 |
| Swarm hive on Tuesday. Still a porch full of dead bees. |
 |
| Maria hive, porch all cleaned off. |
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Bee Housecleaning Update
A couple more pics showing how well hives have cleaned up, and how many dead bees have been dumped outside when the weather warmed up last few days. Now back into cold and snow, so hope they got the hives swept out.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Bring Out Your Dead
Fairly bad weather last month. One week of low temps, with one night at -19F. Light but persistent snow.
Last few days warmer, with one day 51 deg. Today presently 39 deg with clouds at 1030. Both hives making big effort to remove dead bees. Maria has dumped an impressive pile of bees onto ground just in front of the hive. Swarm has porch stacked with dead bees. Just a few bees in evidence at each hive doing the carrying out.
Last few days warmer, with one day 51 deg. Today presently 39 deg with clouds at 1030. Both hives making big effort to remove dead bees. Maria has dumped an impressive pile of bees onto ground just in front of the hive. Swarm has porch stacked with dead bees. Just a few bees in evidence at each hive doing the carrying out.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
The Bees
Hives are settled down and waiting for winter. Not much activity outside the hive. Nights down to 30's, days up to 60's. In the warm sunny parts of the day some bees are out. Feeding sugar water, about half-and-half, which they are taking but slowly. When i ran the lawnmower under Maria a few bees came out to look. Maybe one bee took flight.
With the freezing nights there isn't much blooming in the neighborhood.
Not seeing any wasps.
With the freezing nights there isn't much blooming in the neighborhood.
Not seeing any wasps.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Setting Up A Website #3 -- (Good Tutorial)
Since starting to write about this, i stumbled across http://bloggingwithamy.com/ , which seems really good to me. This series of articles goes beyond my experiences in a lot of ways.
Pollen Carriers
The weather turned cool, 60's, windy, and occasionally wet. Amid all that, i saw one bee arrive at the "Swarm Hive" Monday afternoon with big packs of orange pollen. Hope she did the dance and there was time for more sisters to get out there and harvest the orange stuff, whatever it is. They just never quit.
This year the wasps seem to have been shut out. I've kept the openings rather small all summer.
This year the wasps seem to have been shut out. I've kept the openings rather small all summer.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Mandala #7
A number of these mandalas are going to be available week after next as pigment print on aluminum panel. They're all roughly 6" x 9".
 |
| Mandala #7, 6"x 9", tissue paper on cardstock. |
Monday, September 16, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
Setting Up A Web Site #2 (Hosting)
After procuring a domain name, you should decide what you want your web site to do. We'll come back to that, because you're naturally going to want to have some idea of costs and features available in a hosting provider.
I can't tell you very much about the relative merits of the providers, but i recently did some fast research and picked one. What and why below. You might want to do some comparative searching of one company vs another, looking for business news. There is a lot of change in this business, and struggle for world domination. Some of these companies are huge.
aiso.net
Green company. I looked at at least one nice site made on this host. It might appeal to you.
amazon cloud
Last i looked you could set up a server in the Amazon clould fairly inexpensively if you have the technical knowledge and want extended capabilities. Nothing i'm aware of for beginners.
bigfolio.com
$349 or $499 + $19/month. Confusing pricing.
Wordpress installed (and default?).
Ftp access.
Lots of features.
Mobile and tablet site included.
bludomain.com
Confusing. Seems very limited. Pricing is what? One time?
Lots of extra pricing for non-basic features.
hostgator.com
Lots of capabilities. This hosting seems to throw a net over just about every kind of capability you might want. A fair amount of it is part of the base fee. There are several levels of fees, and best deals for multi-year contracts -- be sure to look at the term of contract when comparing fees in all these hosts.
$81.71 for 1 year on "unlimited" plan: unlimited bandwidth and storage, 1 domain name. Includes basic weebly and email.
Template web building uses some version of Weebly. See Weebly. Basic templates are very limited.
Security tools. Some security scanning comes with basic fee, but there are also higher levels of security scanning for additional fees.
A good maintainer management 'console', but it's not for beginners.
jux.com
Wierd. Kind of like a really creative blog, visual oriented.
weebly
Read about wix and weebly in Tech Crunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/as-wix-heads-toward-ipo-weebly-looks-to-expand-with-big-new-sf-headquarters-plans-to-add-500-employees/
Basic web site builder is pretty easy to use, but limited. Limited to only 6 pages of content, really too few to be much more than introductory use. See my current site, 9/9/13, http://bobworthyart.com, hosted through hostgator, but built by weebly.
wix.com
Free initial site.
