Martin's Miscellany

Declaration of Independence - George III's Managment Analyst Replies

2011-07-04T10:51:00.001+01:00

The Court of King George III
London, England

July 10, 1776

Mr. Thomas Jefferson
c/o The Continental Congress
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dear Mr. Jefferson:

We have read your "Declaration of Independence" with great interest. Certainly, it represents a considerable undertaking, and many of your statements do merit serious consideration. Unfortunately, the Declaration as a whole fails to meet recently adopted specifications for proposals to the Crown, so we must return the document to you for further refinement.

The questions which follow might assist you in your process of revision:

1. In your opening paragraph you use the phrase "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God." What are these laws? In what way are they the criteria on which you base your central arguments? Please document with citations from the recent literature.

2. In the same paragraph you refer to the "opinions of mankind." Whose polling data are you using? Without specific evidence, it seems to us the "opinions of mankind" are a matter of opinion.

3. You hold certain truths to be "self-evident." Could you please elaborate. If they are as evident as you claim then it should not be difficult for you to locate the appropriate supporting statistics.

4. "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" seem to be the goals of your proposal. These are not measurable goals. If you were to say that "among these is the ability to sustain an average life expectancy in six of the 13 colonies of at least 55 years, and to enable newspapers in the colonies to print news without outside interference, and to raise the average income of the colonists by 10 percent in the next
10 years," these could be measurable goals. Please clarify.

5. You state that "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government..." Have you weighed this
assertion against all the alternatives? What are the trade-off considerations?

6. Your description of the existing situation is quite extensive. Such a long list of grievances should precede the statement of goals, not follow it. Your problem statement needs improvement.

7. Your strategy for achieving your goal is not developed at all. You state that the colonies "ought to be Free and Independent States," and that they are "Absolved from All Allegiance to the British Crown." Who or what must change to achieve this objective? In what way must they change? What specific steps will you take to overcome the resistance? How long will it take? We have found that a little foresight in these areas helps to prevent careless errors later on. How cost-effective are your strategies?

8. Who among the list of signatories will be responsible for implementing your strategy? Who conceived it? Who provided the theoretical research? Who will constitute the advisory committee? Please submit an
organization chart and vitas of the principal investigators.

9. You must include an evaluation design. We have been requiring this since Queen Anne's War.

10. What impact will your problem have? Your failure to include any assessment of this inspires little onfidence in the long-range prospects of your undertaking.

11. Please submit a PERT diagram, an activity chart, itemized budget, and manpower utilization matrix.

We hope that these comments prove useful in revising your "Declaration of Independence." We welcome the submission of your revised proposal. Our due date for unsolicited proposals is July 31, 1776. Ten copies with original signatures will be required.

Sincerely,

Management Analyst to the British Crown

(I don't know who really wrote this and if anyone does please let me know and I will of course credit them with the writing of it - I picked it up from Dan Galvin's 'Thought for the Day Email list')

Aparently George III's actual response to the Declaration of Independence was to write in his diary that nothing of note happened that day!

Henry Ford on "Experts"

2011-05-24T10:49:00.000+01:00

No one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible.

-Henry Ford Sr.

Taking Beekeeping to a Higher Level - Part 2

2011-05-13T19:22:00.000+01:00

Finally got around to updating the "story so far". Just before Easter I put together some equipment.

The modified crown board is equiped with a porter bee escape which only allows the bees out but not back in again. A foam rubber strip around the edge compensates for uneveness of the stonework.

The other side has a plastic ready-meal container with a hole in the bottom to take a plastic 1 inch basin overflow pipe. I have also put a one inch hole in the back of a standard brood box. There are a couple of frames with stores in and a couple of frames with old comb.
I took this lot back to the site and was very pleased to discover that the whole lot including my tool box could be lifted up to the top of the scaffolding with a fork lift crane. I put the box in position and put the board over the holes in the chimney. A piece of stone and a lightweight concrete block held it in place.

