Teaching an old dog new tricks ~ October 6, 1988

 David Heiller

Before Cindy and I had children, we decided to get a puppy. We joked that it would be a good child-rearing test for us. (There’s a lot of truth to that joke.) We even named the dog Binti, which means “my daughter” in Arabic, which I spoke from my Peace Corps experience.

Our first day with Binti.

Binti was part of our family back then, nine years ago. She slept on the couch, or in our bed. When we visited relatives for holidays or weekends, she came along. We took her for walks every day, and played many games.

One of the best games we played was on the big round bales of hay in the field near our rented farm house. Cindy and I would climb onto a bale, with Binti leaping to join us. Then we would race to the next bale, trying to keep ahead of the imaginary alligator. At first, Binti couldn’t catch us, but as the autumn progressed, we became alligator casserole nearly every night.

When our real children started arriving, Binti’s life changed. She was booted outside. We also kicked her off the couch and bed. She stayed home when we went to visit relatives. Our games were replaced more with walks, as our kids rode on our backs and Binti went exploring the fields along the roads of Birch Creek Township on her own.

Malika and Binti

Binti accepted the change with little fuss. Like most pets, she sensed these four-legged humans were special. She let the babies pull themselves up by using her dangling ears as handles. When they confused her with a horse and tried to ride her through the house, she let them. Of course, this was made easier by the increase in table scraps which she would find under the high chair every morning, noon, and night. Even now, Binti’s first stop in the house is beneath the kitchen table, nose to the floor.

But lately Binti has been showing signs of her age. She doesn’t hear me call her in the early morning, when she is still sound asleep. She struggles and groans to her feet when she wakes, and her walk is a little stiff. The vet says she has cataracts forming.

So we thought now might be a good time for a puppy. Binti could help raise it, we thought, and it might add a little zest to her life too.

Noah coaxing out the new puppy, Queen Ida.

Connie Overland, Sturgeon Lake, had a litter of collie-Labrador puppies to give away, so we picked a female. She had a slender collie face, and ears that stuck half-up before folding over like envelope flaps. Her fur was brown with black tips. We named her Queen Ida, and meant no offense to the musician by that same name. In fact, it was a compliment.

Binti didn’t exactly break out the Alpo when Queen Ida moved in. She hardly wagged her tail when they met. Queen Ida hid under the porch. But soon the two made peace. Queen Ida literally threw herself on Binti, chewing at Binti’s ears and wagging tail. They are now inseparable. When Binti roams the field on a smelling expedition, Queen Ida follows. When Binti comes into the house to make her kitchen table run, Queen Ida is sniffing right behind. Sometimes when they eat, Queen Ida stands directly underneath the 75-pound Binti, so that they look like one animal with two heads, a big black one and a little tan one. When Binti curls up in front of the wood stove on these cool fall nights, Queen Ida nestles next to her.

A week ago, I took the two kids and the dogs across the road to check out the hay-making activity of our neighbors. As we climbed onto a big round bale of hay, that old game popped into my head. I called across the field, where Binti and Queen Ida were tracing some animal scent.

“Queen Ida!” The puppy turned her head and looked our way.

Noah and Queen Ida

“Come on,” I said to the kids, “let’s see if we can get to that bale over there.”

We took off running toward the nearest bale. Queen Ida glanced at Binti, hesitated just a second, then galloped after us.

“Hurry Noah, an alligator’s coming!” I called, feeling my heart pound with real excitement. “Hurry Mollie, don’t let him get you.” Both kids screamed and laughed and ran harder to the next bale, while Queen Ida closed the gap.

Noah reached the bale first, but he couldn’t get his five-year-old frame up. I grabbed Mollie from behind, and threw her on the bale as I ran past. Queen Ida followed me, Noah still scrambling and laughing, unable to get a foothold.

I finally had to boost him up too, just as Queen Ida caught my pants’ leg. “Ah, the alligator got me,” I cried, falling to the licking puppy.

“That’s a tiger, Dad,’’ Noah corrected me with a huge smile.

Our game continued to the next bale, and the next, until the kids had all been consumed by the tiger several times and both hunter and hunted had had their fill.

As we headed home, I thought about that old game that I had played with Binti so many years ago. Back then, I never would have dreamed that Cindy and I would have two children who would play the same game with their puppy, while Binti and I grinned from the sideline. And I never thought such a silly game would make me so happy once again.

