Autopsy of a Beehive

Honey bee colonies "die" all the time. Nobody ever tells you how to perform a proper autopsy. I'm not suggesting my methodology is proper, by any means. However, it does tell me a lot about what caused the colony to die off; more than I would know otherwise, anyway. Here we go:

Above we see the hive before and after opening. Note that I brought the hive into the garage so I could do this out of the weather. The mould on the top bars was a first give-away of the hive condition. The feeder still contained about 2 1/2 inches of syrup and not a single dead bee, indicating it had never been touched.

 

Here we have the top box from above and below. Pretty, pretty comb layout, even if it does cross the bars. Bees will do what bees do. Note the queen cups along the bottom of some of the combs. Is it normal to still have these around at the end of the nectar flow?

The combs of the top box, from left to right, left face to right face:

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, even the uninitiated will see something "not quite right" just by looking at these. Those beekeepers out there will notice that two combs in the middle have never had brood raised in them while combs on either side have. Why? I don't know and that's not really the purpose of the autopsy, but it makes an interested question.

It appears the honey dome is good and a good start to a preserved pollen (pollen with honey over top) zone has been prepared for winter. At first glance, this colony looks like the limitation was just low bee numbers. That is not the case, however. Zoom into the photos and look closer.

As you zoom in on the photos, you'll notice spotty series of sealed drone brood and an emergency queen cell. This colony lost their queen, probably right about the time the nectar flow ended. They tried to raise a new queen and couldn't. It's even possible that one or more of the worker bees had become a drone layer, but that's merely a guess based on the spotty pattern of drone cells.

I have put up photos of the combs of the bottom box in my Picasa album under the title "2010 Winterkill Autopsy". Mostly, the features are more drone cells and a bunch of drones.

The hive died before winter even hit full-force. It died due to lack of a queen and the chaos within the hive caused by her loss. While it had low stores, there was a feeder with syrup above the hive from which they could have supplemented as the winter moved in (on warm days) and, indeed, that's what my other hives have done successfully to this point.

On the upside, this hive yielded my first honey in three years. I managed to harvest about 14 pounds (heft test, I don't have a scale to measure, yet) of lovely and tasty honey.

This comb honey certainly would not win any awards at a honey show, but it is beautiful all the same to this beekeeper. Perhaps only another beekeeper can fully grasp the tragic beauty of this parting photo. The life work of several tens of thousands of individual lives is represented here. Their desiccated corpses are scattered across fields and moulding on the remains of their home. Yet, here, I have a treat for myself and to share with my close friends.

Thank you, ladies, for giving your lives that I might enjoy your work. Though you will never realize the full potential your colony represented, you may rest in peace knowing it was not all for naught.

5 of 6 Colonies Survive

It brings me great pleasure to announce that five out of the six beehives entering winter still have surviving bees in them.

Having seen flight activity on warm days in early January, I knew there were some surviving bees at that time. However, our recent warm weather - easily warm enough to fly in - has sparked zero flight activity in the last couple weeks. Curious, and concerned, I opened the hives to see how they were doing.

I first went to the Warre hives, since I thought them most likely to have survivors. The first hive had about an inch of syrup and some crystallized sugar still in the feeder. This actually worried me until I pulled the feeder off and, lo and behold!, a beautiful cluster of bees about six inches across occupying the top of the combs directly below the entrance to the feeder! Happy day! I promptly added a chunk of protein patty and closed up the hive.

The next hive had three inches of completely uncrystallized syrup in the feeder. Under the feeder was a dead colony, four mouldy combs and four combs still with some capped honey (or syrup - not sure which). Apparently, the colony had wandered off to the side of hive and failed to move over to the nearby stores when they started to starve. I have not done a proper autopsy, yet, but that's my initial guess.

The third hive appeared also to be a dead-out, at first. The tops of the combs were all un-capped and empty both of syrup/honey and bees. Then I noticed no mold on any combs and a single bee wandering across the top bars. Rapping on the side of hive brought an angry hum from below and a few more bees came up to investigate. The colony received a protein patty and the syrup from the dead out. I just hope the cluster moves up close to the feed before things turn cold again. March weather is usually downright nasty, here.

The fourth Warre also contained a nice, tight cluster at top dead center. It received a protein patty before being closed up.

Because I was out and doing bee tasks, anyway, I moved to the two Langstroth colonies. I was pretty sure they had been killed in the fall when I gave them too-thin (runny) fondant. I had little hope of finding anything more than mould.

Opening them found several bees actively moving around on the paper left from the fondant. Taking that as a good sign, I simply closed them up and moved along. I did not lift out the paper to expose any cluster which may more may not be present. I surmise that the paper shielded the clusters from the worst of the deluge of runny fondant and that they survived the winter largely by feeding on crystallized sugars coating combs and the bottom board after the "run" was over. I intend to get some baggy feeders on them tomorrow and will know more of the cluster condition, then.

