♪ ♪ ♪ They say ye'are what you eat, so I don't eat chicken feet ♪ ♪ But I love me summa' Grandma's pickled beets ♪ ♪ Well, cut it up, put it'na pan, ♪ ♪ throw it on these sholders see where it lands, ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Maters, taters, beans and corn, ♪ ♪ the cow's in the barn and the sheep's bee shorn ♪ ♪ Kids in the barnyard ♪ ♪ chasin' Grandpa's chickens, chickens, chickens ♪ ♪ Spices, slices, cuts and dices, ♪ ♪ gonna slash your grocery prices, ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Help you grow your garden good, ♪ ♪ with recipes to suit your mood ♪ ♪ Try some grub you've never tried before, ♪ ♪ 'fore, 'fore ♪ ♪ Smash it with a wooden mallet ♪ ♪ gonna educate yer palette ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ In Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen ♪ ♪ We gonna all cook some good night y'all ♪ Hello and welcome to the Farmer's kitchen.

-Hello, Mrs. Farmer.

-Hello, Mr. Farmer.

-How are you today?

-I am really good.

Thank you.

You know, why are you good?

Because I know what we're going to make and what we're going to eat.

We got a packed show and I need to hush because we've got so much to show you.

A lot of people say, including my mom, Timmy, how's your honey?

How are your bees?

We haven't checked in, in a while.

So, I want an expert, I mean, an expert to come in.

So, I called Sarah Preston.

Sarah has an extensive background in bees.

She came over, she popped the top and guess what she found.

[joyful music playing] Not too long ago, my mom asked me, "Timmy, why haven't we seen anything about your bees?"

In fact, she said that today.

So, I thought, hmm, I'm going to get a hold of Sarah Preston, who was the...

So, I'm the former manager for the certified Kentucky Honey Program through the Kentucky State Beekeepers Association.

The Kentucky State Beekeepers is focused on education.

So, their big thing is to help new beekeepers across the state get going and help seasoned beekeepers keep going with their hives as they need to.

Here's how I'd rank me as a beekeeper.

-I have a hive.

-Yes.

-That's the extent of my... -So, maybe a bee haver.

A bee haver, but that being said, I had some bad luck with these two hives over here - which is very common.

- It is.

Tim: This one right here I have just left alone for three years.

A lot of things can happen in three years.

A lot of things can happen.

In fact, I'm very impressed that they are still alive.

Typically, if they have no maintenance, they will not live very long on their own.

That is because there's something that came into Kentucky in around the '90s that's called the Varroa destructor or the Varroa mite and it behaves kind of like a tick would be on a dog.

It feeds off of what's called the fat body on the bee.

In fact, it compromises the bee's immune system.

So, they're pretty rough on the bee.

I'm really excited to get in here and see how these bees are, because if they've been alive for three years without any intervention, that means they've somehow adapted to this Varroa mite.

But you said -you were watching them- -Yes.

And you said it could be robber bees.

If that's the case, it's kind of sporadic.

You said it's very calm looking bees.

So, there's something going on in there.

There are.

So, it's really hard probably to see through the plants, but these bees are very calm.

You can see a few bees come in sporadically.

So, those are foragers that are coming into the hive.

And if we were to zoom in really close on them, you'd actually see what's called guard bees.

And so, they're going to check over those foragers, make sure they smell correctly and then they'll let them into the hive to be able to put food in.

That's their defense mechanism.

Not only are they defensive of us, but they're also defensive of other honey bees.

In the ideal world when resources start getting scarce, like they do typically starting about the end of July through the beginning of September robbing becomes a really big problem.

And so, older forager bees from other colonies will actually come over and break through the bee's defense systems and they will rob them of honey and it becomes like a major collision course.

They'll destroy wax, they'll destroy a queen, they'll destroy everything they can... Tim: And maybe bring some parasites in with them.

- They can definitely do that.

- Well, see, that's just honary.

-Yes.

-Well, I'm going to stand back -and just watch.

