Thank you for joining me for these free online beekeeping lessons. Tell your friends! They can easily scroll down and start with the very first one.

Today, we continue becoming familiar with the actual beehive box. It is important to know and to understand how the wooden ware fits together. In previous lessons, we started at the bottom and worked our way up the hive. Now we are ready to take a look at the two most top pieces, the inner cover and the top cover.

It might seem unusual to have two covers on a hive, the inner cover and the top cover. This is the common configuration, to place an inner cover on the top super, then place the top cover on top of the inner cover. Why? Good question. Here's the inner cover.

Before I answer that question, let me say it is not essential, at least not in my opinion to use an inner cover. I believe it is good, and can certainly aid the bees at times, to use an inner cover, but it is not always necessary. It is suggested that an inner cover, with an oval shaped hole in the middle, provides a dead air space between the top of the hive and the outside world. Many claim this insulates the hive from the heat or cold. Others claim that the inner cover is to keep the top cover from sticking to the frames.

We make notches in the inner cover rim, allowing the bees to have a top entrance or exit if they so choose and to increase ventilation.

Inner covers with notches make it difficult to seal the top of the hive in the event it becomes necessary, like when you want to seal your hive to move them, or keep them in when farmers spray chemicals or when other hives may try to rob the hive.

So, to add ventilation, I simply find a small stick, and put it under the top cover, which provides a slight opening, a slight air vent at the top. I use this on hot days, and during strong nectar flows to help the bees dry the moisture from the nectar speeding up the time it takes the bees to cap the honey.
Our inner covers also come with the oval shaped hole in the center. About half of our hives in our bee yards have inner covers. Some of our hives just have what is called migratory lids, just a flat wooden lid that covers the top of the hive.

We recommend the use of the inner cover because it does become useful throughout the year. If nothing more, it does make the top cover easier to remove.

The inner cover has a rim of wood, a wood strip on one side only. Customers often wonder which way this goes on the hive, with the rim down or up? Typically, the rim of wood faces up. In other words, the top cover goes down and lands on the rim of the inner cover. This provides the 1/4" spacing if the bees want to hang out between the inner cover and top cover, and a few do hang out there.
There are times when it is necessary to reverse the inner cover position, and place the rim down. I do this when I place pollen patties on the top bars of the frame. The extra spacing the rim provides is just right to accommodate the thickness of my patties and to place my top cover back on.

Throughout our years of keeping bees, we have been disappointed with inner covers that are made out of several pieces of wood. These seem to always fall apart. We build our inner covers from one piece of wood.

What's the oval shaped hole in the inner cover for? Good question. Obviously the bees can go in and out, but there is a reason it is oval shaped. We cut our holes perfectly to accommodate a bee escape. This is a small, usually plastic device, that many beekeepers use to get the bees out of the honey supers just prior to removing the supers full of honey. Here's how it works.

First, when you see that your honey super is sealed or capped with wax, you know it is ready to be harvested. But, there are still bees crawling over it. So, simply take the inner cover off, insert the bee escape in the oval shaped hole, and place the inner cover (rim up) under the super you wish to remove. The bee escape is designed so that the bees can walk out of the escape, but cannot get back in. Over the course of 3-5 days, most of the bees will be gone out of the super. Pretty cool huh! It will not work if a drone gets stuck or if there is brood in the super.

Migratory lids are often used by pollinators because it allows hives to be easily stacked. I do use migratory lids on many of my hives simply because I find them easy to work. No inner cover, just one flat piece of wood covering the top. My bees seem to do just as good with a migratory lid as without one. However, I don't like to winter my hives this way. I live in central Illinois and the winters are hard. Migratory lids don't keep out the elements the way an inner cover and top cover do. Notice two of my hives side by side. The white one on the left has an inner cover and a telescoping top cover. The green hive on the right simply has no inner cover, but a migratory lid that I added a piece of metal to.

Finally, the top cover. It is often called a telescoping top cover because it hangs over the hive body. Most telescoping top covers hang over between 1-2 inches. ALWAYS PLACE SOMETHING ON TOP OF THE HIVE TO KEEP THE LID DOWN. I've lost several hives because of strong winds and I did not have a brick or rock on the top and the lid blew off and the storm drenched the hive.

Tops do not have to have metal, but it does protect the wood from the weather. It is very important to allow for some ventilation at the top of the hive in the winter. Without some top ventilation, condensation can develop on the inside of the top of the hive, and drip cold water down onto the winter cluster of bees. This can cause the bees to die, not from the cold, but from being cold and wet. A little ventilation at the top can help the condensation to evaporate.

Tomorrow, we'll start taking a look at the honey bee. Can't wait!! Tell your friends!

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In lesson one, we took a look at the placement of a hive, the hive stand and the bottom board. Then, in our last lesson, we examined the deep hive body. These lessons can be viewed at anytime by simply scrolling down or back.

Today, let's take a look at the honey super. Some new beekeepers pronounce "super" incorrectly, calling it a "supper", like what you eat at night. It only has one "p", so it is pronounced the same as when you say, "super size it please." Since we have already discussed the two deep hive bodies, sometimes also called deep supers, today we are looking at the supers that are placed above the hive chamber, on top of the deep hive bodies. These are the supers we place on hives with the intent to remove whatever honey the bees store in these supers.

The width (16 1/4") and depth (19 7/8") will be the same for all boxes, including the honey super. The difference with the super is the height. There are three sizes used for honey supers. Beekeepers with strong backs sometimes use the deep size, 9 5/8" in height. A very common size is 6 5/8" in height. This is also called the Illinois super or a medium super. Then there is the small super. It is 5 5/8" tall.

Here's a picture of all three sizes, side by side. As you can see, the only difference is the height, which is very critical, because the greater the height, the larger the frame in height, and the larger the frame, the more honey it can hold. Therefore, a deep super full of honey can weight close to 90 pounds. A medium close to 60 pounds and a small 30-40 pounds.