12.42/month (year contract) for Unlimited site.
16.17/month (year contract) for eCommerce.
Template site tools. Some require ecommerce contract, most no extra charge. Invent your own layout with blank templates (no doubt a lot of work).
zenfolio.com
Specifically for photos, i.e., photographers.
With shopping cart $120/yr.
Looks like a good site. Features comparable to other hosting.
I picked hostgator, in large part because my daughter is familiar with it, and we are collaborating. Price and services are good so far.
Comments on these features, and further notes in later blog posts.
I can't tell you very much about the relative merits of the providers, but i recently did some fast research and picked one. What and why below. You might want to do some comparative searching of one company vs another, looking for business news. There is a lot of change in this business, and struggle for world domination. Some of these companies are huge.
aiso.net
Green company. I looked at at least one nice site made on this host. It might appeal to you.
amazon cloud
Last i looked you could set up a server in the Amazon clould fairly inexpensively if you have the technical knowledge and want extended capabilities. Nothing i'm aware of for beginners.
bigfolio.com
$349 or $499 + $19/month. Confusing pricing.
Wordpress installed (and default?).
Ftp access.
Lots of features.
Mobile and tablet site included.
bludomain.com
Confusing. Seems very limited. Pricing is what? One time?
Lots of extra pricing for non-basic features.
hostgator.com
Lots of capabilities. This hosting seems to throw a net over just about every kind of capability you might want. A fair amount of it is part of the base fee. There are several levels of fees, and best deals for multi-year contracts -- be sure to look at the term of contract when comparing fees in all these hosts.
$81.71 for 1 year on "unlimited" plan: unlimited bandwidth and storage, 1 domain name. Includes basic weebly and email.
Template web building uses some version of Weebly. See Weebly. Basic templates are very limited.
Security tools. Some security scanning comes with basic fee, but there are also higher levels of security scanning for additional fees.
A good maintainer management 'console', but it's not for beginners.
jux.com
Wierd. Kind of like a really creative blog, visual oriented.
weebly
Read about wix and weebly in Tech Crunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/as-wix-heads-toward-ipo-weebly-looks-to-expand-with-big-new-sf-headquarters-plans-to-add-500-employees/
Basic web site builder is pretty easy to use, but limited. Limited to only 6 pages of content, really too few to be much more than introductory use. See my current site, 9/9/13, http://bobworthyart.com, hosted through hostgator, but built by weebly.
wix.com
Free initial site.
12.42/month (year contract) for Unlimited site.
16.17/month (year contract) for eCommerce.
Template site tools. Some require ecommerce contract, most no extra charge. Invent your own layout with blank templates (no doubt a lot of work).
zenfolio.com
Specifically for photos, i.e., photographers.
With shopping cart $120/yr.
Looks like a good site. Features comparable to other hosting.
I picked hostgator, in large part because my daughter is familiar with it, and we are collaborating. Price and services are good so far.
Comments on these features, and further notes in later blog posts.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Setting Up A Web Site #1
The first thing you need for a web site is a name, known as a "Domain Name", for example, "bobworthyart.com". This is the name that the internet will use to connect browsers to your web site. The Domain Name is actually used to connect all the services your web site will provide, such as email to and from that domain, and many other possible services.
In effect you will be renting this name from "The Internet", since you'll have to pay a fee to keep the name current. The more years you rent, the better deal you can get. A number of companies are authorized to rent you a name, but the Domain Name is good over all the internet. The companies that perform this rental service are called Registrars. When you register your name with a company, for example GoDaddy, or Network Solutions, they will allow you to manage your name through your browser. You provide billing info, and contact info, and pay the fee. You can log in through the Registrar's management interface, with your domain name and password, inspect your payment situation, and change management information, pretty much whenever you want.
What is Domain Name management? It's keeping your rent current, your contact and billing info current, and crucially telling The Internet where to find your web pages (and other services). The Internet rests on Domain Name Services, DNS. YOU get to tell the net where those services are located. The location takes place in "nameservers". There will be a primary nameserver, and a backup nameserver, and they'll have the same information. What you provide are two nameserver addresses that your hosting company will tell you to use. The addresses will look something like this: "ns6259.hostgator.com", or perhaps like "206.127.64.240". Log into your registrar and put in what your hosting service tells you. Voila, after this information percolates through the net, the connection is made, you're on the net.
