protectivepoison - Tumblr blog

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Where’s Waldo would be both amazing, and terrible, in the Harry Potter universe. The pages would mix themselves up, for a fresh challenge every time. But Waldo could also just walk out of frame to visit other Waldos, leaving you an impossible page.

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No One Changes - Conor Oberst

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counting sheep — conor oberst ruminations (2016) // salutations (2017) 68/365

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What the shit the shirt is back!

conor oberst | 3.21.2017 | asheville, nc

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Photography by Jorge Saenz

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oh my god this song is fucking unreal

“they say you gotta love yourself first/that’s a trick/I’ve been hating myself since I was a little kid”

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I’m a Keeper Shirt, by Bee Thinking

https://www.beethinking.com/collections/gifts/products/im-a-keeper-t-shirt

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I keep trying to like red wine like a grown-up but like … it’s rotten grapes, guys. You can drink things that don’t taste like rotten grapes. Why

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honey production does hurt the bees. the honey stolen is replaced with a toxic synthetic sugar substance which isn't healthy for them. honey isn't for humans to steal, please educate yourself.

Arright, sit down, you’re about to get some knowledge dropped on you by somebody with beekeepers and meadmakers in the family.

The “toxic synthetic sugar substance” you’re referring to? Is sugar water. Literally SUGAR and WATER. There’s nothing synthetic about it. And the bees only rarely need a LITTLE bit of sugar water to help them get through, because if they’re provided with enough nectar, bees will make a shit-ton of honey. Most hives generate more honey than they can ever use.

And when a hive starts getting too full, the bees may swarm and try to go find a new place to live. Do you know what happens to a more than three-quarters of swarms that leave their hive? THEY DIE. Yup. Either they can’t find a new hive, or they run into predators, or they wind up landing somewhere that humans don’t want them and then exterminators get called.

So removing a few frames from the hive, taking out the wax and the honey, and replacing them for the bees to fill with new comb and honey and larvae is actually GOOD for the hive. The bees stay busy, they’ve got frames to fill, the queen doesn’t feel the need to go anywhere, and their human buddies can help keep them safe from natural predators and pesticides.

The mutually-beneficial relationship between humans and bees has existed for literally thousands of years. People keep hives, bees pollinate crops and make honey, people harvest the honey, the bees get extra protection and can happily buzz away keeping the plants healthy and making more sweet sugary goo.

Honeybees are an endangered species. If they die, not only does your vegan diet become completely impossible, but the entire planet is royally fucked.

And do you know who’s doing more than anybody else to keep them alive and make sure we don’t all starve?

BEEKEEPERS. And they treat those bees like their own damn children. They’re not going to feed them toxins or “steal” all their food, they want the bees to be happy and healthy and THRIVING.

Being vegan is absolutely fine, but don’t go trying to tell other people how to eat and don’t sound off on shit until YOU educate YOURSELF. Try talking to an actual beekeeper sometime. Or at the very least, read an article by a beekeeper instead of relying on someone else’s scare tactics.

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@ Anon– Here’s a How It’s Made on raw honey extraction. This shows a major factory setup, but effective extraction is carried out by plenty of smalltown beekeepers on their own with simpler setups. The same friend I mentioned before actually has a hand-cranked centrifuge that he uses to extract honey for jarring. 

I also don’t know of any smalltown keepers that use the cherry-scented gadget when extracting. We only ever use a bit of wood smoke in our hives. The smoke serves two main purposes– First, it tricks the bees into thinking there’s a fire nearby, so they’re less focused on potential predators and more focused on filling up with honey and pollen to take with them if they have to abandon hive, and Second, it masks the scent of any alarm bell pheromones workers might start putting off when they realize that there is no fire. they also just don’t care for the smell. One of our girls accidentally flew through some smoke from a campfire we had out back and had to crash land on my dad’s knee and regain her composure before going off on her way again. 

Overall most smaller beekeepers don’t care much for commercial beekeeping methods–they tend to be more focused on profit than caretaking–but this is a decent vid for showing the extraction process. And, as it says in the video, regardless of whether it’s smalltown or commercial, the bees do not starve because of the honey extraction. Bees have no real concept of how much is too much when it comes to producing honey, so a good healthy hive tends to make about five times more honey than it actually needs to survive. This is also why small beekeepers only start harvesting honey after their hive has made it through at least one solid year on its own, so that they can be sure the hive is healthy and able to sustain itself even if some honey is taken out of it. 

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Possibly a silly question but if you take honey from a hive its not edible yet is it? how do you make it edible?

Actually, it is! One of our beekeeping friends actually has a special set of frames for his hives that contain removable/replaceable circular molds for the bees to build their honeycomb in, and then he pops the molds out and sells it exactly as-is, completely untouched and unprocessed raw honey, just as the bees originally made it. 

Unpasteurized, straight-from-the-hive honey is referred to as Raw Honey. You can find it either in comb form, or extracted and sold in jars. (The extraction process basically consists of uncapping the honey, like what you see in that last gifset I reblogged, and then putting the comb in a centrifuge and spinning it until all the honey flies out and drips down into a vat.) 

Raw honey can be eaten straight from the hive, and is actually better for you. It never spoils, and has antibacterial properties that make it an excellent remedy for sore throats. Raw honey can also help with seasonal allergies, given that you’re eating locally made honey that comes from the native flowering plants of your region. 

The act of pasteurizing honey essentially reduces it to nothing but sugar. And don’t get me wrong, it basically IS pure sugar, but the raw stuff is sugar with perks. For this reason, if you have a jar of raw honey that’s started crystalizing, DO NOT MICROWAVE IT. That will take away the bonus antibacterial properties. Instead, heat up some water to a boiling point and then lower the jar into the water and let it sit. the heat will melt the honey back into liquid form, and make it smooth and useable again. Remember, honey doesn’t spoil, so crystallization is not a sign that it’s gone bad.

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“Witches: We Need You!”

Found this out in Los Angeles.

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I haven't been on tumblr in so long... but I've finally got a new phone and new laptop so it will actually work. Is anyone I know still in here? And is anyone going to be seeing Conor Oberst in London tomorrow?

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You can help bring back the bees by tossing around seed bombs. Bee colonies are losing up to 90% of their population each year, but Seedles hopes to change that with non-invasive, native wildflower seed bombs that sprout when you toss them into a sunny area. Source Source 2

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