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A Beekeeper's Diary Saturday November 25th, 2000 Steve came in at 8 to move some yards. Gene is making wraps. I wound up working a bit as a result. El still has the virus and is not too energetic. We're close to done wrapping now (82% done) and should be finished by the end of the week. We're now waiting on the last of the new wraps. They should be finished by Wednesday -- with any luck.
Normals for the period: Low minus 12. High zero. Sunday November 26th, 2000 I'm off to Calgary to get a few things. Our pond is frozen over. I keep the aerator running, but I can see that is going to spoil our skating unless I move it to the other end. I don't know if there are any fish left since we had another bloom of algae in August.
Monday November 27th, 2000
We expect good weather tomorrow, then poorer weather for a day or so. We want to finish by the end of the first week of December, so every good day counts. It took a while to get things set up, but by afternoon, all the jigs were made and working and the manufacturing was well underway. The job is paid on a piecework basis. We pay $1 CAD per wrap completed. In the picture, black poly tube has been cut up into 7 foot lengths and stuffed with Kodel® . Rita is taping the ends of the wrap together. A new roll of Kodel® can be seen behind Sharon.
Normals for the period: Low minus 12. High zero.
Tuesday November 28th, 2000 Ellen and I drove to Lethbridge this morning to pick up the paintings from her show at the Yates public gallery. We had lunch with Bob Webb, a painter friend of ours and headed back home, stopping on the way to visit Kirk. We carry cell phones and continue to get progress reports from the crews as we travel. Steve had phoned in with the flu, so Matt took Keith and Brett out to wrap some nearby hives. During the day, it sounded as if things were going well, but at 5 PM we found they had done only 120 hives, so we knew something was wrong, and told them to head home. No sense wasting more wages until we found out what was going on.
Normals for the period: Low minus 12. High zero.
Wednesday November 29th, 2000
Today began with a trip to the dentist for me. I need a crown and had a tooth prepared for the new cap. First thing in the morning, Ellen spent an hour with the crew giving them a tune-up -- including a hands-on demo of wrapping and a time study. She proved that 2 man-minutes per hive was more than enough time to put the wraps on, even allowing for all the little things that always need doing. (The actual wrapping time to install one wrap was under one minute). The crew then went out and wrapped 250 hives or so -- and got back in good time.
We knew snow was predicted for Thursday, so we planned to work around the home yard. There is a lot of tidying up to do before we are done for the year. Ellen told Keith not to come in since he has little experience, and the work planned requires knowledge of what things are, and where they go. He also proved in the morning session that he has learned nothing about wrapping after several days on the job. We have doubts about his future here.
Meijers left around nine and took eight of our new wraps along to try out. Thursday November 30th, 2000
Normals for the period: Low minus 13. High minus 1. Sunrise is now 8:17 am and sunset: is at 4:32 pm. Days are short. We got a skiff of snow overnight and the weather is cool. The wrap making is going well. We're nearly done. Steve is still sick, but Matt and Brett are working around the yard. Ellen called Keith and thanked him for working here, saying that we are about done and won't be needing him for the last little bit. I did the payroll this afternoon. In consideration of some of the performance lately, I was not as generous as I usually am with bonuses. Steve got a good bonus though. << Previous Page
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Today: Mainly cloudy. Periods
of snow developing late this afternoon. Wind becoming east 30 km/h. High minus 3.
