{"id":1654,"date":"2024-05-13T20:20:31","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T19:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2024-05-13T20:20:31","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T19:20:31","slug":"we-need-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/2024\/05\/13\/we-need-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"We need medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

I caught up with Wanda<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

She’d managed to inspect the captured swarm the day before, and all seemed hunky-dory. No eggs yet, but you can expect to wait a couple of weeks before a newly mated queen will start laying.<\/p>\n

\"Bee<\/a><\/p>\n

We opened up the main hive, and similarly couldn’t see any eggs. More concerning though was the complete absence of a queen. Our hypothesis is that we hadn’t destroyed all the queen cells<\/a> before the new monarch had worked her way out, which probably means she’d been deposed by the existing workers, and any new queens had swarmed. There might still be a queen somewhere, but it’s not looking good for that hive.<\/p>\n

Before I started working, she asked me not to stand on the large plantain<\/a> that was standing by the hive. That led to a conversation about tea (which you can make from plantain), and the surprising properties of goosegrass<\/a>\u2014or cleavers, as Wanda knows it.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, we inspected the grapevine that she’d bought for her husband a couple of years back. I asked her how she pruned it, and we talked about replacement vs cut-back methods. Then she asked me what I sprayed my vines with, and I said “Nothing,” as they spread over a large area and I’m concerned about the effect on beed.<\/p>\n

So she told me about neem oil<\/a> and its seemingly magical properties. She gave me her recipe for fungicidal\/insecticidal use, adding that it worked a charm on broad beans (what is it about broad beans and blackfly?!). She even gave me a sample to try, which I will probably do at the weekend.<\/p>\n

We talked about the tinctures she’s made with neem (including one for psoriasis), and other potions she’s cooked up and used to beneficial effect, and I asked if she could write them down and share with me so I could put them on my recipe site<\/a>. She agreed, so hopefully soon I’ll be able to try some, or at least convince you to test a few, and we can do some experiments.<\/p>\n

Because you can still do science, even if you haven’t been in a lab for 15 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I caught up with Wanda on Friday. She’d managed to inspect the captured swarm the day before, and all seemed hunky-dory. No eggs yet, but you can expect to wait a couple of weeks before a newly mated queen will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[404,34],"tags":[434,437,436],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-science","tag-bees","tag-neem","tag-witchdoctor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/rpg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}