That makes me mad.

My husband and I were talking about healthcare reform, and about how we're getting screwed because [big inhale] he's self-employed, and his current bare-bones actually affordable insurance is being cancelled – because it doesn't include the mandatory maternity component (and other crap he doesn't need) – AND we're not allowed to file our taxes separately so that he can get a subsidy, which translates to we're being penalized for being married. Which all led me to say,

"You know what? That makes me mad."

But wait there's more! (and it is about bees).

Share: Bee Culture, December issue

Logged in to my Bee Culture digital subscription and noticed a Share button. Does this work for you? UPDATE: never mind. Julie kindly tested the link and we found out that it's a big ol' "PSYCH!" Bee Culture won't let you see anything of value, which is a shame because there's a semi-interesting article on walk-away splits.

Now I know this magazine is run by a handful of people who are essentially beekeepers, not magazine publishers or marketers, but when you do something, you have to do it right or don't bother doing it at all. In today's world of social sharing, the share button is, well, for sharing. Not for generating revenue. If you want to earn subscribers, you have to, well, earn us. Provide something of value. Only giving access to ads is of no value.

Okay, rant over. I'll give you a great tip of good value. If you subscribe to the digital edition of Bee Culture, you can choose a 3-month option for just $2.99. What you get is 90-day access to the magazine and during that time you can log in and save each issue to your computer. Rather time-consuming, but you can download every issue in the archives (which is a few years back) for off-line reading. (It's the same with ABJ Digital, BTW.) As it is not posted on their website, you will have to contact Bee Culture via email for the $2.99 option. (Don't bother DMing them on Twitter... tweets @BeeCulture seem to fall on deaf ears. They just don't seem to get the social thing. And that concludes my second rant.)

Must be the money.

YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN:
I've got an archive of actual magazine up for grabs. Bee Culture January 2011–January 2012 and American Bee Journal February 2011–January 2012. You pay for postage, and they're yours. Email if interested.

Harumph!

Let me preface this post by stating that I'm rather cranky right now, having just learned that not only am I very allergic to honeybee sting, the four other venoms in the category will cause anaphylaxis as well, so if I do proceed with the desensitization therapy it will cost me the maximum amount possible, none covered by insurance as a result of my $5,000 deductible.

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7" Galaxy Tab screenshot

App Review: ABJ

American Bee Journal, which first came into print in 1861, has been available digitally via "Online delivery" for several years, providing subscribers with an electronic duplicate of the print edition but enhanced with live links.* Now with the ABJ app, available for both AppleOS and Android devices, you can read the magazine on a tablet. A digital subscription is $16/year, or you can purchase a 3-month subscription for just $3.99 like I did.

Downloading my first issue was easy, requiring a simple tap on the cover. Navigation from page to page is fairly simple and intuitive. But I am glad I only splurged for a trial, as I found the magazine very difficult to actually read. Zooming on my tablet was neither smooth nor quick, and after rendering the enlarged image, moving the page was herky jerky. The cognitive impairment I have from MdDS causes me to lose the meaning of a sentence before I've gotten to the period, so physically losing the beginning of a sentence when the end would finally come into focus made the issue impossible to read, really.

Online delivery. What exactly does that mean? One might think as I did, that the next issues would be, oh I don't know, delivered. Nope. Dadant is supposed to alert you when a new issue is available for download. Fail. Every once in awhile I would just launch the app and browse the new covers, hoping for a really worthwhile issue to become available. I never could quite read the covers, though, so I just had the one issue I had picked at random. Or so I thought.

You can tell which issue you've already "downloaded" by the turned down corner. The issues you haven't downloaded invite you to do so with a big arrow. That's about the only thing that's big, unfortunately. I found the teaser copy on the covers frustratingly small and illegible, and you can't zoom so you just have to guess what the issue topics are.

Download. What exactly does that mean? It turns out, the issue is not truly downloaded to your device. One day I launched the app to see if any new issues might be worth the eye strain. The app asked me to log in! Apparently my subscription had ended (again no notice received), and I didn't even have access to the one issue with the turned down corner. In the current version (2.3.11), issues can only be read in-app if you are an active subscriber. When your subscription expires the only way to read the issues you've purchased is if you've downloaded them as PDFs.** Dadant customer service granted me an extension, just long enough to grab a couple issues via my PC where a nice big monitor enabled me to read the covers. I now have 3 issues on my PC, which I suppose I could house in Google Drive for access on my tablet, but that's a lot of work considering the issues exist within the app which resides on my tablet already.

I have to give Dadant props. They are a beekeeping supply company run by beekeepers for beekeepers. But if you're going to do something, do it right. You can't just put out an app because everyone and their uncle has one. Although Windows8 is blurring the lines between mobile and desktop experiences, user expectations are completely different. An app is for mobile devices. We want everything now, where ever we are, we want it fast, pinch and zoomable, and we want it all in-app. If your app doesn't deliver seamlessly on-the-go it's a dud. So there you have it. ABJ is a dud.

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* as long as you are using their BlueToad reader.
**If you download the PDF version for offline reading, the links are not activated. Somehow I managed to bookmark a couple of issues hosted on their server. Again, links are not activated, but check 'em out and see what you think about ABJ: April 2013 May 2013

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You may be interested in: "Top-Bar Hives Reveal Subtle Comb-Building Behavior" by Dr. Wyatt Mangum in American Bee Journal — December 2011 Vol. 151 No. 12

The Zen and Now of Beekeeping

When I was started this episode of MdDS, I knew it was triggered by flying and I made the decision to stop traveling (something BB and I love, BTW). But when symptoms persisted and persisted, I realized I had better make home a lot more interesting, because I was going to spend a LOT more time here. And so I began my journey as a beekeeper.