Hosting companies will provide many services, among them storing your web site pages and providing them to browsers whenever anyone types http://yourDomainName in their browser. Another service a hosting company will provide is email connections and storage.
Registrars typically also provide hosting. Being a little paranoid, i like to manage my domain name with one company, and rent my hosting from another. As long as you pay the domain name rental, there isn't much need to move that management around. Oh yes, once you have control over a domain name, it is "yours" to the extent that you can move the management to another Registrar. Seldom is there a need to do that.
Web hosting, on the other hand, is a very rapidly changing business. You may very well want to start with one hosting company, and switch to another at a future date. Additional complications are, for example, selling your business and the domain name that goes with it. You have easier control if the domain name management is the only thing your registrar is providing.
Changing web hosting, an Example: You have your domain name management with registrar "Reg". You are hosting your web site at company "Ahost", but you find a better deal with the expanded services you crave with hosting company "Bhost". While Ahost is serving your web needs, you build your new site at Bhost. That takes a little while, but when it is done, you log in to Reg and change the two nameserver entries to the ones that Bhost provides. As soon as the nameserver entry changes cascade through the internet, all the traffic to your domain name goes to Bhost. (There would be a period of less than 24 hours where both Ahost and Bhost were serving, tricky if you're a big company, maybe trivial otherwise.) Turn off Ahost and the switch is done. If you have Ahost as your registrar, things might be more complicated.
In effect you will be renting this name from "The Internet", since you'll have to pay a fee to keep the name current. The more years you rent, the better deal you can get. A number of companies are authorized to rent you a name, but the Domain Name is good over all the internet. The companies that perform this rental service are called Registrars. When you register your name with a company, for example GoDaddy, or Network Solutions, they will allow you to manage your name through your browser. You provide billing info, and contact info, and pay the fee. You can log in through the Registrar's management interface, with your domain name and password, inspect your payment situation, and change management information, pretty much whenever you want.
What is Domain Name management? It's keeping your rent current, your contact and billing info current, and crucially telling The Internet where to find your web pages (and other services). The Internet rests on Domain Name Services, DNS. YOU get to tell the net where those services are located. The location takes place in "nameservers". There will be a primary nameserver, and a backup nameserver, and they'll have the same information. What you provide are two nameserver addresses that your hosting company will tell you to use. The addresses will look something like this: "ns6259.hostgator.com", or perhaps like "206.127.64.240". Log into your registrar and put in what your hosting service tells you. Voila, after this information percolates through the net, the connection is made, you're on the net.
Hosting companies will provide many services, among them storing your web site pages and providing them to browsers whenever anyone types http://yourDomainName in their browser. Another service a hosting company will provide is email connections and storage.
Registrars typically also provide hosting. Being a little paranoid, i like to manage my domain name with one company, and rent my hosting from another. As long as you pay the domain name rental, there isn't much need to move that management around. Oh yes, once you have control over a domain name, it is "yours" to the extent that you can move the management to another Registrar. Seldom is there a need to do that.
Web hosting, on the other hand, is a very rapidly changing business. You may very well want to start with one hosting company, and switch to another at a future date. Additional complications are, for example, selling your business and the domain name that goes with it. You have easier control if the domain name management is the only thing your registrar is providing.
Changing web hosting, an Example: You have your domain name management with registrar "Reg". You are hosting your web site at company "Ahost", but you find a better deal with the expanded services you crave with hosting company "Bhost". While Ahost is serving your web needs, you build your new site at Bhost. That takes a little while, but when it is done, you log in to Reg and change the two nameserver entries to the ones that Bhost provides. As soon as the nameserver entry changes cascade through the internet, all the traffic to your domain name goes to Bhost. (There would be a period of less than 24 hours where both Ahost and Bhost were serving, tricky if you're a big company, maybe trivial otherwise.) Turn off Ahost and the switch is done. If you have Ahost as your registrar, things might be more complicated.
Tour of Excellence
There is some excellence in Jackson Hole. Certainly enjoyed the long weekend there with the MAP cohorts. Exhort the cohorts. It was a lot of fun and much food for thought and marketing. Fun bunch of people. Thanks to everyone to put the tour together. Thanks for the whiskey, Tim. Congratulations to the people who made those commercial contacts, they lift us all up.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Wrapping up Bee Season Perhaps ?
