We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two.
We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'.
--- Sir Arthur Eddington ---

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Dennis and I spent a few hours today, playing with the Beamer, our old forklift. Now that I've lent the Swinger to Meijers, we need the Beamer to load a truck today, and for other odd jobs, but the Beamer has not run since last winter. We dragged it a round trying to get it going earlier, in the spring, with no success, so today we got serious and pulled plugs, removed the rocker cover, etc. After a few hours, and no luck, we gave up and went out to look at the bees.

We have 25 queens we need to install into splits. Dennis wasn't sure, last week, if some hives had queens or not, so I went with him today to look. By today it has become obvious that all are queenright, since the brood is easier to see after it gets to more advanced stages. Last week, some had only eggs. We managed to put in only one queen, and will finish tomorrow. We also split a few along the way, since the hives were starting to put on honey, and I don't plan to extract this year. Tomorrow, we'll go early and look for queens in the halves. It should be easy early in the day, before the bees spread out in the hives.

After supper, a beekeeper from the North came by to get some supers. Ellen took care of that, while I worked with Matt on the Beamer. Matt had come over, at my request, to see if he could work some magic on the Beamer.

He said that it must be spark plugs, so we looked see what we had around. We found some Ford plugs and they fit, so we put them in and set up the timing etc. by a the wild guess method. One crank, and the unit started right up, but we found the clutch would not release. I figure we must have jiggered it, pulling the beamer around and popping the clutch when we were trying to pull start it last spring. We gave up for the day.

Today : Sunny. Wind becoming south 20 km/h near noon. High 25. UV index 7 or high. / Tonight : Increasing cloudiness this evening then a 30 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm. Wind southwest 20 km/h. Low 9. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

It's cooler this morning, and we started by fixing the clutch on the beamer, then setting the timing. It runs just fine, now, and we are ready to load the tanks when the trucker calls. I had been about ready to give up on the Beamer yesterday, but this goes to show that sometimes it pays to press on, and it also pays to have friends.

In the afternoon, we went out to work on the bees around three. Since I am now a small operator, I have the luxury of waiting on weather and time of day. In the afternoon and evening, assuming warm, sunny weather and a flow, the bees are more active. They are also more docile, since the foragers are out and the hive is less crowded. We had made some splits and were checking for queens and making further splits. I am trying to keep the hive strength down and reduce honey production, but, nonetheless some of the splits were plugging.

Because we were working in the late afternoon on hives working a flow, the bees were spread out in the hives. Although we looked a bit, we did not see even one queen. That made determining which half of a split hive had a queen harder, and we decided that any further splits would be made by shaking frames and placing them over an excluder for pickup the next day. We than made a number of two-frame splits so we will be sure to use up the queens.

We got as far as the styro hives and found a curious thing: two hives had what looked like swarm cells -- they were numerous and near the periphery, no new brood, apparently no queen, and a small population. They had never occupied the bottom box to any extent and they were not plugged. It looked to me as if they may have swarmed without occupying the whole hive or being crowded. Other of the styro hives had reached sufficient strength to need splitting, and we filled all the styro equipment and had to transfer some into wooden boxes.

When we guessed that it was about six, we quit for the day, but found, on returning home, that it was actually seven.

Today : Sunny with cloudy periods. Wind becoming northwest 30 km/h this afternoon. High 19. UV index 6 or moderate. /Tonight : A few clouds. Wind northwest 30 km/h. Low 9. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

Today : A mix of sun and cloud. Wind west 20 km/h. High 21. UV index 6 or moderate. / Tonight : Clear. Wind northwest 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low 9. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

Today Dennis and I went down and finished working through the hives. We used the rest of the queens, and estimate that we need about ten more. Fortunately Meijers have some queen cells nearly ready and offered to bring some over when they next visit. We are now up to 69 hives.