-Ok.

So, I am going to smoke this for a little bit.

I didn't want to do it before because it will break up some of this defense mechanism that they have here.

They'll actively move away from the smoke and you'll hear them buzz a little bit.

That's perfectly normal.

And the smoke really does help them calm down a lot.

They're going to gorge on the honey that's inside and be satiated for a little while and calm down.

And this could be interesting.

We're going to see what all is in here.

So, here is a whole bunch of sugar ants that's actually really normal for a beehive.

Tim: So, that's not a bad thing?

Sarah: No, they capitalize off the fact that nobody else is going to mess with the bees so they live up top and they keep their resources there.

A lot of people will get really worried when they see all these sugar ants around and they really, they don't cause any problems.

Well, that's good.

You might get a few bites if they can get up into your suit but I mean, they really aren't hurting your bees any.

And by the time you put a lot of effort to get rid of them, you probably have hurt your bees.

I just leave them be.

All right, I was not... typically an air cover comes off a lot easier than that.

This actually peeled off part of the inner cover.

So, it's been propolised really good.

Propolis, it has a lot of different properties.

One way it's used is weather stripping.

Another thing with is it has a lot of antimicrobial properties.

So, it's actually one of the extra immune defences of the bees.

In a typical beehive set up, we have what's called two deep or brood chambers.

Typically your queen and any brood is going to be down in these two boxes.

The two boxes on top are called supers or super imposed on top of the brood chambers and they are typically where honey collection goes on.

All right, I think this frame is going to come for us.

Well, maybe, you have honey.

Tim: Yay.

Sarah: You definitely have honey.

Tim: Honey is good.

That's what we had hoped for.

Now, they're going to become more aggravated with me as I start taking their stash out.

And the first frame is going to come out rough.

It's the nature of the bees.

So, the filled in section here is actually honey.

So, that's capped honey.

It's also what we consider ripe honey.

If it's uncapped, it actually hasn't had all the moisture taken out of it yet.

So, I will actually be able to ferment.

You have to get the moisture content below 18%, and that way your honey will stay good indefinitely.

It's amazing how long it will stay good for, but the key is to get it below 18%.

And this honey over here was all capped.

I pulled the capping off when I removed the frame.

All right, since we know we have honey, I'm going to go ahead and just start taking boxes off because most likely our queen is going to be in one of these bottom two boxes.

And that's really what we're worried about today.

Honey is wonderful in a beehive, but you have to look at the overall health of the beehive.

Tim: Right.

Sarah: All right, it looks like we have another box of honey.

[buzzing] All right, so, if you can actually see the top of this hive, the use of my smoke has pushed them away, they're going to move away from the smoke.

It will also help calm them down some.

One of the things to keep in mind when you're working bees is to be calm and slow because the less you disturb them, the less they will disturb you, they will be much nicer to you.

And so, these bees since they haven't been worked in three years, have found some way of adapting to those Varroa mites.

And my guess is part of that is from being a little bit more hostile.

We're going to gently break this box some of these frames apart.

So this is a wonderful sight to see in a hive.

This is brood.

You can see by every one of those little cap spaces, it's covered in wax and that's maturing brood that's in there.

And we also have larvae and it's some of the nice white cells that you see in here.

They're creamy white, which means they're healthy.

And I would say these are just about time to get capped over.

So, honey bees are going to be laid as an egg, they're going to develop into a larvae and then they're going to get capped over and pupate.

Similar to what a butterfly does in a chrysalis.

Tim: Regardless of my neglect, we seem to have a healthy hive?

Yes, this is a very nice show to start off with.

It's not quite full side to side, but it is a very nice brood frame.

Tim: Wonderful.

Sarah: Ideally what we want to find is eggs and a queen and they're going to do a lot of effort to keep her protected and away from us.

I am going to go ahead and pull one more frame and hoping to find a queen or either a queen or eggs.

So, right in this area, you can actually see pupae that they have started to remove the cappings off of.