Log for the last two weeks activities, here in town.
8/13/13
Swarm hive: took down two supers and looked at
super above hive bodies. Top super: 90% capped,
mid: less than 50% capped, bottom: about 50%
capped.
Maria hive: took down top super. Top: 50%
capped, bottom: 50%?
Looks like bees filling top down. Maggie thinks
we may have inverted some of the super order
on swarm hive. We did replace some good frames
with empty ones some weeks ago.
Not as many bees in hives as last time checked.
Still pretty good number of bees.
8/20/13
Pulled frames from Swarm and Maria hives, and
left them basically set up for winter.
Current configuration for each hive is now the
same, as shown.
Hot day, temp about 90 and cloudless. Some smoke
from forest fires. Bees in a good humour.
Maria hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super
hive body (H2)
hive body (H1)
bottom board
------------
Swarm hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super
hive body
hive body
bottom board
------------
Maria hive first: Took off both supers and
sorted frames so that super that is left is
full of capped or nearly capped honey. Also
looked at one outer frame in the top hive
body to see what state it is in. It is full
of capped honey. From the tops, the rest of
the frames looked good too. These frames are
really glued in there. It was hard to extract
the outside frame. Used pliers to get a grip
on it. Prying from the side was breaking the
front and back walls of the hive body. The
wood is cracked there now.
Swarm hive: Took off all three supers and
sorted frames. Top super had nearly all capped
honey, most of which we kept for extracting.
Middle super had a lot of frames with a lot
of honey, but almost none of it capped.
Bottom super had a lot of frames of capped
honey, but but also partial frames. Sorted
into the top super 7 frames of fully capped
honey, and 3 frames which have a significant
amount of honey but not much capped. They
still have a month to finish that up, and
no other distractions. Also checked an outside
frame in the top hive body. Full of capped
honey, and tops of other frames also looked
good. Left mostly in the super those frames
with the darker wax, taking the frames
with the newer wax.
Removed queen excluders from both hives.
Plenty of bees in both hives, though not as
many as during peak honey flow. We have had
a good summer, with periodic heavy rains
from t-storms, just enough to keep the grass
mostly green. Obviously it is also keeping
a lot of plants producing as well.
Thank you Anna for your help.
Ending up taking off 1 super from Maria,
2 supers from Swarm, resulting in 29 or
30 frames in plastic bins. About 15 of
these super frames are fully capped honey
ready for extraction. The other 14-15
frames have a varying amount of honey,
but have no more than 20% capped, and
most have no capping. They can be used
to bolster the other hives, or we could
spin some of them out. Anything leftover
could be put out for the bees again in
a month or so.
8/13/13
Swarm hive: took down two supers and looked at
super above hive bodies. Top super: 90% capped,
mid: less than 50% capped, bottom: about 50%
capped.
Maria hive: took down top super. Top: 50%
capped, bottom: 50%?
Looks like bees filling top down. Maggie thinks
we may have inverted some of the super order
on swarm hive. We did replace some good frames
with empty ones some weeks ago.
Not as many bees in hives as last time checked.
Still pretty good number of bees.
8/20/13
Pulled frames from Swarm and Maria hives, and
left them basically set up for winter.
Current configuration for each hive is now the
same, as shown.
Hot day, temp about 90 and cloudless. Some smoke
from forest fires. Bees in a good humour.
Maria hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super
hive body (H2)
hive body (H1)
bottom board
------------
Swarm hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super
hive body
hive body
bottom board
------------
Maria hive first: Took off both supers and
sorted frames so that super that is left is
full of capped or nearly capped honey. Also
looked at one outer frame in the top hive
body to see what state it is in. It is full
of capped honey. From the tops, the rest of
the frames looked good too. These frames are
really glued in there. It was hard to extract
the outside frame. Used pliers to get a grip
on it. Prying from the side was breaking the
front and back walls of the hive body. The
wood is cracked there now.
Swarm hive: Took off all three supers and
sorted frames. Top super had nearly all capped
honey, most of which we kept for extracting.
Middle super had a lot of frames with a lot
of honey, but almost none of it capped.