There are some limitations when using the small super. There is no plastic foundation made for that size super. And, during a heavy nectar flow, you will have to super your hives more frequently. Also, it takes the same amount of time to uncap a small super as it does a deep or medium super. And, you get a lot less honey from a small super for the same amount of work. In an upcoming lesson, we'll discuss when and how to add supers. But for now, we are merely getting familiar with the hive components.

Some beekeepers use only 8 or 9 frames in a honey super, while others use all 10. It does make a difference. Obviously, if you use 9 frames, the comb on each frame will be drawn out wider by the bees, thus making much more space for the honey. It is true that a 9 frame super will usually contain more honey than a 10 frame because all nine frames are larger and can hold a total that exceeds 10 smaller drawn frames. Wider combs are easier to uncap because the comb exceeds past the wooden frame, allowing the uncapping knife to ride along the wooden frame as a guide and uncapping all cells. Sometimes if the frames are not pulled out past the wooden frame edge, the uncapping knife cannot uncap the recessed cells. In our hives some have a total of 9 and some have a total of 10 frames.

To help achieve the 9 frame spacing, a metal frame rest is often used. This frame rest is different from the plain frame rest in that it actually has notches to hold each of the 9 frames, giving a perfect spacing between all 9 frames. Be prepared for a few challenges with 9 frame spacers. First, you cannot slide your frames horizontally. They are held tightly in the notches. There are times when you need to slide your frames. But if you use 9 frame spacers, you will have to lift them straight up and out to move them. Secondly, the various gaps around the metal notching gets pretty gunked up with propolis, giving nice hiding places for wax moth or small hive beetle to hide and lay eggs. If you don't have problems with these pests, then it's not an issue. Notice the build up of propolis in this picture on a 9 frame spacer rail below.

We'll discuss supering a hive in a future lesson, but for now, you can place as many supers on your hive as your bees want to fill up. I typically have at least 2-3 supers on my hives during the Spring and Summer.

Our next lesson will be the two final pieces to the hive, the inner cover and the outer cover. See you then!

Please tell your friends about these online beekeeping lessons. Thanks! Remember, we are beekeepers manufacturing beekeeping equipment for beekeepers, and we currently operate hives located in East Central Illinois We know what you need and what you want! To place an order, feel free to call us at: 217-427-2678.

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Hello, we are David and Sheri Burns  at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. We are committed to help you be a successful beekeeper. David is a certified master beekeeper. You may consider joining us for one of David's beekeeping classes. Click here to see our upcoming classes.

We are a family business, a turn key beekeeping operation. We manufacture the hives ourselves, hand built for you, and we provide you with the bees and all the equipment you need. We appreciate your business and you'll find we won't treat you like a customer, but like a friend. And when you purchase your equipment from us, we're here for you. You can call us with your questions. We won't leave you hanging wondering what to do. Click here to see our complete online beekeeping store.

In our previous lesson, we learned about the bottom board. As we work our way up from the bottom board, we are ready to examine the details of the next item, what is referred to as the deep hive body. It sometimes is called a deep super, hive body, a deep, and a hive chamber. Unless you live in the deep south where winters are very mild, you will need two deep hive bodies on your hive. This is where your bees will live and raise their young. This is where the queen will lay her eggs for new worker and drone bees. This is where the hive will store their own reserves of honey and pollen, their food source and future winter stores.

The standard and common size for a deep hive body is: 19 7/8" in length, 16 1/4" wide and 9 5/8" in height. A deep hive body is heavy when it is full of bees, honey and pollen. Therefore, some beekeepers choose to use the medium size super for hive bodies. The dimensions of the medium super is the same except for the height. It is 3" shorter, with a height of 6 5/8". If you choose to use medium supers for hive bodies, you will need to plan on using 3 supers if your winters are cold, and 1-2 supers if your winters are mild. We will assume your winters are cold and you plan to use two deep size hive bodies on your new hive.

Here's what a deep hive body looks like. The hive bodies we manufacture have rabbet joint corners. This reduces the "raw edge" exposed to the weather. We also use exterior glue on all corners and 8-hand driven 8 penny nails- per corner! We also place nice size handle holds on all four sides of our have bodies. Our deep hive bodies have been specifically designed to provide exact bee space needed in the deep hive chamber. We also insert metal frame rests, so that the individual frames rest upon metal rather than wood. This makes it easier to slide and remove the individual frames for inspection.

It is a common practice to use 10 individual frames per hive body. Using only 9 frames in the brood nest area will have aid in ventilation, but will decrease the amount of cells for eggs, pollen and honey storage, because instead of 10 frames there are only 9. Our frames are strong, have no knots and have full 3/8" side or end bars.  We have found the best frame and foundation combination is what is known as the top and bottom grooved frame. This means the frame has a groove in the top and in the bottom so that a piece of plasticell foundation can snap and lock securely and easily into the frame.

Wood frames with plasticell foundation works very nicely. The plasticell is a hard plastic about 1/8" thick and is coated with real beeswax. Before we place the foundation and frame in a hive, we spray sugar water (1 part water, 1 part sugar) onto the foundation to speed up the time it takes for the bees to draw out the comb. The foundation already has the comb cell pattern embossed on both sides, making the bees' job much easier.

Some beekeepers use real beeswax foundation and use wire to hold it onto the frame. This was the common practice for many years. However, today, plasticell is a much simplier foundation method and is as good in our opinion. Look at how nice this frame and plasticell foundation looks! Our bees love it.

Also the millimeter size of each cell in very important. The larger the size of the cell in the foundation, the larger the cell will be drawn out and the larger the bee will be. So, we use foundation that is specifically around 5 millimeters. This is an average, industry standard.

It is important to remember that where winters are cold, two deep hive bodies are needed so that plenty of honey, around 60 pounds, can be stored for the bees to enjoy throughout the winter months.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the next item, the honey super.