I left the site and because of the extended Easter and Royal Wedding Bank Holidays had to leave them for rather longer than I was anticipaing. Unfortunately, in the intervening period the board must have shifted a bit and the bees have worked their way around the foam at the top.
The other day I went back and with the help of one of the carpenters we have repositioned the board and sealed around the outside with expanded foam.

Spot the handsome beekeeper in the high vis jacket! Hopefully this will now encourage them to use the box as the entrance and move their operations and queen there!

Taking Beekeeping to a Higher Level

2011-04-20T15:09:00.002+01:00

I do enjoy life in the Cotswolds, and particulaly the challenges that pop up from time to time once word gets around that you are a rural beekeeper. I got a call from a construction company with a bee problem the other day. They are renovating an old farmhouse and have discovered that not all the previous tenants have moved out. It would seem that a colony of bees has made itself at home in one of the chimneys. I usually view such requests with some trepidation. Most beekeepers, me included, tend to like to have both feet on the ground when dealing with bees. Catching a swarm in a tree can be challenging and often taking the easy way out (leave them to it!) if they are too high to be retrieved safely is the the best option.
With houses, chimneys and roofs there is no "leave them to it" option. Fortunately the construction company in question is very keen to do whatever they can to conserve wildlife and particularly ensure that bees are looked after.
When I arrived at the site I realised that this was not a "balance on the top of a ladder" type job and after signing in and getting my hard-hat I was guided to a two storey ladder and onto scaffolding.which has been placed around the house and gable end chimney. On a gloriously sunny day with wonderful views of the surrounding countryside, I could see what attracted the bees to their current property!
Donning my bee jacket I went up on the chimney scaffolding and had a look at the situation.
There were a lot of bees coming and going through gaps in the mortar on the face of the chimney. Aparently there are two flues, one that will be relined and opened up and one that has been blocked off, Fortunately they are in the blocked off side and by the number of bees I would say that they have been there since at least last year. It is probable that they will be swarming soon. As you can see the entrance is actually at a very convienient height given the scaffolding! However it would be better to try to avoid taking stone blocks out of the chimney and pulling them out enmasse if possible Having discussed timescales I was very releived to discover that there is plenty of other work that can be done on site so we have the luxury of a few weeks to sort this out.

I am proposing to put a cover over the entrance with a short pipe attached which I can insert into the back of a spare broodbox with some foundation and old comb to make a new hive. This will have the effect of moving the entrance to the otherside of the brood box and encourage them to expand the nest out into the box. After a few days I will put a no return valve in so that all the flying bees and newly hatched bees will have no choice but to take up residence in the box and hopefully the queen will then join them there and establish this as the new home. After a few weeks there should be no more bees in the chimney and we can then seal up the old entrance with mortar and take the colony back to the apiary.
That's the plan anyway. If any of you beekeepers out there have any suggestions or "gotchas" that I might need to consider please leave comments below or talk to me on Twitter.
I will, of course, keep you posted on how this works out!

A Warm Spring Afternoon

2011-04-06T18:06:00.007+01:00

Another lovely warm day in the Cotswolds today. Went for a walk with camera and bee jacket. The Magnolia is out, and looking very splendid it is too. This has been a key feature of the village for a long time and its blossoming a keenly awaited event.

Further down the road I passed one of our neighbour's fields. He is helping out the Donkey Sanctuary by giving a home to some abused donkeys. Why anyone would want to treat donkeys badly, I can't imagine but it looks like they are having a nice time now. They have a large field to themselves and are clearly enjoying the spring sunshine.
I had a quick look at the bees, they seem to be building up nicely and there is plenty of pollen and nectar coming in. The Dandelions are out which is good. The bees love them and they make very nice honey.

Spring Blossom

2011-03-28T17:58:00.008+01:00

I had a wander around the village this afternoon. Another brilliantly sunny day. The cherry blossom at the church is out and was covered in bees of all sorts. This picture is of a bumble bee getting stuck in! The air was alive with the sound of bees buzzing and birds singing.
A lot of my bees had found there way up here and were grabbing as much nectar as they could carry away.

Here is a bit of video I took of the activity.