Bottom super had a lot of frames of capped
honey, but but also partial frames. Sorted
into the top super 7 frames of fully capped
honey, and 3 frames which have a significant
amount of honey but not much capped. They
still have a month to finish that up, and
no other distractions. Also checked an outside
frame in the top hive body. Full of capped
honey, and tops of other frames also looked
good. Left mostly in the super those frames
with the darker wax, taking the frames
with the newer wax.
Removed queen excluders from both hives.
Plenty of bees in both hives, though not as
many as during peak honey flow. We have had
a good summer, with periodic heavy rains
from t-storms, just enough to keep the grass
mostly green. Obviously it is also keeping
a lot of plants producing as well.
Thank you Anna for your help.
Ending up taking off 1 super from Maria,
2 supers from Swarm, resulting in 29 or
30 frames in plastic bins. About 15 of
these super frames are fully capped honey
ready for extraction. The other 14-15
frames have a varying amount of honey,
but have no more than 20% capped, and
most have no capping. They can be used
to bolster the other hives, or we could
spin some of them out. Anything leftover
could be put out for the bees again in
a month or so.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
First Annual Plein Air Fest
Participated in the first annual plein air fest today. I forget what Louis really called it. At Grizzly Gardens.
NOTE: I'll have some paintings showing at the Holter Museum during October. Hope you come see those.
Meanwhile don't miss the Japanese woodblock exhibit. You won't see that again for a long while. In further perusing woodblock prints on the web i found this really interesting page: http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/process.html
Here's my work for the day, a branch from a tree in Grizzly Gardens. I'm into branches lately.
Probably will touch this up after letting it dry a bit. Very satisfying working outside in such beautiful weather. The critique afterwards was fun too. Thanks TJ for anchoring that. It was fun talking to everyone who came around.
NOTE: I'll have some paintings showing at the Holter Museum during October. Hope you come see those.
Meanwhile don't miss the Japanese woodblock exhibit. You won't see that again for a long while. In further perusing woodblock prints on the web i found this really interesting page: http://mercury.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/prints/process.html
Here's my work for the day, a branch from a tree in Grizzly Gardens. I'm into branches lately.
 |
| Pine Branches, oil on panel, 8/2013, 12x16" |
Probably will touch this up after letting it dry a bit. Very satisfying working outside in such beautiful weather. The critique afterwards was fun too. Thanks TJ for anchoring that. It was fun talking to everyone who came around.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Retro Cup
This guy at the farmer's market, headed to college this fall, had a couple of these cups. They're slip mould porcelain that look like the old Melmac plastic mugs. The color is appropriate. The price was right. Maybe only Liz will really appreciate how cool this is.
Meanwhile, a little work in progress, below.
Meanwhile, a little work in progress, below.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Hyper or Not I Like A Lot of These Paintings
Liz gave me the link to Hyperallergic, an art blog, at http://hyperallergic.com. This article in particular i found interesting. http://hyperallergic.com/74330/the-new-casualists-strike-again/
Follow the links to find http://garisandhahn.com/portfolio/dying-on-stage-new-painting-in-new-york/ a page of many interesting paintings.
Follow the links to find http://garisandhahn.com/portfolio/dying-on-stage-new-painting-in-new-york/ a page of many interesting paintings.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Bees are HOT
This photo is typical for the 'Swarm hive' the last couple of days. Temps in the mid to high 90s, with lots and lots of sun. I don't think this is a sign of swarming, there are just too many bees for the temperature. The Maria hive also has bees hanging out on the porch, but not like this!
They were still working on the top super the other day. Better check again soon.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Moving Bees Around
The Maria hive was looking under-workered in comparison to the Swarm hive, AND the Swarm hive was showing signs of swarming, bearding, lots of bees in the hive. So we moved five or six frames of bees and capped brood from Swarm to Maria. While doing that we inserted those bees into a hive body (large) box above the original hive body, and a honey super added recently. So we have a bunch of strange bees going into the middle of the Maria hive. Standard practice is to use newspaper to separate the different origin bees from the others until they get used to the new queen smell. This keeps them from fighting the original occupants. We did this on a Monday. On Saturday, the pictures below show how much newspaper the had removed -- 3 layers above, 3 layers below!
You can see there are a lot fewer bees in the honey super than in the hive bodies below. Addition of the new bees and removal of the newspaper appear to have kept them pretty busy.