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A really simple example of a blog with a well-defined theme:http://lacantdrive.blogspot.com/It is resonating enough that I saw a story about it on TV.
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Now this is entertainment!! I had never seen The View before, but now I know what I was missing. Actually, Whoopi Goldberg comes out pretty good (and why not - after all she was on Star Trek). The co-host illuminating us about evolution is Sherri Shepherd. Quite appropriately, this is on her website:

Now just keep praying, that every morning I don't put my foot in my mouth - but if you know me, it's bound to happen :O)

Alas - This seems to be another prayer test that has failed completely.

And here is the article from New York Times that prompted the conversation on The View about the origins of morality: Is Do Unto Others Written in Our Genes?

Enjoy! And please please if you have never ever thought about the shape of the Earth - close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think about it now.

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Welcome To Your First Lesson In Beekeeping

We are David and Sheri Burns and we want to thank you for using our website to learn about beekeeping. Our main website is: http://www.honeybeesonline.com/ And here's our number, and we'd love to talk with you: 217-427-2678

We are happy that you are interested in beekeeping. Good for you! We think beekeeping is so fun. We need bees to pollinate our fruits, vegetables and crops. One out of three bits of food is pollinated by the honey bee. Not only do we need honey bees for pollination, but the honey is so sweet and has many proven health benefits.

Here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, we are committed to help you be a successful beekeeper. David is a certified master beekeeper. You may consider joining us for one of David's beekeeping classes. Click here to see our upcoming classes.

We are a family business, a turn key beekeeping operation. We manufacture the hives ourselves, hand built for you, and we provide you with the bees and all the equipment you need. We appreciate your business and you'll find we won't treat you like a customer, but like a friend. And when you purchase your equipment from us, we're here for you. You can call us with your questions. We won't leave you hanging wondering what to do. Click here to see our complete online beekeeping store.

Before we get into the actual insect, let's talk about the current hive. Beekeepers, for the most part, still use hives designed by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in the early 1850s. Prior to this, beehives were kept in what looked like up-side-down baskets known as skeps. With skeps, the comb along with the total hive was destroyed when honey was harvested. Langstroth is credited with the removable-frame hive and with specific bee space. In other words, he invented the ability to remove the frames of comb and place them back in the hive without damage to the hive or comb. Langstroth also discovered what is known now as "bee space" and is generally thought to be between 1/4"- 3/8". Anything less, they will add their glue known as propolis. Anything greater than 3/8" they will build comb.

Almost all hive boxes today are modeled after Rev. L. L. Langstroth's design with slight modifications over the years.

A typical hive consists of the following pieces, starting at the bottom and working up:

The Hive Stand

The Bottom Board

The Hive Bodies

The Medium or Small Honey Supers

The Inner Cover
The Top Cover

Today, let me explain the hive stand and the bottom board. The hive stand makes up the very bottom of the hive. However, many beekeepers do not find the hive stand necessary. I personally do not bother with hive stands. They appear impressive because they have a ramp leading up to the entrance. And some people feel this helps the bees walk into the hive. However, I have watched the bees land, and they really don't land on the ramp nor walk up all that much. Bees prefer to fly, not climb. In the natural, they don't have ramps. I would recommend not using a hive stand to reduce cost and it makes it easier should you need to move your hive.

So, in my opinion the first piece of equipment you need is the bottom board. But before we place our bottom board, we have to consider where to place the hive, the direction the hive faces and how much to elevate the hive off the moist ground. I like to use wood pallets that I can obtain free from local factories. Usually one pallet is enough, but sometimes I'll place two pallets on top of each other to elevate the hive around 5-6" off the ground.

Then, I place my bottom board on the pallet. Pallets work well, but so do concrete blocks or any structure that will elevate the hive off the ground. You want the hive elevated for two reasons: To make it less stressful on your back and to raise the hive above the moisture in the ground. Bottom boards do draw moisture and so will be the first item to deteriorate over time. So, keeping the bottom board dry will help then last longer. Plus, it also means less moisture in the hive. Elevating the hive makes it easier on your back. But, do remember that eventually you'll have lots of supers, and if you elevate the first hive body to a comfortable range, you may soon find you need a ladder when you place 5 or 6 supers on. 5-6" is a good range of elevation.

Which direction? Which direction should the hive face. It really doesn't matter. We typically try to avoid the North so that cold winter wind will not blow into the front. And we typically try to face the hive Easterly so that the early morning sunrise will get the bees out working faster.

Shade or Sun? AVOID SHADE!! Get your hive in total sunlight. This is extremely important. They can keep the hive cool. Don't worry about the heat. Shade can attract pests such as Small Hive Beetle, ants and wax moths. Place the hive in direct sunlight. If you cannot avoid the shade, try to place the hive where it will receive the most sunlight.

Let's talk about bottom boards. There are many different variation of bottom boards. In the past there was only a standard solid bottom board. Now, with the introduction of mites, we have found that screen bottom boards help reduce mite populations and the screen also improves overall hive ventilation. A screen bottom board is part of what is known as IPM: Integrated Pest Management.

There are many different types of screen bottom boards. Some are simple and some have various slots and grooves to insert sticky boards or winter panels. Get the simple screen bottom board! If you want to slide in a white board or sticky board to count your mites, you can place it under the screen. And you can make your own sticky board using vasoline. If you need to restrict the air flow when applying a medication, you can slide in a small piece of cardboard or metal.

We have put much time in designing our bottom board manufacturing to produce a simple, yet very effect screen bottom board. Our bottom boards come completely assembled with an entrance reducer cleat. Our bottom boards are designed for a 3/4" opening in the front of the hive. However, with a slight modification, the bottom board can be flipped over and a smaller opening can be used. It is not advised and if reversed, an additional piece must be added to the back of the bottom board.

Sometimes new beekeepers ask which way the bottom board goes. When the bottom board is in the correct position, the screen is up. You can see the staples going into the screen. Also, the top of the bottom board has three edges.

Our bottom boards are made very strong, routed in such a way to lock sections together and are glued with exterior glue.

Finally, the bottom board's entrance is determined by the placement of what is called the entrance reducer cleat. It is a 3/4" x 3/4" piece of wood with two different sized openings. The cleat can be turned so that only one of the openings is used at a time.

