Another one bites the dust

I'll keep today's post fairly short.  For starters, this past Friday I visited the apiary.  I was shocked to find that the very hive I found the queen in last week was completely empty 7 days later... Damn the luck.  I am now down to 7 hives.

Also, since the bees have not built any wax on the frames I had bleached, I decided to place uncleaned frames in the hive and see what happens.  I did this by marking the frames with a "G" like in the picture here.  I then placed them in the hive with one bleached frame between each.  I did this to see if they build on the unclean frames and still avoid the bleached ones.

Lastly, in years to come when I am a successful beekeeper, i will look back on these early days and remember just how far I have come.  I want to remember that it wasn't easy and that the bees were not my only hurdle.

That said: I still have not finished cleaning the 400 frames I have in my trailer.  It has been over a month.  The truth is, I just feel so... I don't think it's depression but something like that.  I am still waiting to hear back about the USDA job.  I really want this job.  It is good pay, interesting work, and it would be here in the Delta.  Though it is hard to tell who wants me to get the job more; me or my wife.  I am very qualified for the job but it was open to the the whole country and so I don't know what the talent pool looks like or what my chances are.

The whole thing keeps me in a constant state of anxiety.  Even now, my palms are sweating and I have a headache.  If I don't get this job, I don't know what I will do next.  My wife has been working a lot of extra days at the hospital and so we are financially okay for now.  I am so proud of her but I feel equally awful putting such a burden on her.  She really is a God sent blessing.  We both pray constantly for this job.  I want to be optimistic but no one knows God's plans.

Tomorrow, I plan to muster all of my will power and finish cleaning (without bleach) those 400 frames.  My wife and I are also planning to go and collect honey from The Beast on Friday.  For that I need my trailer.

I have another blog called, 5 Things I Am Thankful For.  I started keeping it back when offshore work began to get rocky 18 months ago.  I don't write in it very much but I wanted to post the 5 things here today... it always makes me feel better and it is a good way to openly thank God for all he does for me.

1. My wife has made so much overtime that we are actually in the black.  Even in these hard times, our cup runs over.
2. My wife... just that... she is the greatest mate I could ever imagine.
3. My dog... Mabel is often on my 5 things list but it is because her kind face and loving nature always helps to brighten even the darkest of days.
4. Both my kids are in college (well my youngest starts this month) but I am thankful that they BOTH have academic scholarships.  This eases our burden (we used to pay $5000 per kid for private school) and I am so proud that they are so smart.
5. Had I never gotten laid off, I would have never considered looking for a job on land.  God is always so active my life that I have to believe that even when things look bad, they are for a good reason.  I don't know for sure I will get this USDA job but I feel like I will.  God is always kind to me.  Over the past 4 years I have been off work two other times.  Each time, when it was over and it had all worked out just fine, I always looked back and would say to myself, "I wish I could have just relaxed and let God deal with it."  So I am thankful that God has a proven track record in my life and that even though I have problems with my faith, God still takes care of me.

Supersedure - Queen Cell

Very little knowledge is ever gained through success - it is through failure that we truly learn.  

I'm sure I am not the first one to say that but nonetheless, it's absolutely true.  So it is with beekeeping.  As Andrew Davis said in, The Wonders of Beekeeping, "Bees survive, not because of the beekeepers but in spite of them." - (I paraphrased).

In my last blog I told how my bees were failing to thrive.  Well it seems that I am not the only one who noticed - the bees themselves seem to be taking steps to fix the problem.  Here's how I find out:

In the picture below that I took the other day, you can see there is a queen cell (mine is the picture on the left).  So my question was, "Why do I have a queen cell in a hive with a laying queen that is not crowded?"

Up until now I only thought there were two reasons to find queen cells; either the queen was missing or the hive was too crowded and the bees were about to swarm.  I had completely overlooked the idea of Supersedure.  However in a brilliant European article from www.cymru.gov.uk I found that each queen cell actually has different characteristics.

It is at times like this that I am in awe of bees.  It seems that nothing they do is accidental.

By comparing the characteristics of the queen cell in my hive to the ones on the article, I found that the bees are actually preparing to supersede the existing queen - not preparing to swarm as I originally thought might be the case.  How great is that?  Hopefully this will strengthen my hives and get them ready for winter.

On a more personal note:

I'm still unemployed for now.  I applied for my first unemployment check today.  I tried sooner but there was some bullshit about the fact that I made more than double my salary in the 4th quarter of last year than I did in the 3rd quarter... and they don't take the quarter you are in (2nd quarter of this year) into account... OR the quarter before that until you are in the Next quarter (3rd quarter of this year)... It's all a f***ing shell game.  

Well now I should be approved but you just know they are going to find some other way of f***ing me out of the poultry $247 a week they are offering.  Yep, I make six figures but the max unemployment benefits are less than $1,000 per month.  It is failed Socialism at its finest but I won't go into my rant about that now.

Luckily - or more by God's grace - my wife (the RN) has been picking up some extra shifts and keeping us in the black.  I am so thankful for her.  I feel really guilty that she is supporting us right now - PROUD - but guilty.  On the days she works I make sure to get out of bed with her.  I do the laundry and make the bed and cook supper.  I also try to get some beekeeping done and do a little writing - as well as looking for jobs on the internet.  After supper I wash the dishes and then rub her feet before bed.

I wish I could say I'm always Super Husband but when I am working I don't help nearly as much - though I still try to share the load around the house.  That's not true - I don't share the load.  My wife is awesome.  On the days she works I cook but that's about it.  On the days she's off, she washes clothes and does most of the cooking.  When I get back to work, I'll try to continue to do my share of the housework.

This started off sounding like I was a great husband... now I feel like I need to kiss my wife's ass a little more when she gets home tonight.