Thursday 26 July 2012

Countryside


Summer is here and of course most time is spent outside. Hence fewer posts on the blog. But now I spent some time reviewing the pictures that I took over the past weeks and played around a bit with the photo editing program and this is the result. Nothing major, just some fun, vibrant pictures of mother nature and castles.



























Friday 15 June 2012

Bee My Sweet Honey


I have been waiting for this for quite some time and the moment finally came! The bees and I were to be introduced to each other. :) I am not sure if they even took much notice - they are very busy you know - but I was thrilled to enter into this new world. 


By a little farm which has a little wooded area, there is hidden away between the trees and bushes  a collection of colourful boxes.


Beware, as these boxes are nothing to play with. Each box - hive - houses a colony of bees. And there are about 60,000 of them - in each hive!


In this little place there are about 160 bee hives. Yes, you do the maths (and you are correct - that is close to 10 million bees).


A bee colony consists of a queen bee (quite literary), the female workers and the male drones.

 
Mr. P - the trainee - has quite some experience already. And as many other bee-keepers like him, he wears protective clothing - well a hat and a glove.

And that is me... as a newcomer I am covered from head to toe. I even received my very own hat. It has big bears on them. :)

Anyway, let's get back to business: of course we arrived to collect some delicious honey. But there is quite some work to do! 


Modern bee-keepers use a light polystyrene boxes to house the colony. Each box - "hive body" holds 10 frames. Usually there are 2, 3 or even 4 boxes - hive bodies - on top of each other, each serving a specific function.


At the bottom of the hive is the "brood chamber" - mostly reserved for the birth of the off-spring. That is what you see here: all those little cells are filled with soon-to-be new arrivals. The honey is usually stored at the top hive body.

The life of a bee is clearly defined by numbers. Developing in three stages the working bee transforms from an egg to a pupa and a larva in ca. 3 then 6 and finally 9 days. And they live for a mere 21 days. A queen bee and the male drone have a different schedule.

Numbers also dictate their environment. Bees need an exact 4 mm for their movement. So the frames are specifically designed to allow that amount of space between each frames. If somehow more space is left, they make sure to fill it with a new set of honeycomb. Quite little geniuses that they are able to build those cells so precise. Forget a ruler.

Whether in a frame or on its own, the goal is to get the bees of the honeycombs. Usually you shake the frame and the bees fall off by themselves. But those, who hold on tight, will be gently brushed aside.


Swarming: we had two cases when the bees swarmed from their hives. Luckily as nature has it, they choose a close location, such as a branch of a tree above the hive. That is what you can see on the picture below - the black oval thing. Usually you can re-capture the family by cutting of the branch and having the whole family be introduced to a new hive. Bit tricky in this case when the bee hive is so far up.

In this case, the swarmed colony attached itself to a bush. Here we were able to get them back into a new hive. 

Once the frames has been freed of the working bees, our delicious honey is still mostly capped off. That is the white stuff on top of the combs.

But nothing to worry about, there is also a solution for that - called uncapping. Like Mr. P can demonstrate here, you place the frames onto a stand and uncap the cells with a special fork.

The tricky thing is to move the fork from the bottom up and remove only the top coating (and without pocking the sharp fork into your fingers - yes, I am guilty.. :) ) so that the majority of the honey remains in the cell.


 This is my attempt at uncapping the frames.


And here is an example of two uncapped frames.

Especially if it is warm and the honeycomb has been uncapped, the honey starts  to flow from the little cells. This is pure raw honey. Yummy.

The uncapping tub after a few frames - it makes sure that not even a drop of honey goes to waste.

Into the extractor they go... Once the frames have been uncapped, 24 frames will be places sideways into this machine, which works like a washing machine. Spinning at high speed, the honey is sucked out of their cells and onto the side wall, where it slowly flows down to the bottom of the extractor. 

Once it arrives at the bottom of the extractor, the honey flows towards the opening where it is collected in big plastic buckets. Look, this type of honey is light and clear. This is what we call "Acacia Honey". It is the most poplar honey here in Hungary.