Dennis finished the last of the work by himself, since I had to go to the accountant in the afternoon. The visit was brief, and the take-home message was to stop selling equipment, or risk giving a large percentage of the proceeds away in taxes. I had been geared up to sell the rest of what we have on hand over the next few weeks, but now must truly retire for a while. I realize that some beekeepers had counted on buying things like extractors, supers, uncappers and other essential items from me at the last minute, but I'll have to tell them. "No". It feels strange to hear myself tell callers that I am not selling anything more at the present. I'll have to ask in more detail when the accountant is finished working everything over next week, and see if there is any way that it makes sense to sell at least a little more, but, for now, I guess I'll have to take some time off. I've been enjoying selling everything off, but it has been harder and more disruptive work than running an ongoing business.

When Dennis returned at the end of the day, he reported that he had gotten stung fairly heavily while working the last several hives. The alfalfa had been cut at that yard, and the bees were cross, but he persevered. I had been encouraging him to work without gloves when working brood chambers, and had not put them on to finish when things got tough at the end. he was feeling a bit punchy from all the stings, but seemed fine to drive home.

Although good beekeepers usually work without gloves where possible, especially when working in brood chambers, Paulo always insisted on wearing gloves, and never got comfortable working without gloves and a net. Dennis worked less with the bees and had followed Paulo's example when he did. Actually, what choice did he have? If there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is not to work without a veil and gloves near someone who is wearing protective equipment. Inevitably those wearing full garb are blissfully unaware of the mood of the bees and will get you stung with their blundering around, sometimes suddenly and badly. The reason for wearing minimal protection is to be sensitive to the bees, but a smart beekeeper keeps a veil and gloves close by and dons them quickly when the occasion warrants it. Bees can and do flare up suddenly, and the occasional hive can be vicious and attack in large numbers when the lid is lifted. Such hives are maybe, one in a thousand, and not always hives that have shown signs of hostility before. I personally throw a veil loosely over my head most of the time when working through hives, to avoid surprises.

Dee Lusby phoned this morning, to say that Ed has had a terrible fall and a stroke. He is near death and on life support. They are in the middle of extracting their first 100 barrel crop in many years, and she is torn between caring for him personally and doing the field work. They do have some help, but only Lusbys themselves can access some of the distant desert yards that are back in ranches, locked by the INS and ranchers against interlopers. We'll pray for a miracle and trust that Lusbys many good friends will close ranks to help them through. On the right is a picture of Ed, Dee, Joe Meijer, and Lee, a neighbour from New Mexico standing in one of their yards, with Mount Kidd in the background. See also Jan 2002

This was another one of those odd, 'retired' days. With sales on hold, I have little to do. Dennis phoned to say that he was feeling groggy, and I told him to call if he was better later, otherwise to come in tomorrow when we would have cells. He called in the afternoon and said he was still feeling a bit off.

Jean and Chris and the new baby, Mckenzie came this afternoon to visit, and Meijers came over for supper as well. We barbequed hamburgers, lit a bonfire, and sat around outside until dusk. After supper, Krystal and Emma dropped in to say hello and see the new baby.

Today : A mix of sun and cloud. Wind northwest 20 km/h. High 23. UV index 7 or high. / Tonight : A few clouds. Increasing cloudiness overnight. Wind northwest 20 km/h becoming light this evening. Low 11. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

We awoke to the sound of a good, soaking rain. Perfect. I had just been noticing, yesterday, that things were beginning to look dry, so I hope we get an inch or two.

Knowing we would have cells to put in, Dennis showed up for work, even though it was raining heavily. He picked up a few tools that were outside, then went home to wait until the rain stopped. Richard and Merilee came by around eleven to visit. They are moving from Austin, Texas to Norway, and stopped to visit Alberta friends on the way.

Around two, I called Dennis, and he came back, went out and put in the cells. I spent an hour or two with Chris, getting the camper ready for them to borrow, and then Dennis returned, having finished, but reporting heavy overcharging on the truck. We traced the problem to a voltage regulator and Dennis found one on the old Thunderbird out back that we have not managed to haul to the wreckers yet. It seems that Ford diesels use the same alternator as a 79 T'bird with air conditioning. These alternators are a tough and indestructible unit, and we wound up putting them on our Ford gas trucks too, after we burned out several original equipment units at $200 each.

