Good and bad stuff

I've had some good  and bad stuff happen within the last week. I scored the copy of  Indiana by George Sand that I've been coveting at Every Other Book. Here's a photo of it.

 I used to think about this copy of the book while I was lying in bed waiting for sleep, remembering the feel of the worn cover in my hand, wondering who had owned it and how many people had read it to make the cover feel so polished by human touch. Then I would fervently hope that no one bought it yet, and tell myself that I just couldn't afford it, that it was too much money. I'd remind myself that I already owned a paperback copy of the title and  it was only a  possession and it wasn't right to place such a high value on things. It didn't help, so when I got an email saying the store was having a 30% off sale, I stopped in. Not only was it on sale, it was marked down so I got it for a quarter of the original asking price. Booyah!

Then I got to work and found the new mngr. and the asst. in the workroom talking to a security officer from downtown. Since they were having a discussion in the middle of the workroom I felt it appropriate to listen in. I heard the security officer say "... they called 911 and the firefighters brought the firetruck to get them out." Of course that piqued my curiosity and suddenly I realized what they were talking about, I blurted, "Someone was locked in? When?" and the response was "Last night." Hmmm.....let's see... who was the person in charge? It was the asst., the same person who drove me crazy when I worked his evening shift with one other staff member in the building. His posterior wouldn't lose contact with his seat until one nanosecond before closing time. Then the one other employee and I would have to cool our heels waiting for him to gather his belongings and amble to the door to punch in the security code and lock the door as we exited. Basically the only closing responsibility he had was to check  half of the building for stragglers. He had no computers to shut down, no toys to pick up, no registrations to file, no mountain of materials to move. ALL he had to do was check for bodies. It would be interesting to know what the fee was for the emergency response. To be fair, as soon as I heard it happened my next thought was I hope it wasn't on my night! Still it was good for a smirk.

I opened my beehives and found I lost the bees in the top bar. They were still alive the first week of February, but must not have survived the most recent bout of cold. The Langstroth still has plenty of bees, but I'm not sure they have any honey left. They started with a pretty big surplus, but the extreme cold causes them to need extra food to generate enough heat in their cluster. Here's a photo of what I found on the first day the temps. got into the 40's.

 That, my blog reading friends, is bee poop! And the entire back half of my yard was covered with it.When I went to the Northeastern Indiana Beekeeper's Association meeting I got both good and bad news. I was told it was a very good sign that I had bee poop covering my backyard, that it was sign of a good healthy hive, but I also learned that I made a mistake by filling the feeder with pollen substitute so early. The only way to rectify my mistake is to continue adding the pollen substitute until the natural pollen actually starts. To further complicate things, I can't open the hive without shocking and killing the bees unless the temps. are in the 40's (difficult to manage when you work fulltime and we're experiencing another cold snap).  The first natural pollen will come from  the silver maples and then it will be off to the races. I also won the big door prize at the association meeting, an innovative screened bottom board with oil tray to combat hive beetles. After the meeting broke up all the other beekeepers were gathered round admiring the bottom board, even picking it up to examine it more closely. It's definitely the most attention I've ever gotten at an association meeting. While talking to another beekeeper I mentioned that I'd read somewhere that the hexagon shape of the honeycomb cell actually started out as a circle and the weight of the other cells and the other circles joined to it pull it into the hexagon shape. The other beek didn't believe me, but it only took a little searching to find validation. I'm learning that once again I'm in the minority, most of the women attending the meetings are there as support services and leave the actual beekeeping to their male counterpart. That's really not that surprising when you viscerally learn that a full honey super can weigh up to 80 lbs.

An extremely bad thing that happened is that I learned that I won't be eligible for the full premium from my retirement fund until 2016.Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! So, I have a new target date, hopefully I'll make it. If we have another winter like this one, I'm not sure I will.