We had a group of 12 potential beekeepers over to have a look at our bees yesterday afternoon. They had had a days introductory course a couple of weeks ago and this was their first oportunity to experience the real thing. When I arrived to meet them, Chris, our training officer was over the road with them watching the bees working the catkins at the stables. I had a look this afternoon and they were still at it!

We walked down to the apiary fully suited (probably looked like some environmental disaster was in progress!). We had a good look through most of the hives and it would appear that we have four very strong colonies, two a bit on the small side (gave them a feed in the hope that it would tide them over till they have enough foragers), and one colony that didn't make it through winter. They were very small in autumn and I was probably being over optimistic.
On the way home I noticed the Grape Hyacinths were also receiving attention from the bees. So it looks as though there is plenty around to keep them busy.

Spring is coming along nicely

2011-03-25T19:14:00.007Z

Spring seems to be coming a little earlier than usual this year and we are all enjoying a spell of warm sunny weather. There are lots of flowers blooming early, particularly the daffodils. The bees are also enjoying the weather and there are signs of an early start to laying by the queens. When eggs are hatching the nurse bees need lots of pollen and honey mixed to feed the new grubs so they will have been digging into what is left of the winter stores. As you will see in this bit of video I took this afternoon, there is plenty of pollen being brought in.

As the main nectar bearing crops arent out yet there is not a lot of nectar about yet so this can be a problem. If they are running short of honey then there is a real danger of starvation even in the warm weather. I popped down to the apiary to have a quick look under the crown boards and establish how things are going. There are two colonies that are very light so I will give them a supplimentary feed of 50/50 syrup (1ib to 1 Pint of water). The other 4 colonies are very strong and the brood boxes are heavy so they should be OK. One colony didnt make it through the winter - they were very week at the end of last season.
Of course the early start to the season may well mean an early start to swarming so we will have to keep an eye out for that and manage accordingly. We normally have first swarm around the end of April but something tells me this year will be a lot earlier.

The Show Must Go On!

2010-05-28T09:14:00.005+01:00

My wife Julia, (@RedJoules ) is a director of the theatre production company Tigz Productions Ltd. Every year they have put on a show in which a young "amateur" cast of singers, dancers and actors gets the opportunity to present a "West End" show. They use professional coaches to train them and use all their professional technical resources to present the show. The term "Amateur" in this context does not do justice to the level of professionalism that is reached. They have to pay 15% of ticket sales to Josef Weinberger for the rights to perform it but this allows them to use material from an established show. The cast are all intending to make this their profession and this is their first foot on the ladder, it gives them a showcase to help them get paid employment and develop their talent.
Unfortunately grants are not forthcoming for this sort of activity and the only source of income is the personal investment of the directors of the company and revenue from ticket sales. It is true that the company would hope to get some marketing benefit as a demonstration of their skills to potential clients but they are really just hoping to break-even.
In the current economic climate, marketing a show of this kind is very difficult. The traditional methods using local news advertising and flyers are extremely expensive and have a very low hit-rate. However the ticket price is very reasonable at £12 (£10 if you mention Twitter!) so it is all about getting as many people in to see the show as possible.
It seems to me that this is the ideal type of activity that Twitter should be able to help with. They just need as many people who can get to Cheltenham on the 3rd, 4th or 5th June as possible know about the show. £10 for a night at the theatre is not a lot to pay individually but the combined effort will mean that the company can continue to provide a showcase for local talent.
As for the show itself – come along and see for yourself. Follow the cast's @TigzOurHouse acount for updates and preshow snippets and have a look at the Website There are loads of photos of previous shows and some Youtube clips too.
Please help by Tweeting about it (use the #TigzOurHouse hashtag) and tell your friends.

The Political Hive - What can Bees teach us about politics?

