A Beekeeper's Diary

We were up at 4 and I drove Ellen & Shirley to the airport.  Grant came along as well.  I was home a few hours later and the Easterners woke up and had breakfast.  They then got ready to carry on along their trip, starting with a visit to Jean and Chris, but I noticed their tailpipe was loose, so they wound up going to Three Hills to the tire shop for a repair.  I had to go there too, since in the morning, I had discovered an flat on our van and had had to take Elliotts' car instead.  Although I had blown it up at the time, and it held air, I had not been sure how bad the leak was, and had decided to take no chances.  As it turned out, there were two nails in the tire, so I was wise not trying to make the airport trip with it.

Tuesday : Sunny. Low 9. High 21.

A day at the desk, with a tri to town to see the banker about getting my web access working better.

Wednesday : Sunny. Low 10. High 24. \

A day of desk work and study.

Today : Sunny. Wind becoming southeast 20 km/h this morning. High 27. UV index 7 or high. / Tonight : Clear. Wind southeast 20 km/h becoming light near midnight. Low 9. / Monday : Sunny. Low 11. High 28.

These days I use this laptop for everything.  I do have a desktop computer, but have not turned it on for months.  The Toshiba A20 meets all my needs.  When a laptop is in use daily, the LCD screen eventually attracts dust and fingerprints, and needs to be cleaned, but the surface is not as forgiving as the glass face of a traditional monitor.  On my last machine, I used water most of the time, and Windex® and dampened paper towel occasionally for fingerprints, however, it does not do a perfect job without scrubbing.  I also noticed a few scratches and began wondering, so I did some searching. Apparently the flat panels need special treatment, or can suffer permanent damage.  Here are some references: Dell, Apple, Apple, Opinions, Klear Screen, Clean the Screen

Today : Sunny. Wind southeast 20 km/h. High 30. UV index 8 or very high.  / Tonight : Clear. Low 12. / Normals for the period : Low 9. High 23.

Jean, Chris,  Mackenzie & I went to the Tyrell today, and met up with Chris S there.  We spent most of the day at the museum, then returned to Swalwell before supper.  I'm getting to like the van better, but it needs alignment; it pulls to the right.

Matt came over and pulled the honey on our hives.  He used used abandonment to remove the bees.  Since there is a good flow on, the bees were out of the boxes within a few hours.  He got 45 boxes off the 32 hives we have left.  Not a great crop, so far, but we did split some of them this spring, using the walk-away technique, since I had no queens handy, so those hives will be slow.  Most of them are also hives that Leroy thought too weak to take this spring when he bought our overwintered hives.  Matt says the splits have caught up with the others now, so if the season continues, we may see another pull or two.

I've noticed that a skunk has been bothering the hives outside my door.  I can tell by the packed grass in front of the hives and the scratches on the doorsteps. The bees have been hanging out at night lately, due to the flow and hot weather, and are the clusters are easy picking for a hungry skunk if it is willing to put up with serious stinging.  Some skunks are up to the punishment, but, in my experience, most of them don't care for bees.  I'll lift the pallet up onto another pallet or two to put the entrance higher off the ground.  I've heard that skunks don't like to stand up to eat bees, since it exposes their underside to the bees.  We'll see.