Monthly Archives: April 2010

Bees

A Bee Day

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Spring                                          Waxing Flower Moon

The drought took a hit last night and this morning.  We had almost an inch of rain and it all fell right in the window when I needed to hive my bees.  Wouldn’t you know?

Today had a bit of the comic routine to it.  I got up this morning ready to hive the bee package I picked up last evening.  All  I had to do was put the foundation into the frames.  The foundation is a beeswax coated sheet on which the bees build their hexagonal cells that house larvae, pollen and honey.  It’s flimsy and I remembered from somewhere that it just snapped right in.  Right.

The first two I tried I bent the metal holding the edges together and in bending it loosed the beeswax from its sheet.  So, I went on the internet to see if I had the idea wrong. Well, I knew I had it wrong, I went on the net to find out how to fix it.  I came away convinced that you had to build foundation into the frame.  Which meant I had ten empty frames I couldn’t use.

OMG.  I have bees to hive and no frames with foundations.  Long story short I drove back out to Nature’s Nectar where the guy said, “Bullshit.  Let me show you.”  And so he did.  It was a long drive for a lesson in frames and foundations, but worth it.

When I returned, I did indeed pop the foundations in the frame.  All in knowing how.

So, I gathered the copper clad hive cover, the hive box with its ten frames and foundations, the bottom board, the entrance reducer and a top board that goes over the topmost hive box.  My plan was to do the complete reversal on the existing colony as Jim of Nature’s Nectar suggested, take the feeder off of it and reuse it on the new colony.

The smoker, still the least understood part of the business right now for me, lit, I went out to the colony that stung me five times just a week ago.  Since this was an extended operation, I put on the gloves this time.  The bees got mad, they don’t leave home much on rainy days and don’t  like getting off their loungers while watching the bee olympics or whatever.  Well protected, I went on about the business of putting the top most hive box on the bottom, the bottom most box on top, removing the feeder and reclosing the hive.

No stings.  I had the feeder.  It was all good.  Except.  Several, by several I mean a lot, of bees had set up house keeping in the area under the feeder.  They did not want to leave.  Not even after I shook the feeder, whacked it on hay bales and generally tried to evict the squatters.  I couldn’t put it on the other hive with strangers living in it, so I had to go to the hardware store and get pails of the right size to make feeder pails.  Which meant I had to get an empty hive box from downstairs to cover the pail. After taking the hive box out, I realized I had to go back inside to get a pollen patty.

Finally, I had everything and proceeded to whack the bee package on the ground to move all the bees to  the bottom of the wood and wire package.  The feeder, a tin can with holes in it, pries out and leaves a hole through which you pour the bees onto the bottom of the hive box from which you have removed the four central frames just for this purpose.  The bees, after being liberally sprayed with sugar and water syrup, should fall to the bottom of the hive.  There you spread them around.  That worked for most of them, but some of them didn’t get the memo.

So, I had an opportunity to test whether I have a developing allergy to bee stings.  Nope.  I’m just fine.  The bees are in their new hive, and so, I hope, is the queen whom I’d forgotten to remove in my excitement.  When I did get her out, I released her by the direct release method–pry up the screen covering her small box and let her walk out–but some of her subjects took it upon themselves to sting me right about then, so I’m not sure she’s in the hive.  Though I think she is.  I’ll find out in a week when I check the frames to see if there any larvae.

Anyhow, the bee day has ended.  Tomorrow is plant day.  Time in the garden.  After that, who knows?

Bees, Family, Garden, permaculture

Whew.

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Spring                                  Waxing Flower Moon

Whew.  First quiet moments since 5:45 am.  Kate and I got up, ate breakfast and headed out for the Northstar station.  The plan:  put Kate on the Northstar and I return home to get ready for my tours.  However.  Those of us in our golden years have something we take with us that is more precious than money–our meds.  In Kate’s case we weren’t sure she had packed them.  So we turned around for home.

She needed gas in the truck, so, assuming we would need to go into the City, I stopped to get gas.  Kate looked for the meds.  They were there.  We might make the next station stop.  So, quick like a bunny we hit the road again, pulling into the Coon Rapid’s station just a bit ahead of the train.  But.  It was on the opposite set of tracks heading south.  Kate would have had to climb several stairs, scurry across the walkway, then descend a number of stairs.  Scurrying is not part of Kate’s repertoire right now.

So I drove her into the LRT station at 1st ave and 5th street where she boarded the Hiawatha line bound for Lindbergh terminal.

