Bringing Seltzer Back

Anyone who knows me knows that I am pretty obsessed with recycling. I can pinpoint exactly where this obsession came from. When I was in 7th grade, my friends and I were part of the Environmental club and the club made a school initiative to put out paper recycling bins in every classroom and we would collect the bins after school once a week for recycling. At the end of the year, we had collected thousands of pounds of paper. What would normally be in the dumpster, was now collected by a recycling facility. That club really made me value how important it is for every one of us to do our part as little as it may seem, to help the environment. Because every little bit helps.

One of my other obsessions in life is making the best Egg Cream. If you've never had an egg cream, you must try one. It's like a chocolate milk soda. The name is pretty strange because there are no eggs or cream in the drink at all. Egg creams are made with just 3 ingredients. Chocolate syrup (preferably U-Bet, made in Brooklyn), milk (preferably whole milk), and seltzer. I've discovered however that I had many issues with bottled seltzer that you buy from the supermarket. Like any carbonated drink, once you open the bottle, it starts to lose it's carbonated bubbles. So even though you can make an excellent egg cream the first time you use the seltzer bottle, the next drink you make with the same bottle falls flat. Literally.

For many years, I've had one of these old vintage glass seltzer bottles, so one day we thought, what if we could refill one of these?

That led us to search online for those old time glass seltzer bottles. The ones that keep the carbonation because there is a lever you press to let out just the exact amount of seltzer that you need for your drinks.  Since you don't open the bottle, it never loses it's carbonation.  To our surprise and luck, we found a local family run company that delivers seltzer in those vintage seltzer bottles called the Brooklyn Seltzer Boys. The fact that there is a company that reuses these bottles and puts them back in use, and is right here in Brooklyn, NY is outstanding! On their website, they don't actually call it recycling, they calling it "reusing" because the same bottle gets reused over and over again. Even better than recycling!!

The way it works is that you order by the case. A delivery comes with 10 seltzer bottles and costs only $35. That's just $3.50 for each bottle of seltzer. Which for us, is about the cost of a seltzer from the supermarket here.  Two years ago on this blog, I challenged myself to live a little "greener" and this definitely falls into that category. There is no wasted plastic bottle, and we put these beautiful "antiques" back in use!  I love supporting local environmentally conscious businesses. Total win!

U-bet syrup, cold milk, and this seltzer. BEST EGG CREAM EVER!! Next time, I'll have to buy the milk from Ronnybrook farms, which will make this entire drink all locally sourced ingredients within 100 miles. Pretty sweet!

Urban Beekeeping in Brooklyn!

Every Saturday, when I see this bridge, I get excited. Only blocks from this bridge lives our Brooklyn honeybees.

This is one of the locations where our hives are located. How pretty is this? Idyllic if you ask me! The fragrance alone is dreamy!

 

The magnolia tree was in full bloom last weekend. Just gorgeous! Can you see Oscar, the beekeeping kitty in this photo? He likes to watch us every weekend when we inspect the beehives.

At this location, we installed a new package of bees 2 weeks ago. So our goal was to see how well the new Queen is laying. It's important to make sure she is laying well in order to have a strong hive. We need the numbers of worker bees to increase.

I look forward for the week to go by, just so I can do this. There are so few things in life that make me happier and more calm than when I'm beekeeping.

We had to use all new deep frames in this beehive because we had to throw away all the frames from last year due to mold. The worker bees haven't had enough time to build out new wax comb on the new foundation. Sometimes when there is too much room between new frames, honeybees will build out burr wax comb or "wild wax comb" to fill up the space between the frames. Honeybees will try to fill up as much space as possible, they don't like open spaces in their hive. Check out this beautiful burr comb that they built in one week!

 

We carefully removed the burr comb. Dave took this picture of us, but he got his finger in the frame. hahahaha

 

We saw that the Queen was laying pretty well. As fast as the worker bees can draw out wax comb, she is laying on that comb.

Here is a closeup of the capped brood. We can tell she is laying well because she is laying in every cell, one after another. That is a perfect pattern. When you see a Queen laying spotty, all over the frame, that is a sign that there is something wrong with the Queen.

After we finished this hive inspection, we went to our second location which houses 2 hives. They were brimming with activity! I didn't get any photos this time of the inside of the hive.

But I took this quick video of how active the bees are! Pretty amazing! I love watching them returning to the hive. Pretty cool! So far the green hive is doing really well! They are booming in numbers of bees because this hive survived the winter. We are doing so well in fact that we put a Queen excluder on and have put a honey super on top! Woooo! Excited!