2010-04-18T11:32:00.002+01:00

At this time of the year beekeepers up and down the land are peering into their hives, checking for signs that the queen is laying properly. There must be enough food to sustain the development of the colony and there must be enough room for the colony to expand to build a foraging force to exploit nectar and pollen provided by the local flowers and trees.
We are approaching the "Swarming" season. This is when the colony decides whether they are happy with the performance of the current queen and that there is enough resource available to continue in the current hive. If they decide it is time for a change then the Beekeeper will see the signs. The worker bees will start creating special cells in which to raise new queens. They will select day-old larvae to populate the cells and feed and nurture these larvae with special hormones and "royal jelly". In a couple of weeks the new queen will hatch out. The existing queen will have left the hive with all the foraging force of flying bees. This is the "swarm" which will have already selected a suitable new location in which to live and a new colony will be established.
So what has all this got to do with politics? Well...
We are in the midst of an election, we as a nation are deciding whether our current leaders are fit for purpose and whether there is sufficient resourse available to continue in the current "hive" or whether it is time for a change. This is a decision which we make collectively for the good of the colony as a whole although most of us will have personal considerations to take into account. We are not bees so we are not constrained by the ruthless logic imposed by our biology and the thought process is probably a great deal more complex than that of the humble bee.
However if we look at this from the persepective of the Beekeeper things start to get more interesting. You might think that the best way of ensuring a good honey crop is to have as big a hive as possible, economies of scale, more bees mean more honey. Up to a point this is true. The problems start when the hive gets too big to manage. A smaller hive can be quickly looked through every couple of weeks to check all is well. The bigger it gets, the bigger the task of managing it. Hives are made up of individual boxes of matching sizes made to a standard pattern and years of experience, experimentation and developement have provided us with two or three basic manageble hive types. At some point you need to split the hive into two to bring it back to manageable proportions. No beekeeper would want to have all his bees in just one hive. If something goes wrong his entire "apiary" is at risk. Of course one could imagine all kinds of technical innovations that may assist the beekeeper in ensuring that his one hive doesnt fail. He could set up cameras, heat detectors, inspect every day, record every movement and run statistical analysis in a laborotary environment. All of this is possible but hugely expensive and completely unnceccessary. Bees can do quite a good job of managing themselves so long as their colonies are not allowed to get too big. The wise beekeeper tries to manage the colonies in tune with the natural behaviour of the bees. It is in the bees best interest to build strong colonies and work efficiently, they do this with very little need of encouragement. If there are signs of disease then they can be treated. If a colony is clearly struggling it can be combined with another or frames of stores can be taken from strong hives and given to those with not enough.
It is important to note that bees manage themselves so well because they have a supremely efficient communication system and each bee takes responsibility for their allotted tasks.
Our political system has evolved over the years to favour central management of a monolithic state machine. The assumption has always been that economies of scale will lead to value for money and efficient government. The only reason this may have been true in the past is because we have not had anything like the same level and sophistication of communication that we have today. When the mechanics of decision making are supported by very slow and unwieldly processes you need to keep the physical distances between the parties in those conversations as small as possible. Therefore it makes sense to build huge office buildings and and huge organisations that can afford to run those buildings. The task of managing this is enormous and demands huge resourses just to keep the process running. The management overhead has now got to the point where it is unsusstainable and as with the beehive is actually becoming completely unnecessary.
In the coming election I will be looking at those candidates who genuinely have a desire to start making some radical changes to the way the government runs things. The collapse of the banks has given us all the wake-up call that allowing big business to get "too big to fail" is not a good idea. Global warming is telling us that we have very little time left to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. The growth of the internet and development of highly sophisticated technical means of realtime communication is capable of giving us the way out or our current troubles. So long as the government can manage not to sabotage it with ill-informed interference. So long as self-interested big business can be persuaded not to exploit and trivialize it for their own ends and so long as genuine criminal elements can be persuaded to stop sabotaging it. We as a society must start communicating with eachother properly with a view to rebuilding our local community spirit. We need to allow people to feel responsible and proud of the part they are individually playing in building the future. We need to give small businesses the facillities to provide long-term susstainable employment to their local communities. Of course the term "local" is no longer necessarily tied to its geographical sense. The new communities can contain valuable contributing members from anywhere in the world.
So in my view, the bees can teach us that the way to prosperity is through small scale local responsibility. We build to manageable sizes and then split to form the basis of new enterprises and just keep communicating with eachother.

