THE DATING-n-MATING LIFE OF HONEYBEES

Went looking for that pesky elusive queen again today.  Found larvae, so she must be there somewhere.  In the process, found a small few of the special oversized beeswax comb-cells the ladies fabricate to induce drones.


Can you imagine that?  These ladies evict and kill redundant males each fall, then in the spring those same ladies just order up some males to date a hive queen.  


But, wait.  Their queen has already mated once, for life.   So what they're doing is creating drones to mate with a just-in-case new queen.  ("just-in-case mating males"?)   


In case the old queen needs to be "superceded", or in case they have plenty stores to support the natural colony-replication event called "swarming."   When the colony swarms (subdivides), the ladies first create a dozen or so new-queen larvae, then the first new queen to emerge and sting the other queen larvae to death (who needs competition for those nice, "pure" drones) leads half of the colony on a pilgrimage to find a new hive home.

What all this sorts down to is this.  The 75,000 worker ladies are creating a couple dozen males to compete for mating with a virgin queen, and any male that does will die immediately, while the males that don't will lay around all summer getting fat on the ladies' free honey until they boot the guys out the front door. 

Life is tough.

FIRST SPRING LEE'z B'z HIVE INSPECTION GOES WELL

Waited patiently until outside air temp reached 60degF.  Books say 50degF, but need inner hive to sustain above 60degF.   Reached it today.  Time for spring house cleaning and annual health checkups for both the overall colony and the ladies individually.

KATE'S GARDEN COOKING CLASS

Kate shows how to cook a garden.  Compost, that is.  At 150 degreesF, her compost piles, "stirred, not shaken", have shown to be effective at killing all seeds, weed and otherwise until fully cooked down.  Then the spent garbage-cocktail turns in to a base as safe and nurturing as a momma's breast to feed and protect springtime vegie sprouts.

And this video exposes her apparent philosophy that when it comes to gardening, "size counts".

Lee'z B'z First Spring Pollen Feast - 3/28/2010

It's a full moon, and the bee's moons are lined up.  Warm 60 degrees today, low wind.  


I had prepared to go up and feed them pollen/protein patties to jump start their spring brood-rearing.  Some folks said brood rearing should ideally start 36 days before first sustained major nectar/honey flow, given our short northerly season.  (After 17 days gestation, then 19 days inside housework duty, new girls are ready to leave the hive to join the foraging army).  Therefore we want to start "family planning" 36 days before, so the full-force women's army will be ready to forage for honey ingredients 36 on "opening day" of spring pollen.)

Well, as a newbee, I blew it.  When I got to the hive the mature over-wintered ladies had already mobilized a massive airlift of pollen and were going strong.  Certainly no jump start needed, as you can see in the pics and video.


See the white pantaloons on the returning bees.  Since it is whiter than the orange honey/nectar pollen of last summer/fall, I presume this is elm tree pollen.  Guess I need to tag one of these ladies to see where she goes.  Or check the forest for white buds.

OLD WOOD TOYS FOR NEW GRAND CHILDREN

My first three grandchildren burst upon the scene in the past year or so.  Wanted to get to business with my grandfatherly duties.

Made some solid wood toys for the kiddo's for Christmas.  Especially, the 18-wheeler semi truck for the solitary girly grandbaby.   Annalise may appreciate that the truck is made of scraps left over from installing oak flooring in our home.  The truck cab is from a chunk cut from the end of a bannister end-post.  I tried to copy as near as possible a similar toy truck my father made for Paul when he was a toddler.



I also made Jacob's Ladders for the kids.  See this video.

I am posting a photo of an assembled puzzle here.  The 3-D puzzle has interlocking pieces in all 3 dimensions.  Except for a couple careless cutting errors, no two touching pieces are made of the same type (color) of wood (just 'cause it looks cool). 


And the puzzle is loaded with "hints," to encourage Nolan's use of logical reasoning.  If Nolan simply looks for clues, the puzzle will "speak" to him about how to put it together.  (Although, the first time I tried to re-assemble the puzzle, it sure didn't speak to me very much.)


Now, here's a puzzle for you...
I wanted to make the puzzle without any two touching pieces made of the same kind (color) of wood.  How do you suspect I knew in advance that no matter how the design would come out I would need exactly four different kinds of wood?  Not three.  Not five.  Four.  Guaranteed.  Every time.


We covered it in a Topological Mathematics course in 1966.  No matter how crazily the politicians may have revised international boundaries, an inexplicable law of math has provided that no map in history has ever required more than four colors in order that no adjacent countries have the same color.  (It's kinda refreshing to know there are at least some laws that lobbyists cannot bribe Congressmen to violate.)  Ancient Greek mapmakers knew of this four-color phenomenon, but could not prove or disprove it. 

You can Google "Four Color Map Theorem."  Or read this paper, written in plain English by a mathematician at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, home of the A-bomb.

So, Nolan...hope you enjoy the apolitical puzzle.  Annalise, enjoy the 18-wheeler truck (don't all girls?).  Cole, I'll send the Jacob's Ladder asap. 

PACK GOATS ON A STICK

Lee experiments with a fancy new video boom  (hand held electrical conduit) while enjoying a late-fall Saturday afternooon hikelet with Thuh-Boyz.

A LATE FALL HIKE TO UPPER PICNIC POINT

Goats were getting barnyard fever. But November is hunting season. So we all donned our garb for hunting season and took off. A beautiful crispy-air day with no wind and visibility enough to see Chicago.  We mozied all the way, sampling dried oak leaves, pine needles, tree bark, ground holly and various weed seed pods.  A truly delicious walk-in buffet.