June 21-22: Six Hobbies, One Weekend

What a great weekend! I was able to experience six of my hobbies in two days: 1) beekeeping; 2) camping; 3) hiking; 4) geocaching; 5) yoga; 6) reading.

Beekeeping
On Saturday, I attended the Ohio State Beekeepers Association summer meeting at Athens High School. It was very informative. Over the next few days, I will attempt to summarize the sessions.

Geocaching
Saturday afternoon, I drove to Waterloo Wildlife Area to search for a geocache. Geocaching involves using a GPS device to locate a hidden container at a set of coordinates that are published at geocaching.com. As usual, I set out unprepared. I had written down the coordinates for the cache on a scrap piece of paper. I arrived at the site and discovered that the area was absolutely gorgeous, isolated, and quiet. I hiked and drove around aimlessly before I remembered that duh, it's supposed to be on Trail 26: that's the name of the cache! There were no maps on site and of course, I didn't print one. I did not have appropriate clothing or insect repellent on me, was absolutely starving (no veggie lunch at the conference) and worried about getting a campsite, so I gave up. I hate giving up on a cache!!! I have risked life and limb to get to caches. But it was worth the trip, as I have never seen so many butterflies in one place (picture from internet). There was some butterfly weed in bloom in the meadows. It is also a site on the Hocking Valley Birding Trail, with 80 species of birds. I'm not much of a birder though.

That is the best thing about geocaching: it takes you to places you would never discover on your own!

To be continued...

June 20-21: Ohio State Beekeepers Association Meeting

AGENDA FOR SATURDAY
June 21, 2008

• 8:30 A.M. Registration
• 9:00 A.M. Welcome & Introductions
• 9:15 A.M. Keynote Speaker: Dr. Dave Tarpy, “Healthy Queens, Healthy Bees”
• 10:00 A.M. Break (Visit the Vendors)
• 10:15 A.M. Breakout Session I
  • “Backyard Queen Rearing, It’s Not As Hard As You Think” Dr. Dave Tarpy
  • “Beginning Beekeeping Basics” (Athens County Instructor)
  • “Ohio Queen Project” (In the beeyard) Paul Cline, OSBA Regional Queen Coordinator
• 11:00 A.M. Break (Visit the Venders)
• 11:15 A.M. Breakout Session II
  • “Making Summer Splits” Dr. Jim Tew
  • “Mead Making” Chuck Harrington, Athens Co. Beekeeper
  • “Dumping a Package, Inspecting a Hive” (In the beeyard) Bob Hooker, OSBA
• 12 Noon - Lunch
• 1:00 P.M. Breakout Session III
  • A. “Marketing Your Honey” Jack Cantrell, Athens County Beekeeper
  • B. “Pests and Diseases” John Grafton, Ohio State Bee Inspector
  • C. “Making Summer Splits” (In the beeyard) Dr. Jim Tew
• 1:45 P.M. Break (Visit the Vendors)
• 2:00 P.M. Breakout Session IV
  • A. “IPM For Beekeepers” Bob Hooker, OSBA
  • B. “Reading A Frame” Joe Kovaleski, OSBA, EAS Master Beekeeper
  • C. “In the Bee Yard” Dr. Dave Tarpy
• 2:45 P.M. Break
• 3:00 P.M. Panel Discussion, Plenary Session (Business), Raffle Drawing, Departure

Learn more here.

MBI Lecture: Real Democracy - How Honeybees Choose A Home

The Mathematical Biosciences Institute at Ohio State University is holding a free public lecture at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday (6/17) in 355 Jennings Hall (MBI Auditorium). Thomas D. Seeley, assistant professor of kinesiology at Cornell University will deliver “Real Democracy: How Honeybees Choose a Home.” A reception will follow.

Real democracy — when citizens meet in a face-to-face assembly and bind themselves under decisions they make themselves — has been practiced for some 2500 years by humans, but for more than 20 million years by honey bees. We will examine the remarkable democratic decision-making process of a honey bee swarm as it chooses a new home. We will see that bees have evolved sophisticated ways of working together to identify a dozen or more potential dwelling places, to choose the highest quality one for their new home site, and to make a decision without undue delay. We will conclude with some take-home lessons from the bees (“swarm
smarts”) on how to foster good decision making by democratic groups of humans.

More information...