Armchair Beekeepers Wanted!

2010-03-19T17:55:00.003Z

Adopt a Beehive fundraising campaign launched to save our honey bees

The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) today (March 19) announced its response to the widespread public concern over the country’s disappearing honey bees, by launching Adopt a Beehive – the first public fundraising campaign in its 136-year history. Sponsored by the Saga Group and supported also by Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc, the new campaign is aimed at the many thousands of people who are concerned over the appalling loss of honey bees , but who are unable to have a hive themselves. Martin Smith, BBKA President, said: ”Adopt a Beehive is the way people can do something to help the plight of the honey bee and support the charitable aims of the BBKA.

“They can be confident that their donation to the campaign will be making a direct contribution towards funding applied bee health research and training beekeepers – the vital measures needed to ensure our honey bees survive.”
Raymond Blanc, Michelin- starred chef, said: “I like to cook with the finest fresh locally sourced fruit and vegetables and I know just how important honey bees are in pollinating them. “We cannot take it for granted that the bees will always be buzzing around; we have to keep them healthy. If they disappear it will be a recipe for disaster. “We can all help by planting pollen and nectar rich plants and trees and of course giving money to fund research into why they are dying. “The Adopt a Beehive campaign will help. Remember, without bees, there may be no Apple Tart Maman Blanc… and no more honey for tea.” Investment in bee health research will be directed into tackling the effects of the varroa mite, endemic in UK colonies since 1992 , viruses and infections, work on queen rearing, honey bee genetics and bee husbandry as well as considering the effects of pesticides, bio-security and habitat loss. The BBKA recently announced £36,000 funding for post doctoral research into the genetic basis of hygienic behaviour (self cleansing) in honey bees at Sussex University.
Another beneficiary of campaign funding will be the BBKA’s new three year education programme to ensure that the nation’s beekeepers are up to the new challenges they face.

Martin Smith, BBKA President, continued: “Our honey bees have to stay healthy, research must continue into why they are dying, and we have to make facilities and materials available to ensure that British beekeepers are the best informed and trained in the world. This is the recipe for successful beekeeping.”

“Saga’s generous sponsorship has allowed us to set up Adopt a Beehive . Its millions of customers care deeply about the environment and the role honey bees play in it and we welcome their support.”

Andrew Goodsell, the Executive Chairman of Saga, said:"I am delighted that Saga has been able to help create the Adopt a Beehive campaign. Many people are deeply concerned about the environmental and other problems facing the honey bee. This scheme enables people who do not have time to keep bees personally to play an active part in helping to saving the British bee."
To Adopt a Beehive for a year costs £29.50 and each person will receive a welcome pack including a jar of British honey or a jar of honey mustard, a fridge magnet, a wooden honey dipper, postcards, facts sheet and certificate. The seasonal newsletter will provide a link to the hives of a network of beekeepers from around the UK and the latest news of bee health research. To sign up for Adopt a Beehive visit www.adoptabeehive.co.uk and meet the colony of 14 beekeepers whose progress can be followed online.

Its a Matter of Attitude

2010-03-09T09:46:00.002Z

The society which scorns excellence
in plumbing as a humble activity and
tolerates shoddiness in philosophy
because it is an exalted activity
will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ...
neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

John W. Gardner

Inspiration

2009-10-01T14:25:00.001+01:00

“If you want to set off and go develop some grand new thing, you don’t need millions of dollars of capitalization. You need enough pizza and Diet Coke to stick in your refrigerator, a cheap PC to work on and the dedication to go through with it.”

- John Carmack

“Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you’ll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don’t think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn’t solve some fairly immediate need, it’s almost certainly over-designed. And don’t expect people to jump in and help you. That’s not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say “hey, that almost works for me”, and they’ll get involved in the project.”