Back home.  With much less time than I’d thought.  I can still scurry.  So I did.  Shower, dress, review tour notes, drive back into the city for the tours.  Great kids, good tours.  Worthwhile in many ways.

Over to Mother Earth Gardens to pick up leeks, some herbs and some marigolds.  Before that though I ate lunch at a coffee house right across the street.  This was full of denizens of the Longfellow neighborhood, looking at home in a genuine third space, a young woman reading a book, another watching her two kids as they burrowed through a large pile of toys.  The clerk, a tatooed young woman said, “My back is much better.  She did much better work on the back than she did on the arm.  But, what the heck, it’s only permanent.”  Wry laugh.  She had a short blue cocktail party dress and cowboy boots.

After buying some plants, I drove back home.  Took a nap.  Got up at 3:30.  Ate a snack and tried to figure what I needed for the bees.  A few things yet to do.  I felt pressured, since I had expected the bees on Saturday.  When I feel pressured, I get confused, short-tempered and generally perform below expectations.  On my into the grocery store to pick up a spray bottle (which doesn’t work) and a four pound sack of sugar I felt that knot of worry, a diffuse sensation of not quite having things together.

A question I had not asked before flashed through my mind.  Why do I react this way when I feel pressured?  I don’t have an answer, but I want to get one, find a way to calm myself and get into a less distracted space.

Another 45 minutes over to Stillwater to pick up the bees at Nature’s Nectar.  I liked the folks there.  When I drove in the circular driveway, there was a garage with its door open.  The garage had packages of bees stacked on pallets with a few strays flying and buzzing through the air.  There was also a pallet load of pro-sweetener, a pre-mixed sugar water used for feeding new hives.  I’ll mix my own.  That’s what the sugar and the spray bottle were for.

Another 45 minutes back home, but this time with  7,000 buzzing passengers and their fertile Myrtle, the queen.  Tomorrow morning I’ll level out a foundation and put them in place.  I had planned to put them the new hives in the orchard, but I’m rethinking that now and may end up putting them where the current colony is.

The bee guy said I can go ahead and do a complete reversal tomorrow with my current colony and plan to divide in a week or so.  He has queens already.  The season is about two weeks ahead of normal.

Anyhow, now I’m gonna kick back, then crank up for the bees tomorrow AM.

Aging, Bees, Dogs, Garden

Gotta Hive Those Bees

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Spring                                               Waxing Flower Moon

Kate’s off for Denver, excited as a small girl at Christmas.  Seeing her grandkids makes this lady levitate.  Even her dinged up right hip seems a bit better this morning, partly from anticipation and partly from the steroid injection she had on jen-kate-ruth-gabe300Tuesday.   (Pic:  Leadville, Co Halloween 2009)

It will be a busy time for me while she’s away.  I have two tours later this morning.  Then it’s over to Mother Garden to pick up a few things I need for this year’s garden:  bush bean seeds, leek transplants, coriander, dill, cosmos, marigolds.

Back at home I’ll have to have a long nap to make up for getting up this morning at 5:45.  After that I have to buy more sugar and a spray bottle for the new bees, put foundations on the frames for their hive box and level up a spot for their hive.  Later, after 4:30 pm, I’ll drive out to Stillwater and pick them up, bring them home and hive them.

Hiving a new package involves spreading the 2 pound package of worker bees over the floor of the hive box, then gently releasing the queen, replacing the four frames withdrawn, carefully (to avoid killing the queen which is bad) and putting a bit of pollen patty and a feeder on top.  That’s where the sugar comes in.  The spray bottle is for the trip home and the time lapse between then and when I get them in the hive.  It helps them stay nourished and calm.

On Saturday I have to figure out why Rigel and Vega dug a large plastic pipe out of the ground, what, if any, function it serves, repair it, cover it over, this time with a board or something that will resist further digging and hope they don’t go all round the yard  digging up irrigation pipes.  I think they dig when they hear the sound of the water running through the pipes.  Oh, boy! Oh, boy!  Something’s there.  Something’s there.  Gotta get it.  Right now.

With that work done I have to get back to amending the soil in the raised beds and planting seed.  If I have time, I’ll get in some weeding, too.

General

Happy Birthday Gabe: 2 Years Old

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Spring                               Waxing Flower Moon

Out to Edina for a ten minute stint in a dental chair then back home.  Round trip:  2 hours.  Nap.  Supper.

Into St. Paul for Sheepshead.  The cards weren’t bad for me tonight; but they weren’t great, except for that one really good hand.  I think I came out ahead though I don’t know since Roy forgot to tell us the results.

Also got a call around 6 that the bees are already here.  I pick’em up tomorrow afternoon after 4:30 pm.

