What do you keep in your freezer?

[susbees]

My son and I defrosted the freezer today and found...

One albino mole (awaits freeze drying)
One redstart (ditto)
Three vials of pheromone (bait hives)
Four frozen queens - two out-of-steam, two DLQ (swarm poles)
One tub of bee bread
One tub of propolis

And, I couldn't believe this one, but 10yo had frozen three of her mite counting sheets neatly wrapped in clingfilm (she will insist on laying them all out in rows)!! Now disposed of.

There was also food .
What oddities do you have in your freezer????

 

[MuswellMetro]

well when i decided to check to see what i could freeze for christmas last week

1) two brood spring booster hormone paddles about 2009
2) two chinese takeway tub full of about 100 worker bees 2010
3) two hormone bait hive vials sealed
4) one used (part)hormone bait hive vials( only in hive one day)

never did get around to test those bees for Nosema last year, this years batch I did and tested positive

 

[george]

Got me to thinking , so I had a peek .

Woodcock x 2
Pheasant , lots.
A fair bit of Muntjac(in bits) .
2 Munty heads that need boiling and bleaching .
1 nice Roe that needs the same treatment .
1 Tawny Owl (rta) thats going to the taxidermist .
Lots of frames of drawn foundation , some with stores .
Ice !!
Good job its only me that looks , it is used specifically for my beekeeping and shooting bits .

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Fairly mundane really - three woodcock (I think) half a dozen ducks, some pheasant, a goose, last bit of home reared pig (a present which I'd forgotten about) two half pound pieces of game pate I made last year which I'll use for Christmas, trout - rainbow and brown, sea trout, home grown runner beans peas and broad beans for Christmas, some decent dry cured bacon which I'm saving for a special occasion, aquaseal wader repair gum. And plenty of ice for the gin!!

 

[milkermel]

Im not emptying mine to find out!! In the big one (7fter) lots of apples and usual fruit stuff, lots of homemade stew and casseroles (have an aga so always try and bulk cook) O halfs sea fishing bait black lug worm and dirty squid, several pollock lots of dab and fondant. Oh and half a pigs head (somwhere in the depths).
In the little chest freezer is lots of bunnies and pheasants and woodies still in jackets they gutted and put in as they are, saves time when there are 20 bunnies to deal with and also I find it works as good as cling film/bagging. skin them as and when we want them.

 

[drstitson]

various game, bits of pigs, swarm lures and above all blackcurrants (72 bushes so far).

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Fairly mundane really - three woodcock (I think) half a dozen ducks, some pheasant, a goose, last bit of home reared pig (a present which I'd forgotten about) two half pound pieces of game pate I made last year which I'll use for Christmas, trout - rainbow and brown, sea trout, home grown runner beans peas and broad beans for Christmas, some decent dry cured bacon which I'm saving for a special occasion, aquaseal wader repair gum. And plenty of ice for the gin!!

Oh, and I forgot about 40 pounds of blackcurrants and ten of gooseberries.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

various game, bits of pigs, swarm lures and above all blackcurrants (72 bushes so far).

DO NOT ask him what's in 'the other' freezer!

 

[drstitson]

3 freezers - much the same distributed around each.

 

[Storm™]

Got me to thinking , so I had a peek .

Woodcock x 2
Pheasant , lots.
A fair bit of Muntjac(in bits) .
2 Munty heads that need boiling and bleaching .
1 nice Roe that needs the same treatment .
1 Tawny Owl (rta) thats going to the taxidermist .
Lots of frames of drawn foundation , some with stores .
Ice !!
Good job its only me that looks , it is used specifically for my beekeeping and shooting bits .

No no no. Don't boil them heads and bleach. Omg. Boiling damages them. Can crack them and makes them brittle. Domestid Beatles will clean every last scrap and keep the nasal bones intact. Much more better. Or bucket of water and leave submerged. Every so often tip away and refill. Much gentler. Tawny owl - brilliant. Freezes and kills the feather mites and stops them muching the feathers.

 

[countryman]

brown and rainbow trout some cooked crayfish (about 3-4 pounds) pheasant,pigeon,geese and most importantley a whole fallow deer butchered down to size, along with all the veg/fruit from summer

 

[susbees]

Not many bee-related products it seems. As a veggie I hate to read about woodcock...so few about, so unnecessary to kill them. The previous people banned all hunting across this farm after finding someone had murdered a woodcock.