And the reason they do that is because they can sense that something is wrong with those bees.

And so, they will actually uncap them and pull out the pupae and recycle that protein.

-So, they will eat the pupae.

-Tim: Oh, wow.

If they are having problems with something like Varroa mites, this will actually help break the Varroa mite cycle.

They can actually smell the Varroa mites within the cells and then actually be able to pull out and disregard them and break that Varroa mite cycle on that cell.

We have shown that there is larvae.

So, there is most definitely a queen.

There has been within the last week.

They're going to be more upset as I put this back together.

Bees communicate through what's called pheromones.

And right now, I could have a really big sense of banana smell.

This time of year they're more hostile because they're coming right off the doors.

And so, that's when there's a period with no flowers.

So, that's a factor.

The overcast is a factor.

The fact they haven't been worked in a long time is a factor.

All right, let's put these ladies back together.

-My bees were not calm.

-No.

They didn't like the rain.

They don't like this rain, like you said.

Yes, they knew that the rain was coming in and they were not happy that we were disturbing them.

Ideally, you work your bees on a nice sunny day, typically around 12:00 to 2:00 -Everybody's out.

-the hottest time of the day because most of your foragers who are probably going to be more grumpy in the hive or there out looking for food and the hive in general is a lot calmer.

You know, we haven't been in there a couple of years.

What was your assessment?

So, just because you had bees in a box doesn't necessarily mean they're thriving, but your box is doing very well.

Having two full deeps of honey was a very nice welcoming sight.

I would have liked to have gotten in there and looked at the brood a little bit more.

The first frame that I pulled was wall to wall cap brood, which we love to see.

That's a very good, it's a very strong queen.

-You are an educator -Yes.

by heart, you can tell.

And we're so fortunate that you came out today -and I'm selfishly thinking -Yes.

about that honey that's sitting up there.

-Can we do the extraction and- -Certainly We'll come back on a sunny day, midday.

Yes, that would be helpful.

The bees will be much nicer.

Well, I think maybe.

-I think they'll be nicer -Tim: Not good honey?

but they might still be a little hostile.

Well, today we operate kind of by the seat of our pants and we thought, well, maybe today will be a good day.

The rain was supposed to hold up to seven o'clock.

-Yes.

-That didn't happen.

So, we'll make plans for part two very shortly.

I think that sounds better.

-A nice, beautiful sunny day.

-Tim: Middle of the day.

Yes, we'll have a nicer bee colony, I'm pretty sure.

Well, thank you so much for part one.

Absolutely.

I have enjoyed this.

[music playing] We're back in the kitchen real quick.

It's been one heck of a year -for mushrooms.

-Yes.

-Tim: And you're like... -Nicki: What do we do?

There's no amount of recipes that we put this in today or tomorrow, we're going to dehydrate them.

The noise you hear in the back is simply a dehydrator.

Show you something about a puffball mushroom, bread knife is also good.

If it's white, like this, solid white and still kind of firm should look like a mushroom.

Smells good too.

Now, a lot of people say they don't have much taste.

-I like them.

-I did too.

I like them with onions and butter.

But what we're going to do is we're going to cut this into quarter inch to eight inch slices and we're going to take these chicken in the woods, which I just found last night.

Now, something you have to do is just knock the dirt off.

You don't want to wash them.

We're going to take cut this in a recipe.

What size pieces would you want in a recipe?

Now, we put these on the rack just like so.

We're going to put them in a dehydrator 100 degrees, - maybe a little more - Mm-hm.

100, 105, 110 degrees max for about eight hours.

You can put them in a plastic bag.

You can put them in one of the vacuum seal bags.

If you store them properly in a dry cool place, -Tim: six months to a year, -Nicki: Wow.

make sure when you store them, they're in a dry, dry environment and they're sealed very well.

Now, when you get your dried mushrooms out, take them and put them in a bowl that can withstand heat, pour you some boiling water and let them set for a half hour.