In this picture, you can see the smallest setting of the entrance cleat. When would you use this small setting? 1) When installing your package of bees. They can still come and go, but it keeps them from wanting to fly away until they nest. 2) In the winter, when you are trying to keep mice out of your hive. 3) When the hive is being robbed by another hive. There is less entrance to protect.

The next picture shows the larger opening on the entrance cleat. When would you use this setting? Anytime you need a larger opening, but don't want to open it up all the way. This could also be used for all three reasons above.

Though the pictures shows the opening facing down, please remember to have the opening facing UP! When bees die during the winter, if the opening is down, then dead bees will fill up the opening. However, if the opening is facing up the bees can still fly out over the dead bees which you can clean out later on a warm day if the bees do not clean things up first.

Once your hive is more than a few weeks old and is not being robbed and the weather is warm the entrance cleat should be removed and stored in a place where you can easily find it for future needs.

This ends lesson one. You've learned about hive location, placement and the bottom board. In our next lesson we'll discuss the next section of the hive, the deep hive body.

Now that you are considering beekeeping, we invite you to purchase all your equipment and bees from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. We are a hard working family business located in central Illinois. I am an EAS certified master beekeeper and we are here to help. We recommend you start with two hives, so click here to see our two hive offer.

Thank you!

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So You Think You May Want To Keep Bees?

When I was growing up in the ‘60s, I remember one of the theme songs for Coca-Cola had a line that said, “Apple tree and honey bees..” In the ‘60s I remember honeybees! I stepped on my fair share and got stung. It seemed there were more bees then than there are now. All I knew about honeybees was that you have to pull the stinger our and it hurt! But oh did I ever love honey. I would beg my mom to buy comb honey because I loved to chew the wax and suck the honey out of the comb. I would take my fork and reach way down into the jar and spear a big chunk of comb filled with dripping honey and cram it in my mouth. What a treat! Little did I know that some twenty years later, I would be producing my own comb honey from my own beehive!

When I lived in Ohio, a friend introduced me into keeping bees. He helped me take my first hive out of a fallen tree. It was great. I fell in love with it and it has been in my blood ever since.

Let me say right up front that you don’t have to get stung. That may sound impossible, but it’s true. You can wear protective gear and learn how to handle bees and rarely get stung. On hot summer days, I sometimes work my bees without a shirt, just a hat and veil. I’ve learned how to read the bees, how to handle them and how to select the best day to work them when their temperament is the best. Besides beestings aren’t all that bad.

You may want to keep bees just for some honey for your family to enjoy. Or perhaps you need bees to pollinate your fruit trees, garden or crops. Or maybe you’ve decided to start your own beekeeping business. I do all three, and all three are very enjoyable.

Over the next few weeks, I'll introduce you to beekeeping. Then, maybe by the first of the year (or for Christmas) you'll convince someone to get you a new hive for this coming Spring. For now, rest assured that you CAN be a beekeeper!

David
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Detroit teen turns MySpace passion into $1 million business: "A Detroit teenager has turned her passion for designing MySpace layouts into a business that has generated more than $1 million in revenue. Just 17 years old, Ashley Qualls, started her web site whateverlife.com two years ago with an initial investment of $8 from her mother, which she used to buy the domain name."
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Well, this is not from the Onion, but its still pretty funny, creative, and kind of real - at least for Omaha:

State Senator Ernie Chambers is suing God. He says it to prove a point about frivolous lawsuits. Chambers says senators periodically have offered bills prohibiting the filing of certain types of suits. He says his main objection is the constitution requires that the doors to the courthouse be open to all. Chambers said, "Thus anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody - even God."

And it has a bit of everything - the issue of Omnipresence and Omniscience:

Chambers lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in Douglas County Court, seeks a permanent injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.The lawsuit admits God goes by all sorts of alias, names, titles and designations and it also recognizes the fact that the defendant is “Omnipresent”.

In the lawsuit Chambers says he’s tried to contact God numerous times, “Plaintiff, despite reasonable efforts to effectuate personal service upon Defendant (“Come out, come out, wherever you are”) has been unable to do so.”

The suit also requests that the court given the “peculiar circumstances” of this case waive personal service. It says being Omniscient, the plaintiff assumes God will have actual knowledge of the action.

and of course the problem of evil:

The lawsuit accuses God “of making and continuing to make terroristic threats of grave harm to innumerable persons, including constituents of Plaintiff who Plaintiff has the duty to represent.”It says God has caused, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.”

The suit also says God has caused, “calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction.

I'm assuming that its a typo in the last sentence - and its "innocent babies" and not "innocent babes" - but who knows. Read the full story here.
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Thanks to Don for bringing this to my attention. This is an interesting issue regarding science & religion. The dispute is about building a canal near a geological feature known as Ram's bridge (or Adam's bridge) that lies in between India and Sri Lanka.

The canal project proposes to link the Palk Strait with the Gulf of Mannar between India and Sri Lanka by dredging a canal through the shallow sea.

This is expected to provide a continuous navigable sea route around the Indian peninsula.

Once complete, the canal will reduce the travel time for ships by hundreds of miles and is expected to boost the economic and industrial development of the region.

However, there is sacred value attached to the same area:

Hindu devotees believe the area between India and Sri Lanka - now known as Adam's Bridge - was built millions of years ago by Lord Ram, supported by an army of monkeys.

Scientists and archaeologists say the Ram Setu (Lord Ram's bridge) - or Adam's Bridge as it is sometimes called - is a natural formation of sand and stones.

So the matter was in the courts and a report submitted by the government has sparked off protests:

In their report submitted to the court, the government and the Archaeological Survey of India questioned the belief, saying it was solely based on the Hindu mythological epic Ramayana.

They said there was no scientific evidence to prove that the events described in Ramayana ever took place or that the characters depicted in the epic were real.

Hindu activists say the bridge was built by Lord Ram's monkey army to travel to Sri Lanka and has religious significance.

Read the full story here. India's culture minister has now offered to resign due to this controversy and directors responsible for the report have been suspended.

