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 Tuesday
December 1st, 2009
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The kids -- all five -- and I are
off to Bluebird Canyon playground this morning.
> Mr. Dick, Just that I enjoy your
diary and the information. I am also very jealous of your
skills. I claim to do everything correct....but this year,
of my 30 live hives in Indiana....I did not harvest one
super of honey.
Sometimes doing everything right
isn't enough. We need luck, too.
Lately, I have been realising that the most important
thing is keeping the hives alive and healthy, then working
for the long term.
A poor crop now and then does
not have to be a disaster if we can keep our bees in
good shape.
Unfortunately, though, a poor
crop often is the result of conditions which also provide
inadequate nutrition for our bees and can lead to bad
wintering and then a poor year following, not due to
the season, but because the bees are run down.
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 I
see the consumption reading has rebounded. Could be just the moisture
changing or maybe the drop in temperatures. El says there was
a white-out last night, but not much snow. I'm thinking that the
high reading should be averaged over the past few low readings, but
will leave it for now and see. Could be the bees are adjusting
for the colder weather. These hives are already for winter, being
in styrofoam boxes. I wonder if I should plug the lower auger
holes. I think so.
No snow here in Laguna Beach, though,
but it was cool - 70 degrees F. I took the kids to Bluebird this
morning and they swam all afternoon in the pool.
 Wednesday
December 2nd, 2009
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 Sarah's
sister and the kids flew back to RI today, leaving at 6AM to get to
LAX by 7:30 and arriving in Boston in the late afternoon. It is
much quieter around here. I enjoyed having five kids around.
Now we are back to two.
 Thursday
December 3rd, 2009
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Daily feed consumption has dropped
right back again to the lowest levels. I tend to assume that the
recent spike was due to snow load and moisture, and may adjust those
days a bit, distributing the changes more evenly between days with zero
consumption (is zero consumption really likely?) and ensuing days which
are higher than the norm, but I won't fiddle the results -- yet, at
least. I may adjust the days around the snow event slightly, after
we have a few more such events and can see if the squiggles are due
to the snow or something the bees are doing.
 It
is possible that the bees were affected by the storm and dropping temperatures
and ramped up consumption to move a bit or accomplish some other
function, then settled down again. The smoothed line tells the
tale as to average usage. The daily line is bound to have some
noise. I also find that Ellen and I read the scale differently
sometimes.
I see the cumulative loss per hive
is now around 18 lbs since October 17th. From Sept 28th, when
the gains ended and losses began, I did not record, due to doing some
work on the scale. A rough estimate, using the average to date
daily feed consumption of 0.4lbs/day would suggest that, between Oct
28th and the Oct 17th resumption of recording, we lost 0.4 x 20 = 8
lbs for a total of 26 lbs to date. Projected consumption at current
rates is around 55 lbs per hive, plus that 8, through to April 1st,
or 63 lbs total.
Assuming that we consume
65 lbs of feed per hive over winter, and that honey is worth $1.25
in the comb, then wintering costs ~$81 in feed. Assuming 20%
winter loss, the figure per surviving hive becomes ~$100.
That $100 is a bargain,
and could be reduced by feeding sugar in place of honey, if the
honey can be replaced without damaging the hive -- by short-term
starvation while waiting for the feed, for example.
If sugar is $0.38/lb and
we figure that a pound of sugar makes a pound of feed, then the
cost drops to ~$30 per surviving hive plus labour.
Each of those surviving
winter hives should be more productive -- more honey and a split
or two -- than a package. I heard recently that packages in
Canada go for as much as $165, and nucs are not too far behind in
price.
Of course, there is some
work and risk in wintering, but from the above, it is obvious that
it pays make the small investment in time and learning in order
to winter well.
Friday December 4th,
2009
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 I
drove up to Newport Beach and visited a yacht broker. I've been
thinking of buying a boat, but I don't know if I need the hassle.
There are plenty of good deals with smaller boats going for almost nothing.
The boat does not cost much, but slip fees, taxes, etc. can easily
add up to $5 or $10,000 a year and more.
No report on the scale hives.
Too much snow home. No snow here, though. Just flowers and
dull, foggy mornings.
Saturday December
5th, 2009
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 Kalle
had a basketball game at the Boys and Girls' Club and his parents are
coaching. I went along to watch ad have to say this game was far
more entertaining than an NBA game. The kids weren't sure which
net they were targeting and which they were defending. The ref
had to ignore pretty well everything, since everyone was travelling
etc. There were absolutely no physical offenses and everyone had
fun. All the parents clapped and cheered for both teams.
