I'm sorry but your mistakes do define you

OK the title is meant to pique your interest and I'll explain my point in a bit. Over the past week or so I've noticed some yard signs. Plain white coroplast with black letters. They have writing on both sides, on each sign that I saw, one side says Don't give up!, the back side says one of the following; You matter, You are enough, and Your mistakes do not define you. I'm not sure where they came from, my thoughts are probably a local church, trying to be encouraging. I get the sentiment. Over the past couple of days I found that I was actually irritated by one of the signs, and with a little more thought realized how wrong some of them are. You are not enough, sorry to say but none of us are enough. We all need others, we need stuff. But the sad reality is that when the need is greatest, or when it really hurts, we're alone. Hopefully we are enough for that time and place. I like the "Don't give up " attitude, very few people succeed on the first try. Or the second or third for that matter, keep on trying. But the thing which really sets me off is that our mistakes do not define us. The reality is that we are a combination of successes and failures. Most of us learn from our mistakes, sometimes we repeat them. In fact all of us have those things which no matter how hard we try, no matter how bad it may get, we still do it over and over again. Addictions fall into this category and as so many successful programs show us, such as alcoholics anonymous, to overcome these destructive habits one MUST have support. So no you are not enough, at least not for that. Back to mistakes defining us. Still don't agree, let me make an example, Richard Nixon. You just thought of one word right? Nixon was actually a pretty good president. He established trade with China, got the U.S. out of Viet Nam, and established title IX collegiate sports. There are other things he did but what do we remember? Watergate. Yes our failures and mistakes mark us, while it's easier to overcome some foolishness we do at 15 than it is at 35, the things we did at 15 will affect us when we're 60. That's what's been bugging me lately. Like everyone I've done some dumb things in my past, most have helped forge me into what I am today. But the worst mistake I ever made was about 20 years ago, and I am painfully reminded of it every single day. The platitude to put the past behind me just isn't possible. I can't fix it and I can't escape from the reminders. The bottom line is that we will all fail, we all have some things that we need help with and we'll all make mistakes. Very few of us will ever find that special friend with whom we can share anything and who will smack us when we're being stupid. If you have that you are so specially blessed. But one of the signs is so very right, You matter. Even with your flaws, the dumb mistakes, the addictions and every other problem, YOU MATTER. Every day you touch the life of someone else, it can be for good or for bad. Some people will remember you and others will forget you, but in the day to day activities, we all have impact on others. Live life with care, try not to make to many mistakes, lean on someone when you can't walk alone, and let someone else lean on you. Make a difference every day because You Matter!

Just add a frame of eggs and larvae

How many times have you heard this, or even said it?  I've said it myself so many times, and in the past few days I've seen it posted on a number of Facebook pages. It seems like this is the go-to solution to so many problems. It's the most common solution to having no queen, or suspected of having no queen. The problem though is it doesn't take into account the reason for the problem. In my first year keeping bees I lost a queen, actually lost more than one and I still lose queens. In this particular case it had been a little over two weeks since I'd been in the box. Went in and there were capped brood, no signs of eggs or any larvae. I was advised, and having read as much as possible, I added a brood frame with eggs and larvae. Checked it in four days also as advised to see if they were making queens. They weren't making queens so it was assumed that there was already a queen in the box. Probably an unmated virgin or recently mated but just not laying yet. Waited another week, no sign of eggs and again I was advised to add a brood frame. So I did. Again no queens. I ended up putting in three frames of brood, they never made a queen and I wound up with laying workers. Maybe the laying workers were there before the first or second brood frame, I don't know but I don't think so. There were no capped cells of any kind, no brood and no drones. I spent a month trying to fix a problem that could not be fixed. Since this I've done more research and spoken with a lot of people. There are times when a colony of bees can get queen-less and simply not make a new queen. Like they just don't care or something. I don't know any way to determine this but I've seen it happen more than once. It's like they get past some arbitrary day, maybe it's 22 or 26 or 30. Maybe it's weather and some other factors but it happens. When I look back on the colony I tried to save, with all of the resources I put into it, I could have made a new split. I think it's important to consider that just putting in a frame of brood may not fix the problems. Are there other options? Actually there are. Factors need to be weighed. How big is the sick colony? Can it simply be merged with another? Do I have enough resources to invest a single frame of brood? Is it worth more than one frame? I've had more laying worker boxes since that one. We, as a club, have tried pretty much every published method to fix laying workers. What we learned is that you can't fix laying workers. My philosophy is to simply shake the bees out in the yard. Any food in frames are added to a strong colony. I just had to do this last week. My current plan on a relatively strong queen-less colony is a single frame of brood for just a few days. I'll add the frame, check it in four days and if there are no queen cells, it's going back where it came from. My other thoughts are to put in a frame of grafts. Or if not grafts, cut a strip of eggs and larvae, press it into a frame vertically oriented and see if they make queens. I don't believe that a box of bees that won't make a queen are worth keeping. Sometimes we just need to accept there will be some losses.

Practical beekeeping, and queen rearing

I've had an interesting week, a bit of a roller coaster actually. Some things went as planned and some didn't. One of my cell builders failed miserably and at the same time I cut some capped queen cells from two beehives. One that I intentionally made queen-less and one that I didn't. So in all I actually ended up with more than the cell builder would have yielded. Early in the week I was faced with a dilemma, putting together mating nucs for all of the unexpected queens. It was looking like I might get 20 when I was just expecting 10 or 12. I have the boxes, the problem has been having a frame or two of bees for a mating nuc. I was kicking the idea around Wednesday and Thursday, of what to do. The whole thing is a bit ironic as I've been advocating having a plan for everything. I actually have a long term plan for making queens, I just lost sight of the obvious. My long term plan is to have 30-40 mating nucs and swapping 12-18 mated queens each week. My original plan was to start out with 10-12 mating nucs, and as the queens mate, and brood grows in the nucs, I could split the nucs to make more. That was the plan. It's actually worked somewhat but a bit slow. The problem is, or at least was, that my focus has been on that plan and I sort of missed the obvious, more on that later. My long term plan is to have three breeder queens, each one perhaps a different breed. I'd like to get a Carpenter Martha, maybe a Saskatraz, and an Italian hybrid. The queens would all be open mated so the end results might be interesting. To make cell builders, which I currently like using a 5 frame nuc box for this, I need four or five strong colonies. The idea is to start with 1 builder and add one each week. Then break down and rebuild the oldest builder every three weeks. That's the plan now, it might turn into just two builders, it depends on how well I get at grafting. So this means I need 8 strong colonies to do what I plan. Thursday night I woke up and had an epiphany, I currently have, or at least on Thursday had 16 beehives, here is the obvious, I have twice the number of colonies than I need.  Sort of lost track of this in everything else that I'm doing. Ten of those are what I'd consider to be strong colonies.  So Friday I just broke down two weaker colonies and used those bees to make mating nucs. I had enough boxes, made up another triple 3 frame queen castle. One of the colonies I broke down was a queen-less hive from a recent cut out, didn't get the queen but I had 6 frames of bees and 5 brood frames. There were the beginnings of some queen cells on the comb, with some regrets I cut them off. In the end I pulled five mated queens and put 18 in mating nucs. There are 6 cells in the current builder which I expect to come out next Friday, the plan is to make one more triple 3 frame castle and another twin 2 frame mating nuc. This will put me at 28 mating nucs. I'm also thinking of parting with a couple of beehives since I have more than I need or want. I guess I got lost in the excitement of getting more colonies of bees.