So how should we address the issue? Was the government insensitive in saying that the religious explanation is solely based on a mythological epic? This is an issue where religious belief directly conflicts with scientific evidence and there may not be another way of dealing with it.

Perhaps we can think of Young Earth Creationists, who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and that this belief is based on information from the Bible (by counting generations, etc). Should scientists be sensitive to this view when talking about, for example, plate tectonics? No, they shouldn't - there is absolutely no reason to consider the idea of a 6000 year old Earth for any scientific discussion.

A more complicated example is the dispute over the remains of the Kennewick Man - the skeletal remains of a person who died roughly 9000 years ago. These remains are of enormous value to scientists. Here the claim of some Native American tribes that the Kennewick Man was their direct ancestor and should be buried by traditional means was challenged by scientists who claimed that there is no direct lineage. The origin story of the Umatilla tribe says that people have been on their territory since the dawn of time and that the government claiming that Kennewick Man has no connection to the Tribe is basically a rejection of their beliefs. This gets more complicated because of complex ownership laws between the US government and Native American tribes.

Thus, these are areas where science & religion conflict is almost unavoidable. While sensitivity toward these issues is necessary, we should not shy away from stating scientific evidence. Yes, Dawkins would have a valid point here and in the case of Ram's bridge, Indian government was justified in saying that it is a natural geological formation.

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As part of Science & Religion lecture series at Hampshire College, Lawrence Principe gave a lecture on Natural & Supernatural: Miracles and the order of nature on April 12, 2007. Lawrence Principe is Professor of the History of Science, Medicine & Technology and Professor of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. He has also done two fantastic lecture courses for the Teaching Company titled Science & Religion and History of Science: Antiquity to 1700. [If you have a commute that takes more than 20 minutes, then you should definitely try a Teaching Company course on almost anything - as their quality is consistently very high. No, I'm not paid by the company - but I am an addict of their courses (p.s. Only buy courses on sale - otherwise they are too expensive)]

Here is the abstract for his talk and below you will find the full video of his lecture:

Natural & Supernatural: Miracles and the order of nature
In the popular press and daily conversation we often hear events casually described as miracles. This abusive use of the term, however, leads us to forget that the word has a precise and highly-restricted theological meaning that was developed over centuries of scholarly investigation, particularly in the Latin Middle Ages. This lecture illustrates how precise discussions of miracles opened up crucial questions about the way the world works and the way in which human beings are able to study and understand it using the method we now call science. Indeed, several current science/religion issues are illuminated or resolved by a careful consideration of the miracles.


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We have been running a lecture series on Science & Religion at Hampshire College (I will post the details for this year's (2007-08) lectures very soon). David Sloan Wilson was our speaker on March 8, 2007. Here is the title and abstract for his talk and below you will find the full video of his very enjoyable lecture:

Evolution and Religion: Two sideshows and the main event
Evolution and Religion are perennially in the news, but not for the right reasons. On the one hand we have debates about creationism and intelligent design. On the other hand, we have attacks on religion by evolutionists such as Daniel Dennett in Breaking the Spell and Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion. Both of these are sideshows compared to the main event: The serious study of religion as a natural phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective. I will review the nascent field of evolutionary religious studies and what it means for the more general study of cultural evolution, evolutionary psychology, and the quality of everyday life.

Here is the video:


For additional reading:
Jared Diamond has an excellent review of David Sloan Wilson's book Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, religion and the nature of society in the New York Review of Books titled, The Religious Success Story. For his most recent book Darwin for Everyone: How Darwin's theory can change the way we think about our lives, here is a review by Natalie Angier titled, Sociable Darwinism.

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For the life of me, I can't figure out why everyone doesn't keep bees. It is a blast! I suppose bees have been falsely portrayed as "killler bees" taking over homes and whole cities. That's Hollywood, not reality. Anyone can keep bees. It's easy. As you continue keeping bees over the years, you learn more and more.



Most beekeepers find their bees to be very calm and workable. About a month ago, I worked about 20 of our hives with no shirt on. Not one sting. Sometimes, I just sit by my hives, and watch the bees work, flying in and out. It's therapeutic. Here's what a few hives looked like this afternoon.

Honeybees are extremely profitable, with one hive alone making nearly $500 per year. Not to mention what hives earn in pollination. My long range goal is to operate 4,000 hives, raise and sell queens and packaged bees. I am currently attempting to breed a special Illinois survival stock queen. Wouldn't it be something to able to breed a queen that is resistant toward the cause(s) of CCD! Like Thomas Edison, I've eliminated a lot of mistakes in queen rearing in 2007. I'll be that much ahead for 2008.

To help finance the increase in the number of our hives we manufacture beehive wooden ware.  We also provide beekeeping equipment such as electrical hot uncapping knives, micron honey filters, protective clothing, smokers, hive tools, fume boards and fume and the whole works!!



Not only do we sell honey, but we also melt and mold our own beeswax. People love to buy pure beeswax. It smells so good and can be used for making candles, lotion, lip balm, and lubricating bows or sticky drawers--just to name a few of its many uses. After processing the honey supers, we have a lot of wax cappings left over. These cappings make the finest, and newest beeswax. They are washed thoroughly to remove any honey from the wax. We repeat this wash cycle several times.

Then, we melt our wax the old fashion way. We simply melt it in a large pan on the family's grill. Here's how we get our grill going good to melt our wax. Seems like a few steaks and some chicken gets the fire good and ready to melt the wax. Of course, the fire is only ready about the time I have finished my steak dinner. After all, there's no need to let all that good charcoal go to waste, right! Who needs to buy an expensive wax melter when you can have such a good excuse for eating steak!




After the wax melts, I allow the more solid matter within the wax to sink to the bottom of the pan. Then, I pour it into another container that has a cloth filter on the top. From this container, I am now ready to pour the wax into my various shaped molds. It hardens very fast, then it pops out real easy. It is then wrapped and sold, locally or through our Internet stores.