I did rip out the remaining paper to save the bees the trouble.
 |
| Top layer between queen excluder and top hive body. |
 |
| Top layer from the bottom of the super and queen excluder grill. |
 |
| Above the original hive body with the queen. |
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Nina Pinta and Maria
Cropped photo of the Maria queen. 6/4/13. Carniolan with the red spot. That's how you can 'spot' her. Heh.
Chris and Maggie working on Nina hive. Just put that in here because of the cool smoke.
It's going to be really interesting to see how these hives do without all the flowers in town to visit.
Chris and Maggie working on Nina hive. Just put that in here because of the cool smoke.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Hive Splits
 |
| Farm Team - 5/27/13 |
We have made 3 splits then, one from each of the hives that made it through the winter, all splits queened with one of the Hawaiian Carniolans.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Swarm Hive Split
On Tuesday, 5/21, Nice day in the middle of rainy cool period. Sunny and mid 70s for a high.
We have a plan to split all 3 of the drives that have survived, starting with swarm hive.
SPLIT (first split):
Starting about 1230 we began going through swarm hive looking for queen, supercedure cells, and swarm cells. The hive was packed with bees. No outward signs of swarming, however, over last week. Mix of frames with a lot of capped brood. Only a few super frames with larvae. Seemed to be a variety of larvae sizes. Did not see any cells with eggs, but they are hard
to spot, and there were bees all over the frames. Hard to see. No supercedure or swarm cells. Seemed like a lot of drones, but still they are only about 5% or less of population, and there were lots and
lots of bees. Could not find the queen.
Created a split hive containing the following: Took 6 deep frames, with bees, containing mixture of honey, pollen, and capped brood. Added a couple of
honey deeps (no bees) to the hive box. To that, added one super box and took one super frame that seemed to have the most larvae uncapped, of various sizes, and 8 super frames with and without honey.
Took this split hive out to new farm location and set it up.
Split hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super (S) <--- one frame with larvae and bees
hive body (H) <--- bees and capped brood
bottom board
------------
Swarm hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super <--- bees and misc frames
hive body <--- queen should be in one of
hive body <--- these boxes ?
bottom board
------------
Since we are in some doubt about eggs in the frame we moved to Split hive, considering buying a queen for this new hive. Also considering queening the
other two split hives.
Thursday, Chris went to Columbus and picked up 3 fertilized queens. These will go in the split hives.
We have a plan to split all 3 of the drives that have survived, starting with swarm hive.
SPLIT (first split):
Starting about 1230 we began going through swarm hive looking for queen, supercedure cells, and swarm cells. The hive was packed with bees. No outward signs of swarming, however, over last week. Mix of frames with a lot of capped brood. Only a few super frames with larvae. Seemed to be a variety of larvae sizes. Did not see any cells with eggs, but they are hard
to spot, and there were bees all over the frames. Hard to see. No supercedure or swarm cells. Seemed like a lot of drones, but still they are only about 5% or less of population, and there were lots and
lots of bees. Could not find the queen.
Created a split hive containing the following: Took 6 deep frames, with bees, containing mixture of honey, pollen, and capped brood. Added a couple of
honey deeps (no bees) to the hive box. To that, added one super box and took one super frame that seemed to have the most larvae uncapped, of various sizes, and 8 super frames with and without honey.
Took this split hive out to new farm location and set it up.
Split hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super (S) <--- one frame with larvae and bees
hive body (H) <--- bees and capped brood
bottom board
------------
Swarm hive:
------------
top cover
inner cover
super <--- bees and misc frames
hive body <--- queen should be in one of
hive body <--- these boxes ?
bottom board
------------
Since we are in some doubt about eggs in the frame we moved to Split hive, considering buying a queen for this new hive. Also considering queening the
other two split hives.
Thursday, Chris went to Columbus and picked up 3 fertilized queens. These will go in the split hives.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Price Prehistory Museum
 |
| Entry to the Price, UT, museum of Prehistory |
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Cleaners
 |
| Heights Cleaners, Albuquerque, NM. Next to Ruben's Grill, good Mexican food. |
Friday, May 3, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Well That Explains a Lot
When i was in my 20's, i did a little art, painting, on my days off. My jobs were technical, mostly programming, and they required between a fair effort to near complete mental obsession. I learned early on that between quitting time in the technical job to being able to paint required at least 48 hours of down time. I.e., until two days had passed, i was creatively blocked. It was a fact, but why?
