victorian farm

[Hedgehogpie]

I've just learned a little of the mystery of how a skep works from asking more questions of those with more beekeeping experience than me.

My tutor didn't explain that the colony itself was moved from skep to skep, leaving me with the impression that the entire lot were culled when honey was extracted. No surprise then that I couldn't understand how our forebears would be so wasteful as to dispose of healthy bees and (a perfectly good queen too!) in search of honey. Now I know that it wasn't quite as he'd described and that a major part of the detail had been left out of the telling.

My thanks to Norm for this simple but clear description of the process: http://normanweston.com/BEES/Skep%20Hives.htm

[Annpan]

Yes, that makes much more sense doesn't it, thankyou for the research

[Hedgehogpie]

Don't mind 'fessing up when I don't know something Thanks for the initial comment though, it made me want to go and find out more and in the process it's been helpful with my beekeeping course and steered me towards some interesting possibilities.

[matowakan]

I loved this programme and have tried making the handcream which works quite well,and no chemicals.
Sad it has stopped,hope something else simialr comes along soon,apparantly there is to be a series called Grow your own drugs which is about herbs as medicine I believe so will give that a go.

[chilitony]

She did'nt show you her cleaning her teeth with soot & salt!

[matowakan]

Don't think I will be trying that one out!

[rockchick]

LOL not all progress is bad after all!

[Silver Ether]

I used soot and salt quite often as a child don't remember it being vile ... but I do remember it spraying the bathroom sink with black dots...

[Hedgehogpie]

Could have been ground charcoal rather than soot? That's used as a mild abrasive.

[red]

when they made ginger beer - he used fresh ginger root - would they have been able to get that in Victorian times? I seem to remember as a kid you could not get it.. just the dried root. (and no im not so old to have been a kid in Victorian times!)

[Annpan]

I guess you could grow ginger in a heated greenhouse, but I hardly think a small farm would have access to it.

Didn't they also use olive oil in... was it lip balm? then made handcream out of lard I think that the programme doesn't hold up very well to close scrutiny, still enjoyable... but I missed the last episode... DOH!!

[mrsflibble]

i think its still available on iplayer ann
i loved this series, but more scrutiny; would a famer's wife really have made a curry? ok it was a recipe in both eliza acton and mrs beeton (ok, much the same book seeing as beeton was somewhat of a plagerist...) but they were surely manuals for the middle classes wern't they?!

[Annpan]

i think its still available on iplayer ann

Nope... though cash in the attic is Can anyone explain why they waste space on dross like that? I can't believe you can watch daytime TV on the iplayer... how very sad.

[red]

i think its still available on iplayer ann
i loved this series, but more scrutiny; would a famer's wife really have made a curry? ok it was a recipe in both eliza acton and mrs beeton (ok, much the same book seeing as beeton was somewhat of a plagerist...) but they were surely manuals for the middle classes wern't they?!

i thought the same thing... along with a lot of other new things, they would not have reached a tenant farmer. still it was interesting.

[Uller]

Re the ingredients that were used - I reading a book called 'Taste - the story of Britain through its cooking' at the moment. I haven't got to the Victorian era yet, but I've been surprised by the ingredients which were used, for instance in the Middle Ages, which I thought were relatively modern in Britain - olive oil was one of them, various 'exotic' spices etc.

Apparently olive oil was used because butter wasn't allowed during the numerous fasting periods which the the Roman Catholic church had - Henry VIII decided that butter could be used at any time when he dropped the Pope (as it were!). Almond milk was also common until dairy milk could be drunk at any time.

Not sure how or if this explains how these things were available in Victorian Farm (which I loved and is one of only 2 programmes I have watched on iPlayer in the 3 months my TV has been 'being fixed'), but thought it was interesting!