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I slept well and awoke around five. After breakfast and coffee, I went back to bed and slept another two hours. The sleep was full of dreams, quite pleasant ones. I think I am getting over whatever I had. It is sunny here this morning. Hope it lasts although the country here in Sudbury is dry. At home, the weather continues damp and cool, but some really good bee weather appears to be in the offing. Bill is busy today, so I have some time to myself. I have lots to do. I have not touched my boat beyond looking under the cover. It seems to have stayed clean and dry. I have some books and organizing to do and maybe a little shopping. I've also been meaning to get my web design skills a bit more up to date. I'm still using FrontPage, although I have the full Expression Web suite. Some of the code is pretty obsolete, although browsers still seem to render it well. I have noticed, though that some of the older pages have mixed fonts that need fixing. I need to get with cascading style sheets. When I look over and sometimes graphically reformat my older diary pages, I don't rewrite the text. Sometimes I may eliminate dead web links, improve pictures, and make other such minor changes, but so far, I have avoided deleting or rewriting my history. I took the whole site down for a while after I retired, but restored it later from a backup copy due to popular demand. I notice that some other writers do rewrite or delete their earlier work, and to my mind, that makes it hard to follow the evolution of their experience and ideas. What I find especially disturbing, is that when I mention that I have observed that happening, I am attacked with surprising vitriol by people I would have expected would be more objective.
Larry is one of my favourite speakers. Too bad I won't be around to attend. It seems I am also going to miss EAS this year, too, due to time conflicts. I've been moaning about bandwidth, and today OpenOffice.org and a few other updates ran me over 1/3 GB. I really should not obsess so much about the cost, since an extra GB is only $5, and I can't even get a beer for that most places. A GB usually lasts much longer (unless I start downloading operating systems or movies) and is not as fattening.
We have a sunny morning here in Northern Ontario. In Alberta, the conditions continue cooler and rainy, but a few hot sunny days are coming. These hot days are important because they allow the smaller hives to cover more comb and to get brood established. Two days, though, is hardly enough, but at least the nighttime temperatures are expected to be well above freezing.
After steady rain all night, the morning dawned cloudy and muggy. Meantime, in Alberta, the warm weather predicted has turned out to be cooler than originally expected, but the nights are warm. Two weeks from today, I return to make splits, so I'm hoping we get some really warm weather soon. I'd like to have lots of brood to distribute. I'm lining up queens and cells for that time frame. I expect to be able to make at least thirty splits off the 44 hives I have at present, and perhaps double that depending on how things look. If I have to raise my own cells, I'd use the Case-Hopkins method, and that takes 11 days or so, so I'd have to start the day I get home. On the other hand, I'm hoping my friends will have some extra and that Kettle Valley will be able to supply some special queens as planned.
I'm not normally a big fan of ads, but the Google ads are subtle, don't get in the way, and are relevant to the topics -- usually. sometimes the choices are pretty funny, though, since the decisions are made by a 'bot trying to understand human thought. An obvious example that comes to mind is that when I wrote about bee diets, and weight loss on the scale hives, the 'bot immediately started running ads for weight loss formulas and proprietary methods for losing weight.
If you are running an ad blocker, consider turning it off for a few minutes just for fun. Don't go crazy clicking though, because Google knows all and it is against their rules to suggest that visitors click links gratuitously just for revenue, or to click them myself. I don't know what they do if they suspect hanky-panky, but I don't want to find out. * * * * * * According to Networx, I've used 620.88 MB since the morning of the 7th. This the 12th, so at the current rate, I am using around 100 GB/day. During the past few days, I received several major O/S and software updates and did some intensive work on on website I manage, southernalbertabeekeepers.com (currently offline). I still have work to do on it, since this was a major version upgrade.
I used XOOPS, a CMS, to create the Southern Alberta beekeepers Association website with the idea that it would make things easier for me, not harder and easy for others to write for the site without having to approach me. So far designing and maintaining it, and using it has been a puzzle. Not only has it been a puzzle for me to get it tuned up, but almost no one posts on the site. If people would post there, I'd feel inclined to put more work into it. Is it too difficult? It is not that hard. I've done it a few times, myself, hoping others would get the idea. I hope people give it a try. Well, the site is working again and updated after hours of fiddling. I hope people show some interest. Maybe I'll add a classified ads section. Another 100 MB used today. That is 1/5 of the entire capacity of my first hard drive back in the early eighties. I packed to get ready for Muskoka tomorrow morning and added another can of gas to the air-conditioning. Here's hoping that it is not leaking. The pressure was at the lower end of the range. We'll see. * * * * * * southernalbertabeekeepers.com is back in business. I sent all the registered members a note asking them to visit and to contribute. We'll see.
I was awake at 5 and Mom and I were on the road around 8. We got to Pine Hill around 11 and got to work. The animals and bugs had been busy all winter and there was a lot of cleaning to do on this 110 year-old cottage. The pines shed pollen and the veranda is always covered with yellow dust. The Rocket Hub works fine here. (We're only a short distance from where Ted Rogers used to cottage, so I guess that is to be expected). That and Skype came in handy since the phone was not connected yet, and Mom's cell phone has bad reception. (Bell?). Today I only used 26 MB and that include quite a bit of Skyping. I'd sure like to know exactly where all the bandwidth goes.