I'm getting very optimistic about the coming season. I find myself looking forward to chasing swarms across the neighborhood to capture before they find a roost in someone's attic.

On Movie Musicals

I've spent much of the last two days watching movie musicals between fares at work. Okay, not between fares... it's been slow enough that I can watch two or three back-to-back without being interrupted. Be that as it may, this study over two days and my past history with movie musicals - which I love, by the way - has brought an interesting observation: Why are there so few movie musicals which are not also primarily romances?

I mean, really. There's so much more than romance in theater, whether stage or film. I've dragged my brain trying to think of non-romantic movie musicals. D'you want to know how many I came up with?

Six. There are exactly six movie musicals that I can think of which are not romances. They are:

• O Brother, Where Art Thou
• Paint Your Wagon
• Oliver (and Oliver Twist)
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Pink Floyd's The Wall
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Even the numerous Disney animated movies are primarily romances, though they are, ostensibly, children's movies.

Now, periodically, a movie is released with musical numbers in them. These are not actually musicals, though. Examples are Fame, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Cheech and Chong's The Corsican Brothers, and Labyrinth. These are all fine films, but they just do not satisfy one's itch for a fun musical.

Judging from the popularity of musicals on stage and the variety of musical comedies, tragedies, dramas, etc., surely Hollywood could come up with more. Even adaptations of stage plays (musicals, in this case) can and have great success in the box office as well as rental and retail counters.

Perhaps my brother, Nathan, or my good friend Marc could provide some insight into this. Perhaps my fair readers would leave their comments, pointing me to any other movie musicals which are not romances.

Hollywood, are you listening? Give us some fun musicals, please. We'll reward you for it in sales.

Changing Organization Habits

We all need a little organization in our lives. I certainly do. I distract easily and my memory leaks like a broken colander. I've tried pretty much everything in the past: pocket sized spiral notebooks, organizers (paper binders with pages, remember those?) and other assorted gadgets and gizmos. I skipped the PDA phase, figuring - probably correctly - that they're just expensive toys to take up space in your pocket and get broken when you bump into something.

My phone, on the other hand, has recently become indispensable. I finally took the plunge and got myself one of those fancy touch-screen do-everything-and-more cellular telephones. I got it primarily because text messaging is, oddly, an easier way to keep in touch with my girlfriend and I wanted a phone with a proper keyboard but without moving parts. I now have an LG Volt and I can definitely see myself upgrading to a fancy Android-powered HTC in the not-too-distant future.

I don't think I need to gush about the features these new phones offer. They've been around for quite a while, now, in various forms: Blackberry, iPhone, Droid, and others popping up every day.

I now find myself actually using an organizing tool. And it seems to be keeping me more or less on top of the things I need to be doing. Great! I love it. Incidentally, this post is pretty short in part because... I'm writing it on my phone. :)

Ditch the bulky organizers, scraps of paper, non-phone PDA, leaky memory. Just get one of these cool phones. You'll thank yourself for it.

Male Contraception Options

At time of writing, I am a man of age 34, never married and childless. Marriage has never really much interested me and, from a practical standpoint, is pretty worthless. However, given the right circumstances and woman, I can certainly anticipate a desire to marry at some future juncture. Children, though, are out of the question. Some men are ambivalent or even uncaring about the prospect of producing children. Other men want children for a variety of reasons. I have a strong desire to remain childless.

Since I have not been, and do not intend to be, celibate I decided to take child prevention into my own hands. I have been remarkably disappointed. Traditionally, contraception has been in the control largely of the male partner. It hasn't really been until the introduction of the female contraceptive pill that women seriously entered into the contraceptive world. To be sure, various herbal concoctions have been used, some with remarkable effects, but they have been mostly limited to certain geographical areas where they grow naturally and were not necessarily widely known or used even in those areas.

Since the introduction of the female contraceptive pill, the decision to produce a child has lain firmly in the control of women. More and more research and new and innovative devices have been introduced into the market to assist women in bettering their ability to control their own reproductive capabilities. And, of course, men have been largely ignored during this period of time.

For most of the last 50 years contraception has been a women's topic or concern. While there has certainly been a small level of research and development into male contraception methods, little has come of it. We men are basically left with vasectomy or condoms.

In my searching for additional information and upcoming development, I discovered several sites with plenty of good information on the subject. Almost all of them point to this site:
http://www.malecontraceptives.org/


Briefly, it describes about a dozen different methods - how they work, side effects, effectiveness and reversibility outcomes. It quotes clinical trials. Unfortunately... all the non-vasectomy / condom stuff is still in pure research or clinical trials. Or, China currently has implants uncommonly available.