Keep your stock -because that's mushroom stock.

-Oh, yeah.

Your mushrooms are reconstituted to put them in your recipe and you're good to go.

So, Kelly had my bee suit.

-Nicki: She did good.

-Tim: And she did good.

Nicki: I just froze.

I had them all over me I didn't move.

-I ran.

-I know you shouldn't have run.

Got stung in the back of the head.

They were intent- -They liked your hair.

-on my head.

So, anyhow, I got stung.

-I survived.

-You did.

But you know what?

We had to go back.

Once we saw what was going on, the rain came, we had honey.

-Nicki: Yes.

- She knew that she saw that.

So, she took something on a screen and sprayed that and the smell on that, the bees found it offensive.

And when she put that on there, they went to the lower boxes.

Therefore she could pull the top and we could go to the cabin to see if there was any honey.

[music playing] So, for those who haven't seen this, this is?

A honey extractor.

What's the process now that you, if you will show us a frame there -Sure.

-and show us what we do, kind of give us an overview of what we do.

So, this is pulled off of the hive a little bit ago and you can see that all of this is capped over.

It's got a wax layer on it.

I'm not getting sticky when I run my hand down it, and the bees do that as a signal to keep the honey good.

Honey is actually something we call hydrophilic.

So, it loves water and it will actually pull moisture out of the air, but it's also the enemy of honey because it will cause it to ferment.

But if you want to keep honey the way it is, you actually need to keep the moisture content low.

So, when the bees actually cap it over with wax, that's a signal that this honey is below 18% moisture and now when we harvest it, it will stay good.

-For like 1,000 years?

-Yes, literally.

That ought to do me.

So, I'm looking so forward to this because we love our honey.

So, what I'm going to do is take this frame and set it on top of my little platform here.

This is a fork so you scratch all the way down it, everything will get collected in the backside of this bucket and then it goes into the extractor.

And what we're doing that for is comb is incredibly precious to the honey bee.

So, it takes about 11 to 13 lbs.

of honey - to make 1 lb of wax.

-Tim: Wow.

Sarah: We'll be able to scratch this out, extract the honey out of it and then we'll have what we call wet supers.

And so, we can literally put these back in the box, stick them back on the beehive the bees will clean them up.

Tim: They got something to work with.

And now they can refill it again.

I like that idea.

So, it's kind of recycling in a way.

So, this is like a very small version of a washing machine.

It's going to spin around and it's literally just going to sling the honey out of these frames.

And this one doesn't go both directions so we have to put the frames in one way, spin the honey out on one side, flip the frames over and spin the honey again to get the other side.

So, we'll put all this together and then we'll strain it into another bucket.

But look how much honey you got just out of 10 frames.

Tim: Wow.

Sarah: So, this part is about done.

It takes honey a very long time to finish dripping.

Tim: So, here's where we are.

We have taken the honey out, put it through this strainer into this bucket.

And we got like, you said we have like 12, 13 lbs.

something like that.

-Sarah: Something around there.

Tim: That makes me very happy because I can eat a lot of honey.

-Yes.

-And then from that step, once this settles down, there's a little bit of wax and stuff in this, -we'll switch it to that bucket -Correct.

and we'll pour it back through that strainer again.

And then it has a little spout.

It does, it has a valve on it.

What's nice about this is, it's big and open and it will allow any bubbles or anything else that remains in the honey to float to the top.

The honey is heavier it will go towards the bottom and it will be able to drain off the honey in a very nice pretty form into our bottles.

Tim: Then we take what's left in here and what do we do with that?

It's going to be the leftover of bees wax.

So, you're going to filter it and clean it up and then you can make beauty products with it, -ornaments, artwork.

-Tim: Chapstick, -Tim: deodorant.

-Sarah: The sky is the limit.

So, we're going to call it a day wrap this thing up.

Tomorrow after this settles, we'll do the process -we talked about.

-We did.

In a couple of days we're going to have jars full of honey.

-We will.