I really don't know where the bandwidth goes. I used 16.93 MB and it is now just after breakfast. All i have done is read email and open a few web pages. Today is Tuesday, so Microsoft may have updates, but I don't see any waiting to be instilled. It worries me to see so much invisible traffic. For one thing, I am paying for it, and for another, how do I know it is legitimate software doing this in the background and not a backdoor trojan or worm? I have discovered that some web pages devour bandwidth loading ads if left open, even if my ad blocker does not allow them to be displayed More wet, cool weather in Alberta. I wonder how everyone's bees are doing? I mentioned Bell, and how I fired them for incompetence some time ago. As much as i loved my cell phone, the billing screw-ups were wasting too much of my time. Now, here I am at the cottage and, apparently, instead of suspending the phone for six months (seasonal disconnect), whoever spoke to Mom disconnected the phone and cancelled the account. The first person I spoke with blamed Mom and said she might have lost the number, and that if she could reconnect, there would be a delay, a credit check and a $55 charge. I told her I needed to speak to her supervisor. After a delay and silence, the supervisor came on and explained that the first woman with whom I had spoken should be able to help me the same as she would be able to. Apparently not. The supervisor heard the story, got a few details, gave me her name and a confirmation number and said the line would be working in ten minutes. In ten minutes she herself called me back to confirm the line was again connected.
In Toronto, Mom had lunch with two friends at the Granite Club. While Mom was visiting, I drove around a bit. Toronto is a beautiful city at this time of year. Later, we drove to Brampton and checked into our hotel. At six, we had supper with Sarah at Moxie's and went up to see her apartment and her cat, Skye.
It's another rainy day in Swalwell, and in Brampton, where we are staying over. Today, Mom visits two more friends and then we head north to Pine Hill.
After lunch we returned to Pine Hill, a two-hour drive by back roads, then the 400, stopping at Bala for supper in the pub.
Another rainy, cool day in Alberta. At least the nights are warming up and the bees should be building. I'll be home in ten days, so I hope that the BeeMax boxes will be there when I arrive. I've made arrangements to have some cells ready for the splitting window. I'm not sure how many splits will be possible, though, given the weather we've had. Here in Muskoka, the forecast is for sunny and warm. * * * * * * A reader asks, what are the current prices for pollination in Southern Alberta and BC, and what are good hives selling for. Does anyone know? Write me
That is pretty good! When I sold, in April and May 2003, I got around $250 for a double, c/w wrap. I wonder why the strong demand? 2009/2010 winter success was good in Alberta and many have excess bees -- at least they did a while back. Maybe this slow spring has changed that? Maybe the other provinces did not have as good wintering success?
Another rainy day in Alberta and another hit, sunny day here in Muskoka. We have some more cleaning to do and I looked at the boat yesterday and decided it needs some bottom paint and a varnish. I don't know when I will get that done, but we did buy four chain hoists and two slings, so we can raise and lower the boat at will.
I went to the doctor today. My ears have been bothering me. I saw a doctor in Alberta and he prescribed some ear drops. I used them as directed, but they did not accomplish anything. I figured that time would clear up the blockage, but a few weeks has not solved the problem. This doctor says that I have an internal ear infection and prescribed Amoxil. I hope this works. We finished the cottage clean-up and I managed to fix a leak in the toilet. I've been doing some web jobs, too. Several of my clients have written me with some changes they need done.
Finally some warm (above 20) weather is coming up in Alberta.
I was reading back pages and
found my first year BeeMax hive test results,
here. My recent results have been much better.
I expect that the reasons for the poor performance the first year were:
This polystyrene hive idea is worth considering for those who are getting hit with bad weather spring and fall and are either tired of wrapping and unwrapping or are unable to get around to it on time. Considering the cost of wraps and the labour of transporting and storing them, and the bother of putting them on and off several times a year, this may the way of the future. I am disappointed at the recent escalation in BeeMax price, but have written Swienty and they are calculating a delivered price by the container-load. Interested? Write me * * * * * * I notice that John is trying to get something going with a provocative article over at The Southern Alberta site. Will he get a response?
That said, I am sympathetic to those aspiring to develop strains of bees better suited to Alberta and better management methods to increase the success of bees in withstanding the climate and the various pests and diseases. I just do not think that things are all that bad. We have always faced challenges. Some have been able to rise to the challenge and some have not. It was ever thus.
Bob and Anne came over this morning for coffee and we had a good visit. They have moved back to Toronto from England. Bob was fascinated by the Rogers Rocket Hub. He has the Portable Internet, as do I, but has noticed it has limitations lately. That technology got off to a great start, but turned out to be a dead end, and Rogers is merely maintaining it, not augmenting it.
When I get back, three weeks will have passed since I messed with the hives. Even hives which were queenless and raised queens from larvae -- if there were any like that -- should have their queens mated , so I should be able to mess up the yard and move hives or make nucs without interfering with and confusing queens returning from flights. |