So you can see why I ask, "Why doesn't everyone keep bees?"
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When I moved from Ohio to Illinois in 1995, I brought my bees with me. They did well for a while, but then I noticed they were weakening. Eventually, the hive was filled with wax moths. They make a mess! They spin their webbing throughout the hive and the larvae burrow into wood and comb. Left untreated, the hive will abscond. Beekeepers like to use the word abscond. It is just a fancy word for saying "the bees left".

Wax worms make moths, specifically called Galleria mellonella L. or Greater Wax Moth. Or there is the Lesser Wax moth Achroia Grisella which is probably more common.

They usually only take over weak hives, hives that are stressed or have gone queenless or have mites really bad. As a general rule, strong hives are the best defense against wax moth. If you have wax moths, you need to see if you can find out why the hive became weak enough for the wax moths to take over. Some suggest that most hives have a few inside, but they are kept in check.

Just like we keep bees, some folks actually raise wax worms and even buy starter kits. Fishermen use them for bait, and some people even eat them for protein. Diana Sammataro and Alphonse Avitabile, in their popular book, THE BEEKEEPER'S HANDBOOK, have a whole section on wax worm rearing (appendix H).

What does a beekeeper do when wax moths are out of control? Freezing frames works well. A deep freeze will kill all stages of the wax moth, including the eggs. Here is the formula: 4.5 hours at 20 degrees F, 3 hours at 10 degrees F, 2 hours at 5 degrees F. Measure your deep freezer temp and decide how long.

Next, crowd the bees by removing unused frames and boxes and freeze those frames. If possible, and depending on the size of the hive, shake all the bees into one deep brood box with comb, then freeze the beeless and broodless frames. If the amount of bees is too large to fit into a single hive body, shake them into a deep and medium super. Crowding the bees will cause them to chase out the moths and reduce the empty space for moths to hide. Reduce the crowding after frames have been frozen by putting the clean frames back in the hive.

You may have to freeze your hive bodies/super bodies too as the moths do attach eggs in cracks in the wood. Blowing smoke into the hive with a smoker, two or three times a day, will stir up the bees and help run out pests too. Keep the hive in solid sunlight...no shade.Strong hives, sunlight, freeze comb, crowd the bees and smoke 'em. A non-chemical approach to gettng rid of wax moths!
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Even though it is September, we continue to sell hives and supplies! Our shop is humming to the sound of saws, routers and staple guns. The bees are doing what bees do in September. They seem to know that winter is imminent. They are trying to build up their final honey stores before the first hard frost that will kill the flowers and end the nectar flow.

Here are some bees on our hyssop. It's a beautiful plant and the bees love it! In the morning, the bees gather pollen from ragweed. Ragweed is of the genus Ambrosia and has small, greenish, unisexual flower heads. It grows at the ends of the corn fields around our house. It produces an abundance of pollen. Ragweed pollen in the air is one of the chief causes of hay fever. However, eating local honey with traces of flower pollen such as ragweed can help build your immunity up against these types of allergies.

I notice that early in the morning, the ragweed sounds like a swarm, it is so full of bees. Watch this short video and see if you can see two female workers coming in with yellow ragweed pollen in the pouches on their back legs.

I have crossed the halfway mark in the honey room on dry wall completion. It is looking good.

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Here is part of an interview with primatologist, Frans de Waal, in The Believer dealing with the evolution of morality:

BLVR: Much of your work recently has been aimed at correcting another misconception—that morality is exclusively a human invention, something that evolved long after we split from other apes. Do you think apes and bonobos are moral species? Do they exhibit moral behavior?

FDW: Well, I usually don’t call it moral behavior. I tend to call it building blocks or prerequisites for morality. I don’t think that chimpanzees are moral beings in the human sense. But they do have empathy, sympathy, reciprocity. They share food, resolve conflicts. All of these elements are present in human morality. So what I argue is that the basic psychology of the great apes is an essential element of human morality. Humans add things to that, making our morality far more complex. And that’s why I don’t want to call chimpanzees moral beings exactly.

BLVR: Why do you want to hesitate if you believe that chimpanzees have gratitude and empathy, indignation, maybe, what we call the moral emotions?

FDW: They have the moral emotions, yes. You can see gratitude, outrage, a sense of fairness—you can see parallels and equivalences in all the great apes. But to get to morality you need more than just the emotions. So yes, empathy is a good thing to have. And I cannot imagine how humans could have morality without empathy, but what morality adds to that, for example, is what Adam Smith termed the “impartial spectator.” You need to be able to look at a situation, and make a judgment about that situation even though it doesn’t affect you yourself. So I can see an interaction between two humans and say this one is wrong and this one is right. I’m not convinced that chimpanzees have this kind of distance in their judgments. They certainly have judgments about what they do and how they interact with others. And how others treat them. I’m sure they have opinions about that, about how to react to that, but whether they have opinions about more abstract interactions around them and a concept about what kind of society they want to live in. Do they have a concept about fairness between others, or do they only care about fairness for themselves? That kind of distance that you see in human moral reasoning. I’m not sure you’ll find that in a chimpanzee.

BLVR: Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought I read something in Chimpanzee Politics and some other work indicating that chimps do react with a kind of indignation when they see one chimp mistreating another chimp. A third party will react, punishing the offender.

FDW: Yes, true. Yes.

BLVR: Wouldn’t that count?

FDW: Yes—I think you can probably find examples of this in chimpanzee life. But in a way even the interactions around them affect themselves: these are their friends, their relatives, their rivals. They are never impartial spectators. If chimpanzees have a morality, it likely is a self-centered morality.

BLVR: Can you give some examples of empathy in other species?

FDW: Well, yes. Today, you saw that old [chimpanzee] female Penny who can barely get up on the climb bars, right?

BLVR: Yes.

FDW: We often see young females push her up onto the climber. So that’s altruistic helping because it’s really hard to imagine that they’re doing it to get some favor back from this old lady. I give many examples in my books of sophisticated empathetic behavior in chimpanzees, including those that clearly require “theory of mind”—the ability to take the perspective of other chimps.

BLVR: So you think when a young chimp is helping Penny up the climb bars, she feels her frustration in some way, and she does this by taking her perspective, imagining what it must be like not to be able to climb on her own?