At the end, both teams were declared winners, as it seems no one kept
score. That's my kind of basketball.
Sunday December 6th,
2009
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 Jon
and Sarah went Christmas shopping and I held the fort. I'm preparing
the computer to upgrade to Windows 7. I figure that a cleanup
and defrag is the minimum to do before the process. I also had
to uninstall iSobi, the only program that the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor
suggested would be incompatible.
 Meanwhile,
the weather at home settled enough that Ellen took a reading.
Weight loss continues pretty much in a straight line.
 I've
decided to return to Swalwell for while. My original plans
included a possible side-trip on the way home to Ontario to visit
Mom and Linda. but am now thinking I'll put that off for at least a
few days and maybe until after Christmas.
If I go after Christmas, I'll stay
until I leave for Florida. I'm thinking that while in Florida,
I may well chaarter a boat or crew for someone.
My favourite aps these days are
still Everything, Dropbox, Evernote, and Mozy backup. I downloaded
Expression Web Trial again and am giving it another shot.
Monday December 7th,
2009
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 I
spent much of the day updating to Windows 7. I used a downloaded
iso image to install, and it worked out well. I had installed
the iso onto a thumb drive, though using unetbootin and it took me a
while to figure out that I had to unplug the stick at each reboot then
plug it in again after the machine started.
 The
process took forever, but completed successfully. I'm assuming
I'll like Windows 7, but we'll see. It is familiar, but different.
The hives weight loss continues
right on trend despite the extremely cold weather.
I see the forecast is moderating
a bit from what was previously predicted. Nonetheless, it will
be pretty cold when I get back.
Ellen called to say the power supply
on her computer has given up.
Tuesday December
8th, 2009
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 Windows
7 seems pretty good. It may be a bit faster than Vista, but, of
course, I just installed it. Even though I installed over Vista,
a newly installed system is bound to be cleaned up compared to the old
one.
Wednesday December
9th, 2009
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 I'm
off for home today. I left San Ysidro around eleven and drove
to LAX. Using a GPS makes it easy. I have used Microsoft
Streets and trips for many years, and have a netbook which is less bulky
than previous machines, but the dash mount of a dedicated GPS makes
navigation a little less distracting.
I've decided that the Garmin Nuvi
275WT I bought a few weeks back is pretty good. Compared to the
TomTom I had I last summer, it is easier to use and the backlight adjusts
to ambient much better. It has a problem, though with knowing
when it arrives at a destination and will take me for a whirl around
the neighbourhood if I don't stop and reset the destination. I also
miss the speed limit warnings the TomTom gave me.
 My
flight was at four, but I like to get to the airport really early.
I arrived at Deluxe Car Rental at two and was delivered to LAX within
minutes. I like LAX. It is a huge airport, but their design
makes each segment seem like a small airport. There is very little
walking, compared to Calgary or Toronto.
We were a few minutes late into
Calgary, having circled up to Red Deer and back waiting for a snow squall
to pass and the aprons to clear. They were de-icing outbound aircraft
and things were running a little behind.
Atti picked me up and drove me
to my car. It was half-buried in a drift and the roads were snowy.
The weather being very cold, though, traction was good and I got home
in decent time.
Thursday December
10th, 2009
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  I
installed Windows 7 on my home machine (Acer laptop). It took
most of the day, then I went out and cleared the drive. There
is quite a bit of loose gravel and I'll have to raise the snow blower
a bit before finishing up.
The scale hive is under snow, so
I can't weigh it until I blow the snow off. I also need to wrap
the bees soon. I like to get the job done before Christmas.
Friday December 11th,
2009
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I was up early and off to Three
Hills to get some rough spots on my head burned off with liquid nitrogen.
There are no family doctors available in Three Hills, so I have to go
to emergency. That is a bit of a joke. They are supposed
to open at 8, but I was the only person there. I went downtown
and made a bank deposit and returned. There were several more
people waiting there then. At 9:15, the doctor wandered in.
 Finally,
I was called in and he explained they don't just burn spots off anymore,
but have to do a biopsy before treating. It seemed he was about
to go into a long explanation, so I told him to do whatever he had to
do, but do it and do it well. I know too many people who have
died because a doctor did not recognise a
cancer. He
said this looks like (some word) dermatitis. Whatever. He
did a biopsy on one spot. The results will be back in two weeks.
