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We had an inch or so of snow overnight. This morning Paulo reported
that he only found 6 dead hives out of 177 he checked yesterday.
Stan came by around noon to drop off some supers and visit.
Today..Flurries. Wind northeast 20
km/h. High minus 12.
Tonight..Cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Wind light. Low minus 17.
Friday..Mix of sun and cloud. Wind light. High minus 3.
Saturday..Mainly cloudy. Low minus 14. High minus 2.
Sunday..Mainly cloudy. 30 percent chance of flurries or showers. Windy. Low
minus 5. High 4.
Monday..Periods of snow. Windy. Low minus 10. High minus 6. Normals for the
period..Low minus 12. High zero.
Paulo is checking some of our northern yards today and won't be in.
Dennis was bitten by a dog a few days ago and has been off work all week.
Looking back a year, I
can see how busy I was getting ready to sell everything. Well, things
didn't quite work out the way we planned. We did sell some of the hives
and machinery, but we are still running a pretty large operation -- that is
assuming that our bees pull through the winter.
10% losses at this early date are sobering, but when I checked to see how we
were doing in previous years, I see that this is not unusual. The ones
that are gone by now are the ones that were simply too light or had poor queens
last fall. We don't spend a lot of time in the fall trying to figure out
which ones won't make it. We just wrap everything and pick up the losers
in the spring.
I went to Global around noon, picked up Grant's patties and looked at the
patty making process. Then I bought a few groceries and went home.
Mike and his family came by in late afternoon and the kids rode the snowmobile
around the neighbourhood for an hour or two.
I spoke to Adony and he will be coming to Calgary next weekend. I
called a few beekeepers in south and Central Alberta and am setting up a meeting
with Adony for Friday afternoon March 8th in Calgary. The meeting is to
discuss the research that Beaverlodge is doing, what they wan to do, what we
want done, and all the various permutations and combinations of those
topics. Basically it is an information and brainstorming session.
Everyone is welcome and I am asking people to send me email so I can notify them
of exact time and place.
Today..Mainly
sunny. Becoming cloudy this afternoon. Wind light. High minus 1.
Tonight..Flurries developing this
evening. Wind increasing to north 30 km/h. Low minus 13.
Normals for the period..Low minus 12. High minus 1.
239 this morning. A little exercise makes a big difference.
Paulo took some samples yesterday again (from the very hives shown at the top
of this page), and we are gearing up to check a sufficient number of our yards
to determine how much sampling and treatment will be necessary. We have
about 66 active yards, so I think we will start with ten to see if we spot
anything at all. The first sample from the home yard yielded
Zero varroa
Zero Tracheal
Zero Nosema
Results like that are always suspicious. Until we hit some positives,
we have no way of knowing how well our sampling is working. I recall when
Eric and I did nosema tests a few
years back, I could not find anything and started to doubt my technique.
It was only after I had a positive to compare that I was assured that I had been
doing things correctly. We just had zero nosema.
Rich has been reading this diary and offered me some good advice regarding
the engine work by email. I always appreciate notes from people reading who have
suggestions and ideas that can help.
We had visitors this afternoon, a couple from the Wainright area interested
in getting started in bees.
Paulo got back from 5 yards and reports 17 dead from 176. Al those were
light and I assume that this was due to bad queens last fall. He will be
sampling another 5 yards tomorrow and after the bees have soaked twenty-four
hours, and been dissected, we will see where we are likely to wind up in terms
of mites.
Today..Increasing cloud this morning.
Wind becoming west 30 km/h. High minus 1.
Tonight..30 percent chance of flurries. Clearing overnight. Wind northwest 20
km/h. Low minus 9.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 1.
One more cold day and then back to more normal temperatures.
I went out early to start the forklift early, since we are expecting a
truck. It's minus twenty, and wouldn't you know: the guys park the FLs
near a plug-in in warm weather -- and away across the yard when it is going to
be cold. Anyhow, I got it started, then went in to exercise.
I've been skipping the exercise since I attended the conventions two weeks
ago, and have been starting to notice a lack of energy, motivation and mental
crispness, so I've made a point of getting back to it the last several
days. I can tell the difference right away.
The truck came for our cappings around ten and Paulo loaded it, with the
driver helping. Matt is taking the engine out of the car.
Today..Clearing this morning. Wind
northwest 20 km/h. High minus 10. Cold wind chill minus 25 this morning. Risk of
frostbite.