A sweet fall chore ~ October 7, 1999

David Heiller

The hum from the bee hive rose to a roar as I lifted the lid off and puffed them with smoke.

A stiff breeze swirled through the trees. Don’t work with bees on a windy day, the bee books say, but bees never could read very well.

David and the hives.

Besides, it was October 2, and I was about one month late in doing this job. Wind or no wind, I was going to take that honey.

I squeezed the bellows of the smoker, sending more thick smoke down into the hive. The bees buzzed their disapproval, but most of them retreated into the hive. Smoke confuses them and sends them running to protect their queen.

I couldn’t blame the bees for grumbling. They had worked hard for that extra box of honey.

I lifted nine frames from the box on top. I used a hive tool, which is like a small crowbar, and a gripping tool to pry out each frame. They didn’t come out easily. In addition to weighing a couple pounds, each one was glued into place by bee glue, otherwise known as propolis. Bees like to seal things up. That’s one reason I should have done this job a month earlier. It would have given the bees more time to winterize their hive.

Each frame had bees walking over it. I brushed them off with a soft brush as best I could, then set each frame in an empty box in the garden cart. Some of the frames had every inch covered with honey. Some were only half full. Seldom do I see a perfect frame.

The air was filling up with bees. One found a hole in my glove and stung me. It didn’t hurt much. I’ve been stung so many times that it doesn’t bother me anymore.

I put the lid back on the hive, which now consisted of two boxes of honey and brood. That should be enough to get them through the winter, especially if it is a mild one like last year.

Last fall I had two bee hives. Both made it through the winter of 1998-99. Then one of them swarmed—the queen and about half the bees left. Usually when bees swarm you never see them again, but this time they took up residence in an empty hive about 10 feet away. I didn’t see it happen but where else did that new hive of bees come from? The bees in the old hive made a new queen and were back in business, so I had three hives this year.

I moved to the second hive and took out more frames of honey than the first one. It must have been the hive that didn’t swarm. The third hive was about the same as the first.

I pushed the heavy garden cart to the sauna, put the boxes inside, and covered them with two towels, so that the bees in the hives wouldn’t find them and start retrieving their honey.

The next morning I lit the sauna and let it heat up for a couple hours. I took the extractor from the garage, along with my decapping knife. I turned on the radio to listen to the Vikings play Tampa Bay while I worked.

It was a beautiful fall day, sunny and crisp. The thermometer had read 21 when I got up, but now it was up to 40! Leaves floated steadily down from the two maple trees by the house. It was fun to shuffle through them.

I cut the wax off the top of each frame using the decapping knife, which has a heating element in the blade. The blade gets hot and slices through the wax very easily. The capping wax has a lot of honey in it, so that gets saved. It will get strained when all the extracting is done.

I chewed some of the wax while I worked. It’s like gum filled with honey. It’s so good that it’s almost addicting.

I put two de-capped frames in the extractor and twirled the handle of the extractor as fast as I could. Inside of the stainless steel cylinder, honey flew out of the cells in the frames by cen­trifugal force and trickled down the side of the container to the bottom.

At first it didn’t seem like much honey was coming out. But as I did frame after frame, the honey accumulated at the bottom. When it became hard to turn the handle, I put an empty ice cream container on the floor and opened the spigot at the bottom of the extractor.

Honey oozed out of the hole and into the bucket. It’s a sight that will put a smile on your face. Liquid gold.

The Vikings scored a touchdown, and another, and another. Each time they scored, I dipped my hands in a bucket of warm water and waited for my son, who came out for a double hand slap. It’s a ritual we have.

By the time the game was over, the Vikings had won 21-14 and I had won too, with 4-1/2 gallons of honey as proof. I carried it into the house, along with the wax from the caps.

I put the empty frames back on the garden cart along with the empty extractor and the two pans that had held the cap wax. I took all this back to the bee hives. The bees would find it and clean it up. It’s amazing. They don’t waste anything. In a few days there won’t be a trace of honey on the pans or extractor or frames. Then I’ll put everything away for next year.

“The honey is dark this year,” Cindy commented when she saw the ice cream buckets come in. I hadn’t noticed, because when I was extracting, there were many different shades of honey. The color depends on what flowers the nectar is from. For example, basswood makes a light honey, while sumacs make a dark honey.

I wonder why the honey was so dark this year? Usually our honey is light, because we have a lot of basswood trees in the woods.

I’ll let the mystery bee. The honey tastes great no matter what color. And putting it up is a satisfying fall chore.