(Picture after the biopsy at right - Gosh, I'm bald!).
Skin cancer is a risk associated
with full-time beekeeping, especially if the beekeeper spends a lot
of time in the sun and without sun protection.
I finished clearing the driveway.
Saturday December
12th, 2009
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 I
caught up on deskwork and continued installing Windows 7 on the various
computers in the house.
In the evening, the usual suspects
showed up for supper.
Sunday December 13th,
2009
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It was bitterly cold today, but in the afternoon, Ellen and I drove
to Strathmore to visit Ken and Wendy. We had supper and played
a game of Scrabble, then headed home.
  I
got back from San Diego just in time to enjoy the minus thirty weather.
Today, I wandered over to out to check the bees.
I brushed off the snow and checked the scale,
then updated the chart.
 The
temperature as I walked over was minus twenty-five. I see the
bees are a bit active at the auger holes, but no need to put on supers
yet. The poor old skunk has been foraging around, judging by the
tracks around the yard, but is leaving the hives alone so far. Skunks
are mousers, so I appreciate that aspect of her foraging.
Long-time readers know that I have always been
sceptical about claims of Anthropogenic Global Warming and also aware
that I am very concerned about over population, overexploitation of
resources and pollution. Recent events seem to vindicate that
view, Copenhagen notwithstanding.
Click on the above text (or
here) for a graphic of earth's temperatures over time.
 Tuesday
December 15th, 2009
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I managed to get the books up to date and drove to Three
Hills in the afternoon to do some banking, get a few
groceries, and get the tires checked since the light has
been coming on. With the cold weather lately, it
turned out that the pressure in the van tires had
dropped from over 35 lbs down to near 20 lbs!
 Wednesday
December 16th, 2009
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Finally, a weather break. We'll be up to near freezing
today and stay around that level in the daytime for a
few days.
I cleared the pond rink for Saturday. The ice is awful.
Besides the tracks of the neighbours' cattle crossing,
there is a quite a bit of surface water -- as much as
four inches on one spot. I have no idea
where it is coming from, since we have had very cold
weather and the water seems to be coming from all sides.
The water seems to be leaching from the hills on all
sides. Could be that there was a lot of
groundwater that did not freeze. I wondered if we
had a water main break but there are no soft spots along
the line and the water seems to be coming from all
directions. I'm wondering if the ice will be
useable without flooding, and flooding looks to be out
of the question since the weather will be warm in the
coming days.
I checked the scale hives and see they are wintering
well. I reached zero on the sliders and had to
remove a counterweight. I then found that removing
100 lbs of counterweight requires a 104-lb move on the
slider. That puzzled me until I realised that i
broke off a brass thumbscrew when repairing the scale.
That tiny loss of weight resulted in a 4% error! I
compensated, but will have to find a replacement -- a
screw that weighs the same.
I'll have to get out and finish wrapping soon. I
wonder if I can find enough wraps.
 Thursday
December 17th, 2009
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One week from today is Christmas Eve. Our tree is
up, and Ellen decorated it today.
My old Toshiba finally bit the
dust. The computer was fine, but the power supply
cord somehow got damaged. In the process of
repair, somehow the supply gave up the ghost and it
seems damaged the computer as well.
Friday
December 18th, 2009
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I got out and did some more snow
blowing, then wrapped some more hives. I notice
that one was showing signs of dysentery.
When I lifted the lid, I could see that the cluster is
small and the bees look a bit distended. I doubt
this one will survive. I did not bother wrapping
it, and may shake the bees out so they do not drift into
other hives.
On looking into a few more hives, I
see that the clusters are smaller than I would like,
although the cold weather my have them more tightly
clustered than when I usually look at them. We had
a strong late flow, and in my experience, that can lead
to poor wintering. We'll see.
Oh. by the way, I like
Window 7. I've used Windows ever since the days
when we wondered if it would be O/S2, *nix, or Windows.
Back then, Windows was the worst of the bunch, but it
has been steadily improving. Lately, I have
been trying Ubuntu and even thought it might replace
Win7. No way! If you are using Vista, I'd
recommend to upgrade now. You will never look back.
More
here.
Saturday
December 19th, Sunday
December 20th,
Monday
December 21st, 2009
Tuesday December 22nd,
2009
Wednesday
December 23rd, 2009
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Thursday
December 24th, 2009
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 I
cleared snow in the morning and Jean, Chris and McKenzie arrived
after lunch and we did some skating. We had our big Christmas
turkey dinner and opened presents in the evening. The turkey was 28
pounds. A friend, Sharron raises then free-run and organic.