Tonight..Clear. Wind west 20. Low minus 14.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 1.
Ten more months until Christmas.
Allen's
Link of the Day: Salon.com
is a thought-provoking online magazine.
Today..Flurries. Wind increasing to
north 30 km/h. High minus 15. Cold wind chill minus 25. Risk of frostbite.
Tonight..Partly cloudy. 30 percent chance of evening flurries. Wind north 30
diminishing overnight. Low minus 20.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 1
I got the furnace and the fridge and the stove in the camper working. I
also spent away too much time at the keyboard.
Allen's
Link of the Day: The Google
search toolbar installs quickly and allows you to search any site any time,
whether the site has a local search engine or not.
Today..Mainly cloudy. Flurries this
morning. Wind north 20 km/h. High minus 13.
Tonight..Mainly cloudy with 60 percent chance of flurries. Wind north 20 km/h.
Low minus 19. Wind chill minus 28.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 1.
Today..Occasional snow developing this
afternoon. Wind increasing to north 30 gusting 50 km/h this afternoon giving
local reduced visibility in blowing snow. High plus 2 this morning then
temperature falling this afternoon.
Tonight..Periods of snow. Wind north 30 km/h with gusts to 50 diminishing.
Occasional blowing snow this evening. Low minus 17. Wind chill minus 25.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 1.
Here are homemade sheet metal tweezers and two samples made up of five bees
each from every colony in a yard. The samples are in 70% isopropyl alcohol
(USP) and will (1) be shaken to dislodge any varroa which will be counted and
(2) then at least ten bees will be examined for tracheal mites. More will
be done if the first are inconclusive up to a possible 100. (3) The guts
of the dissected bees will then be crushed and checked for nosema
under a microscope.
I built some tweezers, following Arlene's instructions and Paulo went out to
take samples from the two groups of bees in the home yard. He says he saw three
dead hives, but that they were on one pallet and he is pretty sure they were
some duds he brought in from an outyard. I hope he is right. Seeing
as he only looked at about 32 hives, that is 10%. Losses this early in the
year -- other than from hives known to be very poor going into winter --
are worrisome, since losses usually are expected to come later.
Arlene had mentioned that the vacuum idea shown previously did not work for
them. They had blown up the unit when alcohol got sucked into the electric
motor that powers it, and she says that tweezers made from sheet metal pick up
five or six bees very nicely. The tweezers worked well for Paulo and he
went home with some real samples. I'm waiting to see what they find.
Ellen went to her art club meeting and I watched the Canadian women's hockey
team play the US women's team for the gold.
Today..Increasing cloud. Wind
increasing to south 20 km/h. High plus 6.
Tonight..Partly cloudy. Wind west 30 km/h with gusts to 50 diminishing. Low
minus 2.
Friday..Increasing cloud then snow developing. Accumulation 5 cm. Wind
increasing to north 40 gusting 60 km/h giving occasional reduced visibility in
blowing snow. High zero.
Saturday..Periods of snow. Windy. Low minus 17. High minus 7.
Sunday..Mainly cloudy. 60 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 22. High minus
8.
Monday..Mainly sunny. Low minus 21. High minus 7.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 1.
It's been balmy, but we are apparently now in for some cooler weather
again.
The pup load of materials for protein patties arrived and the guys re-loaded
most of them onto a truck and trailer in preparation for my trip to Airdrie.
Dennis was not feeling well and it took forever, but the job got done. I
drove the materials to Global and had a good visit with Mike and Frank, then
returned home.
In the evening, Ellen & I watched the Canada/finland hockey game on
TV. I quit watching hockey over twenty years ago when it got to be more
about fighting than hockey, but thought I would watch this match. It was a
good clean game, with a very satisfactory outcome.
Today..A mix of sun and cloud. Wind
westerly 20 km/h. High 8.
Tonight..Partly cloudy. Wind diminishing to light. Low minus 9.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 2.
I woke up and noticed a blue glow around my computer. It was the BSOD1.
I rebooted. During the night, defrag and AVG
anti-virus2 (free version) had decided to run at the same time
and that often results in a lock-up. I looked outside as soon as
daylight showed itself, and it was foggy, windy and chill. I ordered the
supplies for the protein patties -- Hi-way 9 is sending a pup to AHPC to get
them today -- then went out to fuel the truck. While fuelling and
looking over the truck, I noticed that the muffler had come off and so we had to
wire it up so I could do what I needed to do during the day. After all, my
car is still laid up with a bad timing chain, and besides, I was off to pick up
the camper.