So, the short answer to my quest is: condoms or vasectomy. I could participate in clinical trials of other methods if I were close enough to a participating university or research hospital. I'm not willing to move just to try the stuff, though. Nor am I willing to move to China to get a proven implant.

In the relatively near future (5-10 years) a liquid implant called RISUG, testosterone (seriously?) injections, and a few others hold promise, but are not currently available.

But, for now, condoms, withdrawal and vasectomy.

• Condoms are cheap, fairly effective (typical use: 85%), totally and immediately "reversible", immediately effective and without side effects.
• Withdrawal is financially free, about as effective as condoms, immediately effective, fully and immediately reversible (just stay in) and without side-effects. (interesting article on withdrawal effectiveness - http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Economy/story?id=7688558&page=1)
• Vasectomy is ... not cheap but not horribly expensive (about $1,000), takes 3-6 months for full effect, very effective (98%), mostly reversible (very expensive, 3-6 months for full recovery IF procedure successful at all) and has lots of potential side-effects.

There is some suggestion that a man can contract the PC muscle to prevent ejaculate from escaping the penis, but this is not proven and how many men actually have the self-control? I think I do, but am pretty sure I don't like this method as I have to focus fully on holding the muscle contracted, thus preventing me from paying any attention to her during this time. Further, the level of concentration required would pretty much remove any enjoyment of sex, making the whole thing pretty pointless.

Middle of Life ... or Later?

It rather suddenly occurred to me, today, that my 34th birthday was a few months ago. I suppose that's not really a big deal. The fact it was my 34th holds no inherent meaning and is nothing special; people reach the milestone all the time and have done so throughout history and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

My family history suggests that I'm unlikely to be around much past age 70. Combined with lifestyle choices now and in my past, probably a lot less. Even this is not such a big deal. Fear of my own mortality has never been an issue for me.

No, what bothers me - a little - is my lack of accomplishment. I have spent, essentially, two decades treading water and doing basically nothing. Most of my friends, family and acquaintances have children or businesses or defeat of illness or ... something else in which they can take some measure of pride.

I have my taxi company. Except... I didn't start it. I haven't improved it any, really. The insurance company can take it from me at a moment's notice by dropping coverage. No, that's nothing. I could have children? I am not compelled to reproduce; in fact, just the opposite. Lives I've impacted on a noteworthy level? None I can think of, offhand, barring family who don't count in this case.

Have I been playing it too safe? Me? The risk-taker of the family? Hmm...

It all started so well...

I did my due diligence. I did my research. I waited to see if they would ever catch on. And then I pounced. I just bought a Dell Inspiron Mini IM10-2863 10.1-Inch Obsidian Black Netbook (the link is Amazon.com, but I bought mine direct through Dell and that's where this story comes from. Trust me. Buy from Amazon. You'll be happier.)

It all started well. I spent a month reading reviews and chose to buy the Dell Mini. I went straight to the source: Dell's website. The product was highlighted on the front page, so I clicked and it took me to the start of a horrible purchase experience.

First, I was given a choice of two models, which could then be further customized. The only customization I was interested in was getting Linux (in this case, Ubuntu Linux) preinstalled so I could avoid paying The Microsoft Tax. Also, I didn't feel the need to introduce Windows to my secure network, but that's another topic. Anyway...

The dumb store would not let me choose a different OS. Off to Dell's support chat! There, the sales rep - Jodes - was very helpful and provided a link where I could buy the Mini preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux 8.04, which is a little outdated but not so much to discourage the sale; I can always upgrade to the latest and greatest when I get it. So, I go through the customization process, selecting the big battery and the car charger and hit Buy Now - or whatever the button label was.

Instantly, I was greeted with a page listing the computer and car charger, totals - all the usual stuff you find when buying online. The shipping line was blank, but had a link to generate it on the fly. I click the link, a modal window pops up, enter address, choose the default 5-7 business day delivery for $12.95 (other options: 3-5 business days, next-day and a couple I forget). Close the modal window and rescan the page to see ... Shipping $90.99.

WHAT????

Back to support! A different rep, this time - Anthony - quickly fixed the issue and surmised the problem probably had something to do with my IP address. Seriously? Why should that matter in the least? Anyway, I follow HIS link, fill in a few more lines including credit card data, yada yada and BAM, my order was completed. More than an hour after I started. Grr...

So. The story ends well inasmuch as I'm getting my netbook. The process pissed me off severe, though. There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of crap at their store. I should have been able to make my choices, choose my shipping and pay without having to bother Dell's sales staff at two different points in the process. No wonder they cost more than similar machines - the sales process is cumbersome even for them.

Watch this space for a review after I've had the Mini and played around with it for a while...

And. Buy from Amazon. Go ahead and pay The Microsoft Tax (you can get a refund). You'll be happier in the end.