Gotta go to be because Kate hops on the Northstar at 6:40 on her way to Colorado.

Aging, Family, Friends, Health, Memories

The Moratorium Years

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Spring                                   Waxing Flower Moon

As the moon makes its circuit from its crescent form in the west to its fullness in the east, it passes over the skylight in our living room, at about half full.  It was there tonight, shining and visible to me as I sat in my chair.

To get my sunglasses back I had to park in University parking, then wend my way through skyways and the labyrinth that is the University of Minnesota’s medical complex.  In several buildings there is the school of dentistry, the medical school, a hospital, a heart hospital and a children’s hospital plus numerous organizations that have some relationship to the world of medicine.

There were kids with backpacks leaning against stoplights, chatting in small groups, a girl sitting cross-legged on a high wall reading a novel, signs:  Are you bipolar?  Pediatric Grand Rounds.  University Brain Tumor Center.  What a time, those university years.  Hormones on high, ambition oozing, a heady mix of freedom and new ideas all combine to create the combustible reality that is and has been college for several decades, perhaps even centuries.

A grand time and one I wouldn’t revisit.  Getting older has much to commend it and among its sweeter pleasures is a certain calmness, a centeredness impossible, at least for me, to obtain when I was in college.

Kate came back from work tonight with sad news.  Her colleague Dick Mestrich, who has been battling multiple myeloma for 2 years plus, has begun to die.  He’s Kate’s age and had just begun retirement when he got sick.

Aging, Bees, Family, Politics

Cyber Demons At Play

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Spring                                         Waxing Flower Moon

Parts of my website have disappeared over the last couple of weeks or so.  All of the liberal faith parent page got eaten by cyber demons, some I may have called myself.  The handy moon widget I had right next to the latest blog entry also went missing.  I have been unable to restore either one though I have not made a concerted effort.

Sunny but cool today.  Closer to normal.  Tomorrow is Gabe’s second birthday and Grandma flies out on Friday to celebrate.  Grandma levitates literally and figuratively when she has a chance to see the grandkids.

She had a hip injection yesterday and though the full benefit of it has not yet appeared, she got enough relief to convince her and the doctor who manages her pain that a hip procedure would help a lot.  That’s good news.  She’s also exploring a more rare procedure in which the bursa over her left hip would be removed.  No consensus on that one yet.

I’m about to leave for the city to have a meeting with Margaret Levin and Justin Fay, evaluating this year’s legislative work and getting ready for next year.  Gotta pick up my sunglasses at the UofM (I left’em at Brenda’s class last Tuesday.), buy some mochi for the grandkids and pick up some leeks.  Legcom call tonight.  Busy beaver for a few days here.

My hand has deflated and has returned mostly to normal.  Not quite, but almost.  That’s good because I get a package of bees this Saturday and I may have to start this whole process over again.

Aging, Health

Mens sana in corpore sano

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Spring                                     Waxing Flower Moon

VO2.  I’m not even sure I know what it means though I do recall that bicycle racers have an abnormally good rate.  Still, on Monday next, I’ll know for sure that I’m not a bicycle racer.  But, I may know a bit more about my exercise physiology and what kind of things will work best for me.

Mens sana in corpore sano, a healthy mind in a healthy body. This is a Roman interpretation of the Greek ideal, one I’ve believed in since coming in contact with it many years ago.  I have, from time to time, managed a healthy body, then a healthy mind, but getting the two together has proved formidable, especially so as I get older.

So, I went over to the institute for Exercise Medicine and had them put me through my paces with a VO2 mask and heart leads.  They also had me do a stretch test, a jumping high test, measured my blood pressure and, oops, took my body fat.  The body fat was in the margin on all parts of my body except my tummy, which managed a wide divergence from a healthy norm.  This did not surprise me.

I peddled for 15 minutes on a bike with a blue mask (this guy is not me.)  At the end they then had me go two more minutes.  It was not too tough a test, but I don’t find out my results until next week.

What I want is a better handle on my workouts, a handle related to this actual body that I have rather than the statistical average I’ve worked with in calculating my workouts up to this point.  I also need a push to get going again on resistance and flexibility work.  I’m hoping this will do it.

An interesting experience.  Worth it.

Bees, Friends, Health, Memories, Woolly Mammoths

Friends

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Spring                                                  Waxing Flower Moon

The Woollies met last night at Stratford Wood where Bill and Regina live.  The topic of the evening was friendship, requiring time one said, trust another, play yet another.  We evoked our history as a group of men who have given each other time, trust and vulnerability.  We talked about the vessel, the container we have created, a place of safety and love.  We wondered about men and the trajectory of men’s lives that leads away from the easy friendships of youth and into the barren land of male competition and ambition.