I don't know if all that matters, but it was certainly very good.
Friday
December 25th, 2009
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 By
ten, Jean, Chris, Mckenzie and I were in the van, headed for Nakiska
for an afternoon of skiing. The weather was good and the snow
not too bad, so we had a fine time. Skiing Christmas Day is a
tradition. There are never any crowds.
At four, we headed home and
called Ellen to see how she was doing, since we were all to meet at
the Mill for a Christmas dinner with our friends. She reported
that she had gotten part way there and the "check engine" light had
come on and the dash lights had dimmed about the same time, so she
had returned home.
The dash lights dim
automatically when the headlights come on at dusk, and the "check
engine" light has been coming on routinely lately due to a minor
issue which I have to fix from time to time. It was on
full-time when we bought the car 100,000 Km ago.
So, we all returned to Swalwell
and had a hot turkey sandwich, which was just fine after a long day.
Saturday
December 26th, 2009
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 Jean
and Chris and Mckenzie left this morning for Calgary
after we all watched the foxes play on the pond.
They enjoy the rink when I clear it. They spend
hours playing on it, but otherwise don't bother being on
the pond much.
Later on, I got a call and spent
the afternoon, driving back and forth to the neighbours,
cleaning up their computers. My cleaner of choice
was
Malwarebytes (free) run in safe mode. One
machine could not run in normal mode having been
hijacked.
Norton 360 had failed miserably to
protect them from 31 different exploits and viruses on
one machine and 4 on another. It had also failed
to do backups or notify them adequately. I won't
go into details. Suffice it to say that it just
did not work, and they are paying good money
 I
got out to the hives and brushed off the snow.
There are some dead bees on the snow in front, but al in
all, not too bad. There bees were buzzing fairly
loudly after I cleaned them off, although I was pretty
quiet about it.
The weather has moderated a bit and
I have to finish wrapping before Orlando. I have a
room there, and the deadline for early-bird registration
is coming up fast. So far, I have no roommate.
I like to split the room costs and also have someone to
travel with to split car expense, but so far my usuals
are not available.
Sunday
December 27th, 2009
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 Today,
I spent some time doing computer work and changing
servers, then went out and cleared a bit more snow,
brought the forklift over and got ready to take ashes
out. I was going to do some more wrapping, but
never did get that far.
Monday
December 28th, 2009
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Tuesday
December 29th, 2009
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 We
had accumulated nine drums of ashes in the basement and
the time had come to take them out, so I got to work.
The job is quite simple, except I discovered that a weld
had broken in the accelerator linkage of the forklift
and had to weld it. Even then, the cables were
sticky in the cold, minus ten degree weather.
Anyhow, I got that done and wrapped two more hives.
I had been worried I might be short of wraps, but it
turns out I have enough.
 I'm
realising that the Styrofoam hives have an advantage
here. They have been wrapped all along.
I checked the scale and updated the chart. Daily
loss is around 1/4 to 1/3 pounds a day per hive.
Wednesday
December 30th, 2009
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 I
did something today, but nothing very significant that I
can recall. A bit of basement cleanup, some
bookkeeping and snow blowing, and that is about it.
Thursday
December 31st, 2009
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 Today,
being New Years Eve, we drove up to Lacombe to spend the
evening with our daughter and family. Temperatures
are cold and there was blowing snow near home, but the
drive was just fine. The van still runs well.
It is turning 290,000 Km and showing a few little rust
specks, and the interior needs a cleaning, but otherwise
it is just fine. We've had it for 5-1/2 years now,
and the car just about the same. I can't think of
a good reason to replace either one.
I reserved my flight to Sudbury today. After
finalising things on the web and getting my
confirmation, I realised that I should return one day
later than I had arranged, so I called Aeroplan and
moved the date back a day. What many people do not
know (and the agent to whom I spoke did not at first,
either) is that Air Canada allows changes to be made in
an itinerary the same day as it is arranged without
penalty. That privilege may extend to 24 hours.
I don't know. Otherwise there is a $90 penalty for
making changes.
I still have not arranged the flight to Florida or the
car rental. I had better do that soon. I had
thought that I might drive down from Sudbury, but that
is looking less likely. I have a room at the
Wyndham Resort, but after talking to another beekeeper
found that I can get a room nearby for $42 instead of
the $120 or so that Wyndham charges.
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