-Makes me very happy.

-Thank you so much.

-You're welcome.

[music playing] Tim: We had some containers that we bought - at the bee store -Nicki: That's right.

and we filled them up with beautiful, - wonderful honey.

-Nicki: Yes.

Around here this spring, the locust trees were absolutely full.

-The clover was everywhere.

-Right.

The white clover was everywhere.

So, that's kind of what you see and taste in that.

This recipe that you're getting ready to do.

The honey that you see up there almost looks like dark syrup -Nicki: Yes.

and that's probably fall tree honey.

But that being said, Nicky is going to make something now that's one of my favorite things.

When I think about honey recipes, -Tim: I think about?

-Nicki: Baklava always.

How do you think Baklava came around?

How old do you think that recipe is?

I don't know, do you?

You know, we've been looking at the Roman Empire - studying the Roman Empire.

-Nicki: Not quite.

If you go way back to like 160 BC, Cato the elder, he was a historian who really gave all kinds of information about Roman life during that period of time.

They made something called a placenta cake and not the way you're thinking about it, but they would take like layers of dough, honey, cheese, bay leaves, put that all together -and pour some honey on the top -That sounds good.

and they would make a dish called placenta cake.

I can think of better names, but they think this was one of the forerunners - for Baklava -Nicki: Okay.

which was all through the Ottoman Empire later.

Anyhow, that being said, Mrs. Farmer, how do you make your beautiful, wonderful Baklava?

Well, I make it probably different than a lot of people, and this is kind of the way our family does it.

I use just honey, pure honey.

A lot of people, they make a honey, they add water and sugar and lemon and they bring it all down.

No, we're using pure honey over the top and that's how we like it.

Your Baklava... Now, we've tried it every day.

-You have Greek heritage -Right.

and this is something passed down to you, but we've had it every different way in the world but this is one of my favorite Baklava's.

So, if you will walk us through that Mrs. Farmer.

And also something different we do.

People use walnuts we don't.

I use almonds and pecans in ours -Tim: Wonderful.

- and it's pretty simple.

What I'm going to do being a have, you could get chopped up nut yourself but I had whole almonds.

So, I'm going to start with those -because those are full.

-I think they're better -when they're fresh anyway.

-Yes, they are.

There, those are kind of chopped up.

Now, I had pecans that were kind of chopped up, but I want them a little bit more.

So, we could get those chopped.

And I actually had a half a cup of almonds - and a half a cup of pecans.

-Tim: Yum.

Because we're making a smaller dish today, you can make a 9 by 13, but I'm going to make kind of a half batch because we'll eat it off.

I made too much.

-This is good.

Yeah.

-That's right.

All right, so I have this.

Now, the only thing I'm going to add to this is I have some cinnamon here and I'm going to do, this is about a quarter of a teaspoon.

I'm going to throw in here myself and you can do whatever you want if you like a little more taste.

-Little like a cinnamon.

-Yeah.

And I put Nutmeg and I'm going to do about a quarter of that.

Tim: Cinnamon is good for you, - you know?

-Nicki: That's right.

And now I'm going to put -a whole tablespoon of sugar -Okay.

and this is going to be our mixture that goes between all of our layers.

And that's it for this.

All right, I put this aside and now I bought Phyllo Dough.

You can buy it at the store.

You get two packs.

We're only going to use one pack today.

If you were doing a 9 by 13, two pack, we are only going to need one.

So, this is just a layered thing.

Yes, it is.

We're going to layer.

Now, I also have a stick and a half of butter which we're going to go ahead and heat up because I'm going to use that.

We're going to be brushing that between our layers.

All right, my Phyllo Dough like I said, I'm only needing one for this and this stuff is like paper almost.

The fact is I like to eat it and it just like melts in your mouth and you actually buy this in the frozen section.

It is frozen and you let it set out overnight because if it was frozen you won't be able to do this.

See how it's nice and pliable right now.

We want to work fast too because it dries out.