I got down the road a way and realized that Paulo and his wife were on the
way to Medivet for training, and that I might not have mentioned that they
needed to take bees with them. I called and, sure enough, they had not,
but we managed to get Terry Greidanus to help out and he supplied some
bees. By then I had decided I'd better drop in there, since I had to go to
Dewinton and High River is only a little extra distance. I got there
around 11 and by then they were settled in and pulling bees apart with
Arlene. One thing she pointed out tis that they built a vacuum such as
shown here a few days back and that they blew up the vacuum by getting alcohol
into the motor. I had wondered about that. Arlene says that they
only need a few bees from each hive, and that simply folding a 2" x
10" strip of galvanized furnace duct material over makes forceps that will
grab about five bees at a time- perfect! The bees can be dunked into
the alcohol if the forceps are designed to fit the sample bottle and
vice-versa. I visited a bit, then left around 1:30 to go get the camper.
It turned out that I had no tools and the electrical hook-ups did not match,
so I drove the 90 miles home with no lights. I discovered that the camper
was pretty long and heavy -- 2150 lbs when I weighed it later and it handled a
bit oddly, even on the 3/4 ton Camper Special truck. I had checked the
tires and they were at 40 lbs in the morning. They should really be at 65
for a load like that, but at 65 the truck rides very hard running empty and I
had not put them up. Anyhow, the tires did not overheat.
I came the back way, but that did involve a few miles on the
Trans-Canada. Not only that I went through a police checkpoint -- with no
muffler and no tail or signal lights! And no comment by the cop. I
made it home okay. Ellen loves the camper.
Today..Morning fog patches otherwise
cloudy. Clearing this afternoon. Wind south 20 km/h. High plus 5.
Tonight..Clear. Wind southwest 20. Low minus 2.
Normals for the period..Low minus 13. High minus 2.
Notes
1. Blue Screen of Death
2. Important to update Anti-Virus today. Yarner worm is out -- and it's a
bad one.
I rested and tidied today. Purves-Smiths and Robinsons came over for a
Family day supper.
Today..A mix of sun and cloud. Wind
becoming northwesterly 20 km/h this afternoon. High plus 5.
Tonight..Mainly clear. Wind west 20 km/h. Low minus 9.
Friday..Mainly cloudy. 30 percent chance of flurries or showers. Low minus 12.
High 5.
I left around 10 AM with the intention of going to Calgary to ride the C
Train (another
link) (another
link) all day. It seemed like an
interesting idea -- to be a tourist in Calgary. I never got around to
doing that, though. I dropped by Indus Airport to see what was up at my
old flying school, then called a number I had been trying for a while, and,
finding the people home, went to Dewinton and bought a camper. After that, I
went to Shawnessy, did a little shopping, and went home.
Today..Mainly sunny. Wind west 20 km/h.
High 8.
Tonight..Partly cloudy. Wind light. Low minus 4.
Normals for the period..Low minus 14. High minus 2.
Saturday
February 16th, 2002 Last
year on this date
It's a gorgeous warm sunny day (8:25 AM), with the temperature predicted to
be a balmy 14 degrees (Celsius, of course). The bees will sure have a
chance to shift around on their stores and to liquefy some of the granulated
honey. They will be sitting on brood now, but only a patch on a frame or
two. We won't bother trying to look, since unnecessary examinations are
disruptive, possibly leading to losses later, and we can see that most hives
have ample food.
Today is Saturday and the first day of a long weekend. I can't decide
what to do. El is still not feeling great, but I'm itchy to go somewhere
today. We've been discussing going somewhere for a week or so, like
Mexico, but maybe the time for that has passed. The winter is almost gone
now, though and a little over one month from now we will be getting seriously to
work, putting on patties, applying Apistan, feeding where necessary, etc.
Spring skiing is coming up. The days are getting long and the weather warm.
We are getting ahead on the summer work already, though. Last week, we
spent time washing out the extractors so that we will not have that job in
July. I'm hoping that we can run with lower pressure this year, since we
are again set up for honey production and should be able to take more time off
during the season than some previous years.
I read on BEE-L that some beekeepers are extracting today. Hard to
imagine.
I went to Purves-Smiths for supper. El stayed home.
Today..Mainly sunny. Wind becoming
southwest 20 km/h with gusts to 40. High 14.
