Just another Saturday

There's busy and there's busy. And in the mix there is my regular Saturday. This is my typical Saturday. Alarm went off this morning at 3:35, which is my normal time to get up. I felt a bit lazy, was supposed to do an arm workout but rode my bike for 5 miles instead. Went in to work for 3 hours, finished one job and set up the machine for a new job on Monday. Ran by a bee yard and grabbed a frame of bees, took them to my younger son's house and put in a mating nuc with a new virgin. Came home and spent some time working on my AC. I am replacing the split system, the new unit is taller and the air outlet is offset so I need to make a new plenum with two compound angles. Finished about 2/3 and had other problems. Secured the copper line set to the wall with tap cons, tried to run the lines and got a major kink in the 3/4 line. Had to cut it and now I need a splice that the local suppliers will not sell to me. So I am delayed until at least Tuesday. I need to find a beekeeper who does AC work and can swap parts for queens. Had a call to remove some bees yesterday and my older son is looking to get his first hive. Went over and the colony was under a mini play house. Unfortunately the floor was made of fancy bamboo so we had to dig a hole next to the house and reach in. The bees were not there long so there was not a lot of comb. Put some combs in frames and shook in some bees. Started running the vacuum when my son decided to dig a second hole around the corner. While clearing out some dirt he found the queen, go figure. Back home, checked my incubator, 3 queens came out so I'll set mating nucs tomorrow. 

Reflections on Bee School 2020

As I've had some time to reflect and listen to some feedback, I thought I'd write some of my thoughts. There are a lot of atta-boys, and while it feels good, it was and always is a team effort. I won't specifically name names, I'd miss someone. Speakers made prepartions, displays were set up, a bunch of people came out to pre cut 80 nuc boxes, the grass was mowed and the grounds cleaned up. Cars were parked, people checked in, food set up and cleaned up. So many jobs but with so many people, things went smoothly and to the participants it looked like we knew what we were doing. And I can't say thank you enough. So far the only negative thing has been the bottle neck at the building station. We were short a builder, Kirk was sick and could not attend, and we certainly missed him. I also misjudged how long it would take to assemble. In the future I think we'll assemble at least half of the frames before the school and set up twice as many nuc stations. While I'd like to have more vendors, it might be difficult to attract them as we can't handle many more people than we had. The crux of our bee school is focused on first and second year beekeepers so I really don't see us changing the content. Perhaps if some groundbreaking discovery comes up we'll certainly cover that but the primary focus is to help new beekeepers keep their bees alive for more than 1 year.  It was a wonderful time, made possible by both staff and participants. An opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. Here's to lasting beekeeping friendships.