But I'm going to cut these in half and it's not going to fit perfect.

But this, you just kind of play with it and we'll butter it and Tim: If one of them is off the left, -you bring it back.

-That's right.

And our butter's getting close.

So, this is the tedious part, we're going to peel these apart one at a time and we're going to go and I'm going to do two at a time and see how they're a little bit... See how it rips?

It doesn't matter.

So I just kind of see, I'm just folding them over.

It's not going to be perfect.

I'm going to take my butter and we're just going to continue to do this.

I want to get 10 pieces in.

Are you thinking about this?

You think about butter and you think about honey and you think about nuts.

You can't go wrong.

-What possibly could go wrong?

-That's right.

And I want to get about and I'm just going to switch them back and forth and see how they're up a little.

I'm just going to fold them over and we're actually going to put 10 pieces in before we do our nut mixture.

You could do 9 or 10.

-That's kind of your base.

-Yes, and I'm just doing two at a time because it's easier.

We're going from the inside you could butter between each one, but I do between every two because believe me, we're going to have plenty of butter.

Now, we're going to preheat our oven to what?

We're going to go 325 for 45 minutes.

-Tim: 325 for 45 minutes.

-Nicki: That's right and then we're going to let it sit.

Usually, if you let it sit for about two to three hours, it's easier and better to eat.

If you tried it, you could do it right away but it's kind of gooey.

We're going to take about a third of this mixture.

I got my little baby spoon here.

[music playing] Now, I like to cut this first too.

We're going to make this and this is actually going to be, I'm going to go five by five.

These are going to be 25.

This is going to give us 25 pieces of Baklava.

Tim: 25 pieces for me what are you going to have?

Nicki: I will get nothing.

All right, here's where I just go crazy with the honey.

They're cut too so it's going to kind of drizzle in between and I'm just going to take and use a bunch of honey.

You are only messing around.

No, I'm not and as this cooks, this is going to go through everything and go in the cracks.

Now we're going to let this cook and you know what, it's going to puff up as it cooks and the honey is going to ooze in there and it's going to be delicious.

All right, let me open the oven.

I would like you to.

Thank you.

[music playing] -Are you excited?

-This is my favorite.

Go.

Nicki: I could eat these all day long.

I bet I could take it a little bit in right there.

I bet I could put the whole thing in my mouth.

I'm going to get me a little honey in there.

Wow.

I'm going to put some of our clover honey on here.

Wow.

These are not going to last.

We'll eat all of these.

Like if you don't put them away within an hour, they'll be gone.

What do you think?

Tim: Tastes so good.

Kelly said something going to go and it's funny because you make this around Christmas Day.

When I ate into that I heard... [singing] -A Christmas music.

-You going to blow the Christmas horn?

I can decorate.

-Not yet.

-Okay, -I was excited.

-Not yet.

But let me tell you what, oh, oh, oh, oh.

-I know.

-Oh.

These are my favorite dessert in the whole world.

Tim: Baklava with our honey.

I want to thank Sarah for coming out to help us with our honey and it's so sad that the half hour has flown away.

-Yes, it has.

-That being said, if you would like a recipe like this, where would you go Mrs. Farmer?

Nicki: I go to timfarmerscountrykitchen.com.

-Tim: I've been there before.

-Nicki: Have you?

-Tim: Back in the '70s.

-Nicki: Okay.

Also we have a Facebook page we would like to see you there.

How hard is it to get down there Mrs. Farmer?

-Nicki: You hit like.

-Tim: Oh, I like that.

Nicki: I got it.

We're working hard doing brand new shows for you.

Coming up very shortly we got some really cool stuff you want to see.

-I know.

-But at this time, we're going to wrap it up by saying it's all about?

-Good times.

-Good friends.

-Nicki: And good eats.

-Tim: We'll see you next week with a brand new Tim Farmers Country Kitchen.

[music playing] Narrator: Funding for Tim Farmers Country kitchen is brought to you by Amerson Farms Country Store.

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