And here we have the finished product. Doesn't it look divine?! It is sooo tasty!

We hope that you enjoyed this little bee-keeping session. And from now on, when you see a bee, do not be afraid. These little creatures are actually not that scary. They are actually real workaholics. So give them some respect for all their work. The honey sure does taste absolutely amazing. :)

Monday 21 May 2012

Spread The Colour

Hi there! I have a very talent friend who is a make-up artist. This weekend, I was the lucky model. The session included 4 different make-ups. I think she did a fantastic job! Take a look:

Anita preparing all the necessary utensils for our session:


 In a professional atmosphere! Loved the lights by the mirrors.


Usually I am no fan of self-portraits, but I had to document the eyes. The extra lashes are so cool!


This was another work. More mysterious. 


And a more extravagant one. Now we just a need a really cool party. 


 So many brushes! I would be at a total lost which one to choose.



Some rich colours from mac.


And at the end, a make-up to go home. Beautifully done. 


 If anyone here in Budapest would need a talented make-up artist for special events, I can highly recommend Anita! (contact me for more information)






Monday 7 May 2012

A Ride Back in Time


Hello there! A new week and a new post. This time we will travel a bit back in time. Not too much, just back to the beginning of the 1900s.

At the time when the first underground (in continental Europe!) rolled along underneath the streets of Budapest, with its first debut on March 2nd, 1896. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Budapest_subway_1896.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Budapest_subway_1896.jpg

Now, 116 years later, there is still the possibility to travel back in time a bit and take a ride on one of these old underground carriages. Of course, it has received a fresh paint job since then and it is now all polished and shiny, but the carriage itself - frame and structure - it exactly as before.

In special celebration the Hungarian public transportation awarded tickets to some lucky ones to travel in such a car. Here it is - number 11.



The carriages - decorated with special American pine slates - were all electronically motorized.That was big news back then.



The original commute extended from Vörösmarty tér along Andrássy and passing by Hősök tere  to Széchenyi fürdő  - a solid 3,7 km one way. In the 1970s, the line was extended till Mexikói út and the stop at the Állatkert (zoo) was closed . (Interesting fact: till 1973 the underground rode on the left hand side, whilst traffic above ground was already going on rights hand side)




With such nice features, it is no surprise that the underground was extremely popular. Up to 35 thousand people used this transportation on a busy day. By 1917 the number of commuters in one year reached the 11 million. Would it have been as crowded as the metro cars today?




One thing is for sure: for us it was a breezy commute with a small group of 20. And we were all really excited to travel in style.




Do you also really want to travel in this carriage? Well, believe it or not you can actually rent it out  - for only 95.000 Ft + tax!




As part of the celebration, visitors were also able to discover the old buses that roamed the streets of Budapest.




The bus was decorated with old pictures from the time when these buses were a novelty to passengers.




Sitting comfortably. Personally, I would prefer this bus to the ones traveling on our streets nowadays.


Thanks to the BKV's leaflet "Földalatti Sztori" for all the historic facts and figures.

Sunday 29 April 2012

Let's Dance!

Hello again! As promised we are back with regular posts. Besides documenting new discoveries, I will also be posting some creative projects. And this is actually one of them. I have been taking sewing lessons since the last year. This is actually something I have always wanted to do, but never got around to it. But the right time came and I have managed to take classes, sewing skirts and trousers. I am currently on the coats. :) In addition, I was asked to sew a skirt for a dance production. It was a bit tricky as I only had an old skirt as a starting point. After that it was all up to the imagination. And the result is:

The blue fabric is a traditional "kékfestős". Traditional they were hand painted/printed.
The white fabric is a madeira.  


And the end result was this skirt with a small apron.


The madeira also served as a decoration at the bottom of the skirt. Another option would have been a fine lace, but it did not seemed appropriate for a first grade school dance.




And here we have it on for the dance (with a white blouse and stockings and black shoes) - all based on Hungarian customs.


And this was another attire based on time-honored traditions. Breaded hair is a must. :)