FDW: Well, the young chimp must understand Penny’s goal and also the trouble she has trying to reach her goal. That’s a very complex action right there. In humans there is a literature that says that perspective-taking requires a strong sense of self. A “self-other” distinction. Which is why in children, perspective-taking comes only at two years, when they are able to recognize themselves in the mirror. So we did the mirror-recognition experiments with chimps and also recently with elephants. Because elephants are very well known as highly altruistic animals. And they have large brains. So the thinking was that more complex empathy, based on perspective-taking, must correlate with mirror recognition.

Read the full interview here.
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A clean honey room is not only essential, but difficult. Honey is sticky and messy. One drop can be tracked all through the room. Honey is hard to clean up. Hot water is essential! Once we got our equipment up and running, we began working on our room. Since the building was already build, I simply had to add insulation, wiring and plumbing. Okay I went a little further and added high speed Internet and satellite TV. Once the insulation, wiring and most of the plumbing was complete I began hanging the dry wall. Hanging is the easy part. Mudding, taping, sanding, mudding, taping, sanding...that's the tedious and hard part for me.

The main part of my honey room measures 12' x 14' but it also has a 4' x 5' section where one door takes you to our honey display room, and the other door takes you to our hive manufacturing area. But, you'd be surprise how little space is need to house a lot of honey processing equipment. I contacted our state health department and obtained their guidelines in what they want to see in a honey room.

I purchased a high powered 6' fluorescent fixture and also bought the plastic bulb covers. This is more than enough light for the room.

Next it was time to add the honey pump and the 1 1/2" pvc to carry the honey.

First, I had to rebuild the pump. It mean taking the pump apart several times, cleaning it, replacing O rings and making sure it worked. Roper, the manufacturer of the pump, has an excellent support staff that helped me configure my pump for my operation. My pump is a Roper 2835P. The P stands for packing. I also bought new packing for the pump. The pump is powered by a pulley from a 3/4 horse motor. This motor was in good shape, though I had to re-wire it to reverse the motor rotation.

Once the pump was ready, we simply started plumbing the pipe from the catch tank beneath our uncapper up to our 500 gallon storage tank. As you can see in the pictures, the line is angled so that we don't waste honey sitting in the line. Sometimes, we need every drop. So, by sloping the line, we can easily drain the honey from the lines and wash the lines out if needed.

We added clean-outs to drain and clean the lines.

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Buying Out Another Bee Business...
From Florida To Illinois

Back in August of 2006, I traveled to Florida from Illinois to purchase the bees and honey processing operation from Mr. James West, the inventor of the West Small Hive Beetle Trap. I purchased around 70 hives, two huge radial motor powered extractors, a nice honey pump, a hot-water tank, a 500 gallon stainless steel honey storage tank, a cowen automatic uncapper, lots of old hive bodies, supers, queen excluders, beetle traps and other beekeeping equipment. What a journey!!


It took me exactly one year to design and engineer my honey processing building. First, I had to place a pump in the well located near our honey building. I rented a Terramite backhoe and started trenching a water line to the building. Then, we had to add cold and hot water lines throughout the building. We also had to dig a dry well.

The next step was to design a way for hot water to flow to the sink and down the drain, but also create a way for hot water to recirculate through the 500 gallon honey storage tank, as well as through the knife blades on the automatic uncapper. The blades require heat to melt the cappings from the frames. With the help of my brother, Mark Burns who works for WPS Industries Group, I was able to complete the hot water recirculation plumbing.

Why run hot water through the honey storage tank? Actually, the tank is doubled-walled, so the water never touches the honey. In the winter, we want to make sure the honey does not freeze and crystallize. So, the warm water allows us to keep the honey around 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit during our Illinois winter. The room in which this tank stands is sometimes not heated during the night.

RESTORING OLD, BUT GREAT EQUIPMENT!

The next step was carried out while doing all the above. That's why it took me a year! I had to restore the old equipment, primarily the honey extractor and the uncapper.

Below is a before and after shot of a section of the Cowen Uncapper. I had to replace worn out bolts, bearings, bars, chains and rewire it. I know every piece, personally, and totally repainted every piece.

What is an uncapper? When the bees produce honey, they seal it off in the comb with a wax capping over the cells. In order for us to extract or sling out the honey, we must uncap the wax seal first.

Many beekeepers use a hot knife for small operations, which is all that is needed.

However, larger operations can process more frames at a time with an automatic uncapper. In our case, our uncapper will uncap 10 frames of medium supers in 60 seconds. Both sides!

Here's a video of the uncapper...

Once uncapped, the frames, filled with honey, travel down a conveyor belt to an operator who then places them into our 33 frame radial extractor. This extractor is operated by a pressure clutch system and is driven by a 3/4 horse motor. We coated the inside of the extractor with FDA Food approved epoxy coating, primarily to make it easier to clean up after each use. In the photo to the left, you can see the uncapper being wired, and the extractor in the background.

Stop back in tomorrow for a continuation of our tour through the honey room!

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A nice op-ed piece by Timothy Ferris in New York Times: The Mix Tape of the Gods

Thirty years ago today, the Voyager 1 space probe — a one-ton robotic craft whose long antennas make it look rather like a spider the size of a school bus — was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a mission to reconnoiter Jupiter and Saturn. To succeed, Voyager would have to survive five years in the vacuum of space, where it would encounter cosmic rays, solar flares, the hurtling rocks and sand of the asteroid belt, and Jupiter’s intense radiation bands.

The probe did all that, transmitting back reams of scientific data and memorable color photos: of the sputtering red and yellow volcanoes of Jupiter’s moon Io; of the shimmering blue ice that shrouds Io’s fellow satellite Europa, beneath which a liquid ocean is suspected to dwell; of Saturn’s myriad rings and the murky mysteries of its orange satellite, Titan, whose hazy atmosphere is thought to approximate that of the early Earth.