By then Bill and Fen and Lorilee came along, pulling a boat that they are giving to Chris. It's a Crossbow, in pretty good shape. It needs a little TLC, but could go into the water anytime without much prep. Chris left, we had supper and that was another day. I actually felt retired for a while now and then during the day.

Today : Showers. Risk of a thunderstorm. Wind becoming northwest 20 km/h in the afternoon. High 17. UV index 2 or low.
Tonight : Cloudy periods. 30 percent chance of evening showers or thunderstorms. Wind northwest 30 km/h diminishing. Low 6.
Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

I drove to Calgary in the afternoon, bought trailer hitches for the boat, and took in the Stampede. It is still a great show. I watched the Rangeland Derby and left before the infield show and fireworks. It was a cool day, with a north wind in the evening. I can recall years when we wore ski jackets to the Stampede, but this was mostly T-shirt weather during the day.

Today was our tentative departure day for a trip East, but, so far, we are nowhere near leaving. I visited the accountant and now the books are done for last year.

Chris wants to get sailing, and came down to look into installing a hitch on his car. I had bought two, and assumed that it would be an easy job on my car and a bit harder on his, but it turned out to be well-nigh impossible on both. We're going to have to engineer our own hitches, it appears. At any rate, he looked over the parts and managed to sort everything out. There is a little fibreglasing to do, the trailer needs rewiring, and the boom is being welded, but otherwise the boat is ready to go.

Today : Sunny with cloudy periods. Wind becoming south 20 km/h this morning. High 21. UV index 6 or moderate. / Tonight : A few clouds. Wind southeast 20 km/h. Low 11. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

As I retire, there is less beekeeping work going on here. Dennis is still working with us, and although we had planned finish with his projects by now, we are currently thinking he will be here into the fall, and maybe longer. There is an incredible amount of clean-up and repair to do as we divest ourselves of the bee equipment and tidy up the property. Dennis also wants to eventually run his own bees and maybe we will build back up to 500 or 1,000 in his care and under our management. We'll see. At any rate, he is most a pleasant and considerate companion and little bother to have around. He's versatile and has learned to organize his own tasks and anticipate what will be coming up later.

Today we mostly worked on the motorhome and other small jobs. I also wasted the first hour hunting for small parts for the super elevators we were supposed to ship out ASAP.

I started on the job several times and spent a few hours, but did not make much headway. I was missing the correct size of shafting and not sure how to make up the little cam follower that Kelley uses, and I had a lot of other pressing things and interruptions going on. At any rate he called repeatedly and was in a rush, so I hunted for parts -- things had been rearranged since I last worked on it -- and started to realize that this was not very smart. I also began to realize that, perhaps, it was no coincidence that the feature was disabled on all of the units I had bought from various people. Quite possibly this feature causes problems, is unnecessary (we never needed it) and perhaps was even dangerous in that the machine might start unexpectedly, or be hard to stop.

I hunted for an hour, and then let the buyer know that this was just not working for me, and he cancelled the order. Apparently the buyers will order new elevators from Kelley for the full $1,200 plus brokerage, etc. That's fine. At this point, I'd have been giving them away, and working hard to do it. If I were the buyer and learned that the previous owners had all not used the feeler switches, I think I'd have decided that it was not that important.

The other thing that occurs to me is this: The missing parts are probably readily available at a cost of about $25 from Kelly, and install in twenty minutes.

Today : Increasing cloudiness. 60 percent chance of afternoon showers. Risk of a thunderstorm. Wind becoming southeast 20 km/h this afternoon. High 18. UV index 3 or low. / Tonight : Cloudy. 60 percent chance of showers this evening with risk of a thunderstorm. Clearing overnight. Low 9. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

Ellen & I drove to Drum in the morning to meet with a lawyer, had lunch, and headed home.

Today : Sunny with cloudy periods. High 23. UV index 7 or high. / Tonight : A few clouds. Low 10. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

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<< Previous Page July 1st to 19th, 2003 Next Page >> Left panel on? Yes | No

<< Previous Page July 1st to 19th, 2003 Next Page >>
Left panel on? Yes | No