Tonight..Mainly clear. Wind west 20 km/h. Low minus 3.
Normals for the period..Low minus 14. High minus 2.
Today is going to be busy. I sold the old Badger forklift (at a loss)
to a beekeeper friend and will have to load it this afternoon. I have an
ad and an article to write today as well and a zillion other small jobs.
The guys are off, since it is Friday, but Dennis is on call to load the FL and
also to unload some boxes that are coming. Matt says here will be
here. Monday is a holiday. Ellen woke up with laryngitis and is
still under the weather.
I
bought the Badger about eight years back and it it was one of those purchases we
all make that we realize -- even as we are in the process of completing the deal
-- will not be a good decision. It was back before we were palletized and
before we expanded and went pollinating, and my wife was against getting a
forklift. We did everything by hand or with the boom-type hive
loader. A friend told me that the wreckers in Consort were selling
out and that I could get a forklift for $1000. I hooked up a trailer and
drove all the way out there. I knew when I saw it that it was a good
machine, but more work than I would want to do. I bought it anyhow, since
I had driven all that way, and brought it home. I drove it around the yard
a time or two, parked it and then took the engine out, removed the mast, and
generally disassembled it in preparation for rebuilding. We then got busy
and parked it outside, and there it has sat since then. We since bought
another homemade machine and four Swingers, but never got back to fixing the
Badger. I'm glad to see it go to a new home, since the buyer is a patient
fixer-upper type of guy.
I received this note today and realized that I have not revised the Sale
part of my site lately. I must get to it. Our plans have changed a
bit since we put everything up for sale. 'Most everything is still for
sale, but we are not in a hurry.
Here's the note and my response:
> I cannot believe you are giving up!? I found your website a while
back and
> am very impressed with what you describe and say. Can your business not
be
> sold as a going concern?
We don't want to sell our buildings and land quite yet.
> I must admit that (I have a day job) I keep one of your pictures as
a
> wallpaper on the PC to provide a bit of 'therapy' when the day gets bad.
Glad to hear that. I was hoping people would have fun with the pictures.
> I wish you all the best in your retirement - your pictures have been
an
> inspiration to me (with only 7 hives). Friends of mine recently
emigrated
> from the UK to Vancouver and they sing the praises endlessly. Enjoy
your
> retirement - and I'll bet you will keep at least a couple of hives.
Well, I really must update the Sale part of the website (and quite a bit more
too, I know).
Time is short and I work on the parts that enthuse me the most.
Selling everything does not enthuse me.
What it seems we are now planning is to keep cutting back and to spend more
time writing and doing some bee research -- if I can raise the funds. We have
two good men who want to stay with us, so if we can get ourselves out of the
worst of it and keep going, that is what we will do.
allen
Stan showed up after lunch and we unloaded his truck, then loaded the
Badger. It took four men, two hours, and three forklifts (not including
the Badger) to get the heavy machine onto his truck. The guys have Fridays
off, but Matt was here doing some mechanical work, and Dennis came in to unload
and reload the truck. It was warm in the afternoon, and bees were flying
as we loaded, looking for anything interesting to take home.
* * *Travel Through Time -
Click here
* * *
- If you came here looking for
something specific, please scroll down, use your browser search (Ctrl+F), or look
here
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"If I make a
living off it, that's great -- but I come from a culture where you're valued
not
so much by what you acquire but by what you give away," -- Larry Wall (the inventor of Perl)
Allen's
Link of the Day: 
I
bought the Badger about eight years back and it it was one of those purchases we
all make that we realize -- even as we are in the process of completing the deal
-- will not be a good decision. It was back before we were palletized and
before we expanded and went pollinating, and my wife was against getting a
forklift. We did everything by hand or with the boom-type hive
loader. A friend told me that the wreckers in Consort were selling
out and that I could get a forklift for $1000. I hooked up a trailer and
drove all the way out there. I knew when I saw it that it was a good
machine, but more work than I would want to do. I bought it anyhow, since
I had driven all that way, and brought it home. I drove it around the yard
a time or two, parked it and then took the engine out, removed the mast, and
generally disassembled it in preparation for rebuilding. We then got busy
and parked it outside, and there it has sat since then. We since bought
another homemade machine and four Swingers, but never got back to fixing the
Badger. I'm glad to see it go to a new home, since the buyer is a patient
fixer-upper type of guy.