- Linus Torvalds

Evidence Based Beekeeping

2009-09-24T18:25:00.008+01:00

I was recently asked, by a friend on Twitter to give my opinion on this article from the University of Sussex Apiculture Laboratory. I am just an amateur beekeeper so certainly would not claim to have anything like the same knowledge and facilities as those at the university so this is purely my own personal opinion based on 8 or 9 years of beekeeping.
I whole-heartedly agree that beekeeping does need scientific research and welcome any initiatives which will cast new light on some of beekeeping's mysteries. However I would suggest that it is far from correct that much of what we do as beekeepers is based on nothing more than traditional lore and custom. A great deal of research has been carried out using scientific methods over the many years that people have been writing books about beekeeping. It is just that the equipment and monitoring facillities available to the professional research scientist are far more powerful and sophisticated today than anything available at the time that Langstroth was busily revolutionising the craft.
I believe that most beekeepers would aim to carry out evidence based beekeeping if the evidence was available and was interpreted in a way that was applicable to their particular circumstances. However, the variables involved, have highly complex interrelationships.
For example, the survival of a queen being introduced into a hive will be dependent on several factors:

Strain of bee that produced the queen
Genetic heredity of queen
Strain of bee in target colony
Time of year
Status of target colony - how long queenless/existence of brood/availability of stores/proportion of nurse/housekeeping/foraging bees
"Mood" of colony - have they been recently disturbed/will they be disturbed/more or less agressive
Local climatic conditions
Local availability of forage - is there a flow on
The "Quality" of the queen - is she laying well/physically well developed/nourished

and several more that we are probably not even aware of yet.
These variables will all affect the level of pheremome responses to the various stimuli involved. The use of a cage is intended to give the resident bees a chance to get used to the chemical makeup of any queen that is introduced so that comunication can be set up before the bees come into direct contact with the queen. Without this separation it is likely that alarm messages will be propagated and the new queen will be killed. The attack message is communicated by scent so heavy smoking of the hive will also work by masking the attack scent. So the bees will not attack the new queen. This could well be effective every time because the mechanism is known and the variables in the laboratory apiary are probably pretty constant. The queens are probably raised in a standard way rather than being sourced from whatever the beekeeping suppliers happen to be breeding or importing at the moment. The arrangement of the apiary, the relative position of the hives, the location of external stimuli will be fairly consitent. The important thing here is that the research predicts the probablity of a particular outcome given a particular method. The value of the research should be in the identification of the variables and an assesment of there interractions and relative validity rather than determination of a particular method on the basis of probability.
The evidence suggested by the results of any particular scientific experiment will need to be replicable by beekeepers in practice. What I am trying to get accross here is that before beekeepers can practically follow an "Evidence Based" approach to beekeeping they will have to understand which variables are significant and be able to replicate conditions that will allow the recommendations to be followed.
Scientific research and the dissemination of its findings costs a lot of money. Recently the only big money in entemological research has been provided by the agrichemical companies who obviously will have a diferent focus. It is to be hoped that with the promised Government funding the money will finally be available to determine the relative value of all the variables involved in assessing and working with bee physiology/sociology climate/environment/chemicals etc. and inform the beekeeper accordingly.
Will I be just using smoke to introduce queens in future?
Well... if I buy a queen from most suppliers she is going to cost in the region of £40, in the height of the season it is quite likely that there will be no queens to purchase and if you can it could be up to a week before you can try again, there will have to be some pretty compelling evidence to persuade me to risk it! I will next year try to start raising my own queens so if I have plenty I may well experiment, does that qualify as "Evidence Based Beekeeping" ?

Why Engineers Don't Write Cook Books

2009-07-08T10:51:00.002+01:00

Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Ingredients:

1.) 532.35 cm3 gluten
2.) 4.9 cm3 NaHCO3
3.) 4.9 cm3 refined halite
4.) 236.6 cm3 partially hydrogenated tallow triglyceride
5.) 177.45 cm3 crystalline C12H22O11
6.) 177.45 cm3 unrefined C12H22O11
7.) 4.9 cm3 methyl ether of protocatechuic aldehyde
8.) Two calcium carbonate-encapsulated avian albumen-coated protein
9.) 473.2 cm3 theobroma cacao
10.) 236.6 cm3 de-encapsulated legume meats (sieve size #10)

To a 2-L jacketed round reactor vessel (reactor #1) with an overall heat
transfer coefficient of about 100 Btu/F-ft2-hr, add ingredients one, two
and three with constant agitation.