Having just finished The Age of Insight, by Eric R. Kandel, i now have something of an answer. In the chapters 'Brain Circuits for Creativity', and 'Talent Creativity and Brain Development', research does conclude that the left and right sides of the brain usually have basically different functions: left side more concerned with logic, deriving solutions from a limited set of options; right side open to a much wider range of problem solutions. Both sides contribute to problem solving where "inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms interact in complex harmony." Importantly, the left side appears to inhibit the right side to some degree (possibly vice versa).
It is noted that injury to the left brain can result in enhanced function of the right brain, sometimes an increase in creativity in the arts. "After an injury [...] one side of the brain may result in the enhancement of specific functions on the other side of the brain." (p478).
The pressures of programming, project deadlines, predictable outcomes, rely on solving problems by putting together combinations of previously exercised patterns. Only occasionally do you need really creative solutions. This suggests pretty strongly to me that, since work demanded dominance of the left side strengths, it exercised inhibitory control a lot of the time. The 'complex harmony' took about 48 hours to reassert some creativity into mental life.
(Thanks, Chris, for coming up with this book. The author is a bit wordy, but it's a readable book that attempts to link art and neuroscience in meaningful ways.)
Having just finished The Age of Insight, by Eric R. Kandel, i now have something of an answer. In the chapters 'Brain Circuits for Creativity', and 'Talent Creativity and Brain Development', research does conclude that the left and right sides of the brain usually have basically different functions: left side more concerned with logic, deriving solutions from a limited set of options; right side open to a much wider range of problem solutions. Both sides contribute to problem solving where "inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms interact in complex harmony." Importantly, the left side appears to inhibit the right side to some degree (possibly vice versa).
It is noted that injury to the left brain can result in enhanced function of the right brain, sometimes an increase in creativity in the arts. "After an injury [...] one side of the brain may result in the enhancement of specific functions on the other side of the brain." (p478).
The pressures of programming, project deadlines, predictable outcomes, rely on solving problems by putting together combinations of previously exercised patterns. Only occasionally do you need really creative solutions. This suggests pretty strongly to me that, since work demanded dominance of the left side strengths, it exercised inhibitory control a lot of the time. The 'complex harmony' took about 48 hours to reassert some creativity into mental life.
(Thanks, Chris, for coming up with this book. The author is a bit wordy, but it's a readable book that attempts to link art and neuroscience in meaningful ways.)
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
48 Hours Later, Bees Still Confused
Well, this is moderately interesting: after restacking the hive, the girls are still trying to use the old entrance that does not exist now. They're coming back loaded with pollen and trying for the bore hole in the upper right corner. So here's the cronology, with photos.
Tuesday about 1400 we removed the top box which had a bore hole in the upper left corner (for bees returning) opening into an empty box over the inner cover (box completely removed from stack). 99% of the bees were using that entrance. After that there is no longer an entrance there. The bottom box removed too. The remaining 2 boxes were moved down, and a new hive body with empty frames put on as the top of the 3.
Wondering if the cover was holding some kind of entrance marking scent, I switch both outer and inner cover for ones from the dead hive. (There's no scent on the box, because it's a completely different box.) Paradoxically this immediately caused an even bigger ball of bees to form at the phantom entrance. (Switching the covers did put more bees in the air.) That broke up in about half an hour.
Now, 48 hours after reconfiguring the hive, and nearly 24 after switching the covers, you can still see groups of bees trying that spot. This isn't particularly scientific, but it suggests to me that some bees are really fixated on the visual cue of the top left corner. When several bees land there, that might trigger other predisposed bees to assume the entrance is there, increasing the crowd. The effect kind of comes and goes.
Tuesday about 1400 we removed the top box which had a bore hole in the upper left corner (for bees returning) opening into an empty box over the inner cover (box completely removed from stack). 99% of the bees were using that entrance. After that there is no longer an entrance there. The bottom box removed too. The remaining 2 boxes were moved down, and a new hive body with empty frames put on as the top of the 3.
