Beltane Waxing Planting Moon
Heat exhaustion put an end to my outside work today, so I came in and did Latin. I’m done with ch. 16 in Wheelock, so I can move on to Ovid.
Kate got her nails done, did some laundry and has organized her packing. We’ll leave around 9 for the airport. After I drop her off, it’s over to the MIA for a lecture on Japanese Samurai Armor and lunch with the docent discussion group folks.
Beltane Waxing Planting Moon
Discovered an important aspect of bee-keeping this morning. When the temperature is 87 and the dew point is above 70, it gets really, really hot in the bee suit. Hot 
enough that by the time I finished I had begun to get dizzy, sweat literally dripped off my forehead and face. I couldn’t get the bee-suit off fast enough. Came inside, sat down and drank a couple of glasses of water, didn’t move. Better now, but whoa.
(a frame of honey from colony #1)
Colony 1 has begun to produce honey! The top honey super has several frames full. The second, bottom super is not as full. I’m not sure whether I should put on another honey super or two. Need to poke around in the bee literature. Colony 2 has filled up the hive box divided from the parent colony (#1) and has begun to build comb in the new hive box.
While inspecting this colony, I transferred all the new frames and foundations to a new hive box. When I put the current one on, I didn’t notice I had failed to drill an entrance hole in it. I took one out with a hole and switched the frames into it, then closed up colony 2. Its primary job is to fill two hive boxes and make honey for overwintering. Beyond that it may make some honey late in the summer, but maybe not. Either way is good.
The package colony, #3, has drawn out a good bit of comb and has made progress with larvae, honey and pollen, but is not yet ready for the second hive box. That goes on when 80% or so of the frames have drawn out comb filled with those three.
Two stings today, both happened when lifting frames. I inadvertently placed my index finger on two different bees. It is not a big deal at all now, a nuisance.
The smoker stays lit for the whole operation, too. That’s a big and important advance for me. My movements have slowed down and my inner world has a much calmer 
aspect to it.
(colony #2 with its hat at rakish angle)
Beltane Waxing Planet Moon
Expatriates. Both my brother (see below) and my sister live the expat life in Southeast Asia, Mary in Singapore and Mark in Bangkok. I’ve only been over there once, in 2004, for one month, they have both been there over 20 years. That’s a long time to live in another culture, to live politically disenfranchised from the community in which you work and have your home, to live in a place where the familiar cues of home are either non-existent, weakened or have a different meanings, to live far from the places where you grew up and the people you knew then, including family.
On the other hand it gives you an opportunity without parallel to become a global citizen, to take in the lifeways of persons whose basic assumptions about life are different than your own. It gives you a chance, if you take it, to get to know yourself much better, for the you that you are stands out in bold relief in places radically different from your own.
It exposes you to the kind of danger Mark experienced over the last few weeks when his host country, a place he lives in because he loves it there, turns feral. Not only that, the wild citizens set up the zoo right outside his soi. Scary.
The expat life interests me, but I view it from a distance. The closest I come to it is the life of a Hoosier in the Gopher State. Sometimes it can come pretty close to that expat feeling, except I felt like an expat in Indiana, never in Minnesota. Except when they crank up the music for hockey or start hauling those ice-fishing houses out. Then, I feel a bit lost.
Beltane Waxing Planting Moon
From my brother, Mark Ellis.
He was there:
Dear Charlie, I mailed you a letter today from my neighborhood post office. That sounds very banal. However, it represents the end of the long siege of Bangkok. The Post Office, although it was only about 200 yards from my soi, was in the Red Zone. It was shut for a long time. It was open today, for the first time in a while. It felt very good to go there and mail a letter. I know it sounds simple, but the positive feeling was profound. I walked around to see all the destruction yesterday. Charlie, it was very senseless. These Reds burned a TV station on Rama 4. They burned and attacked the ground floor of the Thai Stock Exchange on Soi Asoke. They destroyed the Metropolitan Electrical Office on Rama 4,in Klong Toey. They destroyed several Bangkok Bank branches on Rama 4. They destroyed a Tesco-Lotus shop. They destroyed and looted a 7-11. They hit another bank on Rama 4. I went to Silom, which looked okay. I went back up Rajadamrai. Apparently, bombs were found near Rajadamri Station, the morning I walked by it. I took a left, past the destroyed Zen Department store. It looked like a bomb had gone off there. I walked up Rama 1. Siam Square’s shops were burned down. I walked up to Victory Monument. Center One, a shopping center and Watson’s was totally destroyed. I walked up to Din Daeng intersection. The Police box was burned down. Backhoes were burned. Electrical junction boxes were destroyed. A bank had been set afire on Ratchaparop Road. There were burn marks in the road where tires had been burnt. I walked up Ratchaparop. I took a left at Makkasan and walked home. Charlie, it was totally senseless violence. I am afraid that CNN and BBC ‘s coverage was not balanced. The Red shirts flipped out. They are a leaderless mob. Further, provinical halls were burned down in: Ubon Ratachatani, Mukdahan, and Khon Kaen, all in Isan. Some trucks were burned in Chaing Mai. It was totally unreal. I feel sorry for the poor peasants who died supporting Thaksin. The Isan people are really nice. Some of them have been terribly mislead. They do not represent all the peole of Isan or Chaing Mai. I hope this violence stops. Regards,Mark