Having accomplished its mission, Voyager 1 might have quietly retired. Instead it remains active to this day, faithfully calling home from nearly 10 billion miles away — so great a distance that its radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, take more than 14 hours to reach Earth. From Voyager’s perch, the Sun is just another star, south of Rigel in the constellation Orion, and the Sun’s planets have faded to invisibility.

Its twin, Voyager 2, explored all the outer planets (we can now say "all" after the sad demotion of Pluto - no no, I'm not upset about it at all :o) ) and is also reaching the edge of our solar system:

That limit is defined by a teardrop-shaped bubble called the heliosphere, where the solar wind (particles blown off the Sun’s outer atmosphere) comes to a halt.

If all continues to go well, Voyager should pierce the heliosphere’s outer skin by around 2015. It will then depart into the void of interstellar space, where it is destined to wander among the stars forever.

This is truly awesome:

Forty thousand years will elapse before Voyager 1, departing the realm of the Sun at a speed of 38,000 miles per hour, passes anywhere near another star. (It will drift within 1.7 light years of a dim bulb called AC+79 3888.) And 358,000 years will elapse before Voyager 2 approaches the bright star Sirius.

Out there, our concepts of velocity become provincial. The stars are moving, too, in gigantic orbits around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Voyager, a toy boat on this dark sea, will not so much approach Sirius as watch it sail by, bobbing in its mighty wake.

Contemplation of Voyager’s billion-year future among the stars may make us feel small and the span of our history seem insignificant. Yet the very existence of the two spacecraft and the gold records they carry suggests that there is something in the human spirit able to confront vast sweeps of space and time that we can only dimly comprehend.

If some recoil from the brink of space, others find it liberating. Our perspective was aptly expressed by the 18th-century science writer Bernard de Fontenelle, in his fictional dialogue “A Plurality of Worlds.” “You have made the universe so large that I know not where I am, or what will become of me,” complains a lovely young marquise whom Fontenelle is tutoring. “I protest it is dreadful.”

“Dreadful, Madam?” Fontenelle replies. “For my part, I am very easy about it.

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Who has the real robe of Saint Francis of Assisi? Well, here is a good example of how science can help resolve issues regrading religious objects.

Four Franciscan churches in central Italy claim that they each hold a habit of St Francis of Assisi, the friar who founded the Franciscan order in the early 1200s. Carbon dating has now substantiated one of those claims, and helped to shore up a story from the church's history many centuries later. In Italy, religious relics are venerated by millions of Catholics who believe that God works miracles through them, or who simply fear them. Every year more than three million visitors come to the major shrine of St Francis, a basilica in Assisi that hosts famous frescoes depicting the saint's life, and one of the habits said to have belonged to the saint. A second robe is held at the Sanctuary of La Verna near Arezzo in Tuscany; a third at the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence; and a fourth at the Basilica of Cortona near Arezzo.

And nuclear science to the rescue (really we don't get a chance to say this very often):

So the order asked Italian nuclear scientists to check up on the habits. "The request came directly from the Franciscan order," says Pier Andrea Mandò of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Florence. He and his team took a few tiny samples from the robes and used a standard technique known as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to measure the amount of isotope carbon-14 in the cloth. The result, presented this week at the European Conference on Accelerators in Applied Research and Technology in Florence, shows that the robe kept in the Basilica of the Holy Cross is 100 years too young to have belonged to St Francis. But the one held in the Basilica of Cortona dates to between 1155 AD and 1225 AD, roughly contemporary with the saint.

Now this is a nice story. But then I got to this:

Investigations of relics are not unusual in Europe, although they can give rise to much controversy. "Many relics have been recognized as fake, such as the arm of St Anthony of Padua, which turned out to be a stag's penis on examination," says Antonio Lombatti, a researcher of medieval church history at the National History Institute in Parma, Italy.

Huh! Really? Now this is weird and I did not find much info about this claim even on Wikipedia. I guess we should get back to a much more standard controversy:

Particularly hostile debates between scientists and men of faith followed the 1988 radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin — a linen cloth bearing the image of a man that many think is the imprint of Jesus. The research dated it at least from 1260 AD.

See Skeptical Shroud of Turin for more on the controversy.
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7 Habits of Highly Ineffective PeopleSee also: How to Procrastinate More Productively
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There is a lot of work to be done in the month of September. Over the last few weeks, we have been sprinkling powdered sugar in the hives. The bees become covered with this dusty sugar, and so in an effort to clean themselves up, they also clean off the mites. Mites to a bee are like fleas on a dog. Only the mites do more damage to the overall health of a hive if they get out of control. There is research being conducted that may suggest that mites contribute to the cause of CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder. So, to keep them under control, we dust our hives with powdered sugar.

The Procedure We Use To Dust For Mites

Sometimes we grind our own powdered sugar. This can be accomplished either in a coffee grinder or a blender. You can only grind a small amount at a time, so we find it easier to go to the local grocery store and buy the powdered sugar. Even though it contains some corn starch, this small amount isn't suppose to bother the bees.

It is important to pour at least 1 cup of powdered sugar over the top of the frames of each hive body full of bees. Then, we use a bee brush or our gloves to sweep the sugar down between the frames. Some people dust each side of the individual frames, but I don't like putting sugar down into the cells that are uncapped. 1 cup per hive body is plenty, though some people use two cups.

If you noticed in the picture above, we've made a framed screen so that we can lay the screen onto the top of a hive body, then pour sugar onto the screen. This holds the bees down while we spread the powdered sugar around. Then we remove the screen and sweep the remaining sugar down between the frames. We then add the next hive body on top and repeat the process.

Speaking of repeating the process, this "sugar drop" has to be repeated on exact day, in three consecutive weeks. In other words, for three Monday in row, or three Saturdays in a row...whatever day you did the first drop. This consecutive treatment allows you to break the mite cycle and kill those which may have been in the sealed brood chambers.

Some good advice is to use LOTS OF SMOKE! Especially if the weather is adverse or your bees are adverse!

Tomorrow, we'll go inside the honey room and show the progress we've made here, and continue the work, now that the honey production is over for the year.

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