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| Wednesday at 1300, 24 hours later, large clump still trying the old entrance location. |
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| Thursday at 1200, 48 hours later, there are still occasional clusters of bees looking for the missing entrance. |
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Turbotax 2012 Montana 2EC Form
This year's turbotax (Premium) does not automatically find the Elderly Homeowner / Renter tax credit. The trick is to know about it ahead of time, click on View, then Forms. Next you need to click Open Form icon at the top of the list, then find the Montana 2EC form and OPEN. Fill in the form with your property tax, and whatever else is relevant. Close that form and OPEN the Form 2 Schedule V, and enter the result of the 2EC on that form. You will have to do the addition yourself and enter that on the form. Close that, and now you should be able to see your credit on Form 2.
Took me only an hour to figure that out.
Took me only an hour to figure that out.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Some Confused Bees
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| Some loaded bees trying to find entrance that no longer exists. |
Temp 71 or higher this afternoon and sunny. Reconfigured the Swarm hive by removing the lowest hive body (H1) and setting it aside. Removed bottom board and replaced with cleaned one. Bees all in the top super (S) and hive
body (H2) immediately below that. Restacked as:
------------
top cover
inner cover
hive body (new box and 9 frames saved from package hive)
hive body (H2) <--- lots of bees here
super (S) <--- most bees here
bottom board
------------
The S and H2 boxes seemed clean and very busy and mostly full of bees. There is an adequate amount of honey until things blossom, and also the new top box has several frames worth of honey. Capped brood in the middle 2 frames of S, about 10%, and maybe 5% in the middle frames of H2.
Cleaned out dead bees from hive body (H1) and put aside.
Bees very confused about the opening now and even 3 hours later are having some difficulty adjusting to that. They are bringing in good quantities of yellow pollen.
Also went out to 2 remaining hives at Dave's and adjusted leanings, fed with sugar water, etc. They have not touched the pollen patties either.
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| Another bee that found the pollen patty very interesting. |
Friday, March 29, 2013
Cybernetics and Painting
The author of this paper, Cybernetics and Painting, Frank Galuszka, uses cybernetics in a way i have not encountered. The paper, Cybernetics and Painting is enlightening.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Mandala No 2
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| Tissue and other paper on card stock, approx 6" x 9" |
Monday, March 25, 2013
Swarm Hive Activity
Breezy, sunny, and 51 deg. Swarm hive out foraging in small numbers. If they're bringing in pollen it's very small amounts.
Have not touched the honey frame or pollen patty as of 2 days ago.
Have not touched the honey frame or pollen patty as of 2 days ago.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
MQ Hive Gone
Chris/Maggie's report on the MQ hive. Didn't make it. There were signs of life just 10 days ago, but now everyone is dead.
"These are shots [below] of the Miracle Queen hive 3-20-2013.
All the bees you see are dead. Some are in a cluster, dying as they
tried to keep warm but on empty comb. A few are out on the honey
elsewhere and died alone. So sad to die alone. The brood area was
empty except for a few squishy larvae that just looked like white
blobs in the cells."
"These are shots [below] of the Miracle Queen hive 3-20-2013.
All the bees you see are dead. Some are in a cluster, dying as they
tried to keep warm but on empty comb. A few are out on the honey
elsewhere and died alone. So sad to die alone. The brood area was
empty except for a few squishy larvae that just looked like white
blobs in the cells."
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Old Painting, Changes
Friday, March 15, 2013
Checking the Hives
Swarm hive has finished up the bit of comb i put in on 3/2, so i moved over a fairly good looking med frame 80% full of honey into the feed super. They are still not touching the pollen patty.
Bees on hair trigger when you reach into the feed chamber (above inner cover). Probably because they are using the bore hole in that box for the main entry and exit. Also using a mid level bore hole, and a few bees going in and out, and cleaning up, from the entrance on the base.
Over on the other side of town, the scene is happy and productive, bees still have honey, although the middle hive is just about out, judging from top box. Put pollen patties in all hives, and sugar water jars.
Bees on hair trigger when you reach into the feed chamber (above inner cover). Probably because they are using the bore hole in that box for the main entry and exit. Also using a mid level bore hole, and a few bees going in and out, and cleaning up, from the entrance on the base.
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| Swarm Hive 'feed chamber' above the inner cover. Bees are all over/in the inner cover opening. Bees on some comb from the dead hive. |
Over on the other side of town, the scene is happy and productive, bees still have honey, although the middle hive is just about out, judging from top box. Put pollen patties in all hives, and sugar water jars.
 |
| Chris in bee suit with hives. Mt Helena in background. |
Sunday, March 10, 2013
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