In a second 2-L reactor vessel with a radial flow impeller operating at
100 rpm, add ingredients four, five, six, and seven until the mixture is
homogenous.

To reactor #2, add ingredient eight, followed by three equal volumes of
the homogenous mixture in reactor #1. Additionally, add ingredient nine
and ten slowly, with constant agitation. Care must be taken at this point
in the reaction to control any temperature rise that may be the result of
an exothermic reaction.

Using a screw extrude attached to a #4 nodulizer, place the mixture
piece-meal on a 316SS sheet (300 x 600 mm). Heat in a 460K oven for a
period of time that is in agreement with Frank & Johnston's first order
rate expression (see JACOS, 21, 55), or until golden brown.

Once the reaction is complete, place the sheet on a 25C heat-transfer
table, allowing the product to come to equilibrium.

Written by Butch Kemper (a long time ago!)

Review of Lady Chaterly's Lover

2009-07-06T09:38:00.003+01:00

This pictorial account of the day-by-day life of an English gamekeeper is full of considerable interest to outdoor-minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour these sidelights on the management of a midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer’s opinion the book cannot take the place of J.R. Miller’s Practical Gamekeeping.
Ed Zern, "Field and Stream" (Nov. 1959)

Top Bar Hives and Varroa Control

2009-05-23T17:33:00.004+01:00

Following a recent question from @AmethystDragon on Twitter I asked a few of my beekeeping collegues what their opinion was on the assertion that using top bar hives led to a substantial reduction in the infestation of bees by Varroa mites.

The question had been prompted by this article on Warre Beekeeping .

Although most people felt it unlikely to make a big diference to the incidence of Varroa there is some logic to the assertion and there is a connection between this and the work of an Italian beekeeper who claims that increasing the space between frames to give a wider "Bee Space" shows a significant improvement. (Can't find a web reference for this at the moment will update later).
The theory is that top bar hives in which the bees build natural comb without wax foundation as a guide tend to use a wider space between combs. The mites travel around the hive after hatching by being transfered from bee to bee. A wider bee space may lead to fewer interactions between the bees as they pass each other over the comb and therefore statistically reduce the ability of the mites to spread.
This is only a theory and I have not been able to find any scientific peer reviewed work to back it up - anyone reading this who does know of studies please contact me and I will update this with relevant links.
Natural comb building is of course what happens in nature and there is evidence that wild colonies have been known to exist quite happily in inaccessible places when they will almost certainly have picked up mites whilst out foraging or robbing hives. This is one of the reasons that wild colonies are very important for research. Whether it is a genetic or a behavioural trait it may well hold the answer to keeping bees that are more resistant to Varroa and disease.
On a practical note. The use of top bar hives presents particular management and manipulation issues. Modern beekeeping practice requires colonies to be regularly checked for disease and most swarm control techniques requires the regular manipulation of combs. Comb without a wooden frame around it is very delicate and on a hot day could easily break whilst being examined. Extracting honey from natural comb almost certainly will require cold pressing equipment or heating to melt the wax the later being significantly detrimental to the flavour, aroma and beneficial qualities of the honey.
This I suggest would lead to the advice that one should learn beekeeping on the more usual framed system and then start experimenting with top bars once a significant level of skill and knowledge of bee behaviour and husbandry has been gained.
This is not to suggest that keeping bees in the Warre way should be dismissed out of hand. I believe that there may be substantial benefits to this system if applied properly and with the appropriate regard to disease control. I and many of my collegues are sceptical that it is the answer to varroa problems but any system which gets as close as possible to the natural environment for the bees themselves is worthy of serious consideration and should be supported by all Associations in a spirit of collaboration and research.