Daily Archives: June 29, 2013

Latin, Writing

Lightening the Load

Leave a comment

Summer                                                                                Solstice Moon

Well. It seems I keep discarding things for the sake of writing.  In my early 40’s, not long after marrying Kate, I gave up the ministry.  More recently I’ve set aside the Sierra Club work and docent responsibilities at the MIA.  Now I’ve taken a pause in the Latin until Labor Day.

A loft class starts in a little over a week, one I’m in, focused on revision of novels and getting them ready for marketing.  Though I’ve been working away at revising Missing, I still have a long way to go.  Following up the useful thoughts of my beta readers and my own critiques of the second draft, I stripped out about 35,000 words and made dramatic changes to point of view.  Both require line by line reworking, a process that takes the amount of time that it takes.

I’d very much like to have a finished revision by Labor Day and with the garden plus the bees, something had to give.  Latin was the only thing left.  I’ve had one long caesura with it during the cruise around South America, but this will only be the second one since I began in 2010.  Probably time for a rest anyhow.

Now I’m going to devote as much time as I can to the revision.  Pushing now.  I want to get this done and the book on the market.

Bees, Family

Bee Diary: June 29, 2013 An entry for Ruth

Gallery Leave a comment

Summer                                                                          Solstice Moon

A set of photos for Ruth, my bee helper.

Ruth, I was sure glad you and Gabe and your Mom and Dad came to visit.  I’m going to be putting those stones in place for steps in the fire pit as you suggested.  You might also be interested to know that we got the lights working for the playhouse.  A little late, but soon enough that your grandma plans to hang the chandelier crystals.

Here’s a few photographs to explain what happens next with the bees.  You might remember we used the smoker, right?  The smoke calms the bees down.

We also used the hive tool to separate the frames and to lift up the hive box to check for swarm cells.

This week, a week after you and I checked the bees (well, a week and a day), the nectar flow is about to start.  That’s when the bees make honey to store over the winter.  Lucky for us they make way more than they need.  That’s why we can harvest honey in September.

To collect honey to harvest in our honey extractor we first have to put on boxes called honey supers.  They have frames smaller than the hive boxes that you saw.  Here’s a picture of both of them.  Which one is the honey super frame?  The one on the left or the one on the right?

The honey super is smaller than the hive box.  It’s half as big.  How many honey supers would make up one hive box?  Here’s a picture of both of them.  Which is which?

This is a picture of the colony (3 hive boxes) with two honey supers on it.  It’s as tall as you are now!  In some years we can put as many six or eight honey supers on.  Imagine how tall that would be.

Here’s Grandma and Grandpa saying we love you all!!!