One of us spoke of his wonderful physical.  His doctor commended him on lowering his blood pressure through diet alone.  All looked well.  Until the phone call.  Which said his hemoglobin numbers were well below normal.  Since then he’s been endoscoped, colonoscoped and even put on film by a small bowel camera.  No joy.  No explanation.  Only shortness of breath going upstairs and fatigue.  He sees a hematologist this week.  Kate thinks the hematologist will probably take a bone marrow biopsy.

My swollen hand and bruised middle finger got some attention.  We discussed, again, the bees.  Charlie said I should get an epi pin right away.  Kate, who sees a lot of bee stings in urgent care, has a more moderate evaluation.  A localized reaction to multiple stings.  I think she’s right.

Cybermage Bill Schmidt’s brother in Iowa still lives, though in hospice care.  Another brother, Bob, had a near deal with sepsis.  Life is fragile and wonderful, treat with gladness.

Bees, Cooking

Avoiding the Swarm

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Spring                                   Waxing Flower Moon

A bruising middle finger, swollen passes the inflammation onto the top of the hand.  It itches.  This aspect of bee-keeping has its annoying moments.  Like using same finger to hit the i with regularity, or the comma both assigned to this one on the right hand.  This will, however, pass.  Kate says it is possible to develop an allergy of significance, I hope I don’t.

This time of year in bee-keeping the primary task is to keep the colony from swarming.    My hive had burr comb when I opened it, comb on top of the top frames;  it also had swarm cells, that is, cells in which the larvae have been fed royal jelly to produce a queen.  Both of these are symptoms of a colony ready to swarm.  Swarming is natural, the way feral bees keep their population at optimum size and spread their kind.  It robs a beekeeper of the honey flow, however, because it is the over-wintered colony that produces the maximum amount of honey, so beekeepers want to keep their bees happy.

One way to do this is to do a partial reverse, which I did Saturday.  Since a colony tends to move up during the winter, this puts the largely vacated middle box on top, thus creating more room for the hive.  A hive with room and food is less likely to swarm.  Another critical point comes in ten more days, when I then do the complete reverse.  About 10 days after that, I’ll split the colony in two.  That means I’ll have two colonies, plus the new one I’m starting this weekend while Kate’s away in Colorado.

I’ll have three colonies through the fall, while the parent colony (if it doesn’t swarm.) will naturally die out.  If things have gone well, I’ll have two parent colonies next spring which I’ll split in May, thus giving me four colonies, two producing a lot of honey–the parents–and two perhaps producing some, but their primary task lies in producing a strong parent colony for the next spring.  Then, I’ll have two colonies which I’ll split and so on.

Spread composted manure and hummus on the bed I plan to use as part of our kitchen garden after shopping at the Anoka co-op.   Not such a great experience at the co-op.  It was an old style co-op with few price labels, indifferent and largely volunteer staff, crowded aisles and only a modest selection of food.  Think I’ll stick with the Wedge.

Cinema and Television, Great Wheel, Humanities, Literature, World History

Cry the Beloved Country

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Spring                                                      Waxing Flower Moon

The crescent flower moon slung itself just beneath the tree to the west, over Round Lake.  A thin cloud passed across it, perhaps a cloud like the one Muhammad rode through on his way to Jerusalem and the Holy Mount.  These crescent moons have South Carolina and the Arab world in their wake, calling to mind on the one hand a new meaning to hiking the Appalachian trail and on the other lakes and rivers of sand, desert nights with stars so numerous no Caliph could count them all and tents raised near a palm filled caravan serai.

Kate and I watched Cry, the Beloved Country, only about 15 years after it made it to the screen.  I’ve never read this book though it’s one I’ve had on my list a long time.   Richard Harris and James Earl Jones are titans as far as I’m concerned, able to bring gravitas, authenticity and depth to movies in which they appear.  In one of the more memorable scenes in the movies, James Earl Jones and Richard Harris, the father of a murderer and the father of the victim, unknown to each other, yet coming from home ground close to each other, speak about the murder.  If you can watch this scene unmoved, you’ve lost touch with something important.  Four stars.

On a less elevated note I’ve begun watching Spartacus:  Blood and Sand.  It’s on the instant play feature Netflix has available through the wii.  It’s compelling tv, not as good as Cry, the Beloved Country but as a sand and sandal adventure yarn, it’s pretty damn good.