Sprouts anyone ?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Not many bee-related products it seems. As a veggie I hate to read about woodcock...so few about, so unnecessary to kill them. The previous people banned all hunting across this farm after finding someone had murdered a woodcock.

Sprouts anyone ?

Plenty of Woodcock about believe you me, whoever told you that story didn't have all the facts

 

[The Cumbrian]

Plenty of Woodcock about believe you me, whoever told you that story didn't have all the facts

Interesting. If there are plenty around why is it that Woodcock are graded

Europe: SPEC category 3 (declining)
UK: amber (European status)

The population has shown a steady decline since the early 1970s with the current population at about 1/3 to 1/4 of what it was in 1974/75.

Somebody's facts can't be right.

 

[onriver]

I'm sure I remember reading some clarification of this on the lines of a national decline in numbers due to the usual suspects - farming practices etc, but a maintained annual influx of Scandinavian woodcock numbering several million.
That fits with what I see locally - 2 or 3 pairs nesting successfully and a pleasure to see, with large numbers appearing in local woods once the cold hits?

 

[onriver]

that tawny owl would provide a lot of north country fly dressings, as would the woodcock

 

[BeeJayBee]

Our freezer has a lot of meat, veg and fruit, and a few packs of frozen daphnia, bloodworms etc for the fish.

2 Munty heads that need boiling and bleaching .
1 nice Roe that needs the same treatment .

No no no. Don't boil them heads and bleach. Omg. Boiling damages them. Can crack them and makes them brittle. Domestid Beatles will clean every last scrap and keep the nasal bones intact. Much more better. Or bucket of water and leave submerged. Every so often tip away and refill. Much gentler.

Or put them in a wormery.

 

[Hivemaker.]

No no no. Don't boil them heads

We mount quite a few red deer heads,and they are always boiled,no problems at all,this is not the entire head,only the skull cap,which is cut of in a cross just below the eye sockets,then down from behind the antlers. Have a shed with a around 150 sets of antlers in at the moment,some good,some not so good heads. Used to always boil them when i stalked for a living in Scotland as well, but that was in another life a long time ago.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

'During the period prior to writing this, there is a clearly discernible increase in migratiry woodcock numbers in the UK and Ireland.'
'It is a fact that, for the ten year period 1998-2008 my records show that on average, through my shooting activities, I would flush somewhere close to 500 woodcock for the period October 20th - january 31st. In the season 2007-2008 I flushed nearer 1,000 woodcock for exactly the same effort as previous years in terms of hunting days.'
'Based on the flimsiet of evidence, the EU Draft Management Plan for Woodcock 2006 and 2007 claimed unfavourable conservation status.However, Birdlife International/EBCC(2000) showed that, in themajority of all European and Baltic countries with sizeable numbers ofbreeding woodcock, numbers were, in fact, stable In fact, an increase in numbers was reported for Denmark, Ireland, Holland and Spain. In france, the monitoring of roding males since 1988 showsthe French breeding population to be stable and probably increasing. [Ferrand and Grossman 2001].....Dr Yves Ferrand.of the French Game and Wildlife Department - has argued recently that numbers are stable and probably on the increase (2008)...we cannot ignore the European union , let alone the influence of the 'greens' and the anti bloodsports organisations on it....At the time of writing[this book] the Director General for Environment has noted the criticisms of his teams robustness in relation to the 'facts' they suggested and the whole process is under review.'
Just a few snippets of Professor Colin Trotman's Book Woodcock Fieldcraft and Quarry published 2010.Professor Trotman is the accepted UK and European expert on Scolopax rusticola.
What you must also remember is that the woodcock we see in winter are migratory birds who have flown over from Russia to avoid the severely cold winters over there. There have been a few mild winters over there recently which have seen the birds staying put in the forests until November and late December, whilst our native birds have moved on for more southern and Eastern climes.

 

[Hivemaker.]

No shortage of woodcock around this area either,even see loads of them out at night when out lamping.(not lamping for woodcock though)

This from a shooting website.

Migratory Woodcock numbers have risen significantly in recent years to the point that it is now possible to shoot modest bags without damage to resident stocks, providing a fresh challenge to even the most experienced shot. For the past two seasons we have been providing quality driven Woodcock days within the British Isles.

http://www.shavesgreen.com/gameshooting/gs_woodcock-shooting.html