Look hard. In the vast expanses of prairie grass and pine trees, there are beehives in Colorado.

When I'm with my bees, especially just watching them fly in and out of their hive, I forget about all my cares. All of them. My symptoms are generally manageable, and in the past 5 years I've learned to dismiss my MdDS quite a bit. It's a Buddhist practice, I think. Yes, the ground just dropped out from under me. No, I'm not crazy. Move on. But when I'm focused on my bees, I don't even have to acknowledge/dismiss. When I'm with them, I'm symptom-free. This journey with the bees was the perfect thing, and the Backyard became a place where I could go to escape the day-in day-outness of having a brain disorder with no cure.

So it seemed a cruel twist of fate, being stung and having an allergic reaction. And if that weren't enough, fate thought it would be funny to kick me while I was down, and one of the colonies is already dead. I don't know what I did to deserve this.

I gave my beehives to people I knew would care for them, but should I have told them that the hives were not just bees for me. Should I have let them know that they were my only respite from the constancy of an invisible illness, that they had in their possession my panacea?

I tossed and turned all night, worrying about the poor bees, questioning my choices. It's harder now not being a beekeeper than actually being one. I want to just run out and grab the hives back, somehow undoing the whole giving away part of the story, and resume from the Oh-Crap-I'm-Having-an-Allergic-Reaction point. My bees need me, and I need them.

Managed to staple my finger this morning - don't ask. #officehazards

The dogs barking woke me up at 1 this morning. As I lay in bed wondering if the neighbors would ever let them in from the subfreezing temperatures, workplace thoughts ran through my head.
"She's become a person who talks behind people's backs." (She is me, with my chin on the floor.)
"She's lying to your face, Kathy!" (Kathy's my boss, with her chin on the floor.)
"I can't believe, at my age, that I have to deal with something like this." (I is a 50-yr old having some sort of breakdown.)

I know all of those things were said coming from some other planet but, still, nobody wants to have a day at work like that one. It was a Wednesday, a day BB and I call Commuter Friday. I work from home Thursdays and Fridays, so I was able to reflect in private the rest of the week and digest what had transpired. I tried to dismiss it as a crazy anomaly, but come Monday, I cleaned out my desk in Denver. I stopped watering the office plants and watched them die over the next few weeks.

I've wanted to quit my job pretty much every day since, almost a full year ago, and I resent the fact that a person who comes in to our office for a few hours, one day a week, had that effect on me. I resent the fact that the plastic replacement plants make me feel guilty. I resent the fact that I welcome a migraine because it gives me a legitimate excuse to work from home in the dark.

About a month ago, somebody offered me $10,000 to open up a Local Honey store in Denver.

A Note of Thanks

BUMP (Originally posted 7/25)

I want to thank the 14 people who publicly follow this blog, as you are  affirmation that I have not been talking to the wall.

I also want to thank the woman whose email I lost when my computer imploded, for the alert about property down in Pueblo. The fit wasn't right, but I appreciate the info nonetheless. One day we'll find the right property with nice people like her next door.

And last but not least, I want to thank the woman who sent me the heartfelt message, wishing me the best with my neurological challenges. I am going to stop blogging for a while to focus on my work for the MdDS Foundation.


My dain bramaging project: Walk4MdDS.eventsbot.com
My t-shirt shop: www.printfection.com/Walk4MdDS
And #MyOtherBlog: MdDSFoundation.wordpress.com

Meanwhile, this is a Blog Hop...

RANT: Bees in my Bonnet

Jay Hosler's acclaimed graphic novel Clan Apis follows honeybee protagonist Nyuki on her journey through metamorphosis.

Once upon a long, long time ago...
I attended cooking school. A highlight of every day at Cook Street was the critique. After every meal, from amuse bouche through dessert, every course was critiqued by the class. What was good, what wasn't good. What looked good but tasted not so good. For a chef-in-the-making, the critique is an important part of the learning process. You learn what works or doesn't work. You learn what people like or don't like. You learn how to earn repeat customers and you learn how to lose business.

I always found it hard to give a critique, not just because I'm soft-spoken but because some people - usually the chef preparer - would take it personally and become defensive. To give an honest critique I had to choose my words carefully. Others were not so careful and Chef Ryan, the school's Sous, had to remind folks that, "You are not the food." I never really understood that.

Until today. Fast-forward from my life as a culinary student to studier of bees. I'm looking at my newly purchased $44 hivetop feeder that is leaking. I am trying to be very Buddhist and not say bad things about the maker of said feeder, but the feeder arrived with instructions to apply a very specific urethane prior to use, and $12 later I still can't use it.

My first email was, "Hey the feeder is leaking, what do I do?" The reply was to go and get another specific product to glue the cracked wood, then to properly seal the feeder. Not keen on a trip to the hardware store to spend another $6 so I could fix the leaking feeder myself, I wrote back that I was skeptical that a glue & re-sealant fix would last in the long run, and that I wanted to exchange it instead. I'd read the policy posted on their website and it was reasonable.

I guess I'm out of practice when it comes to choosing words. By using the word "skeptical" in my email, he took major offense. He said I implied that the quality of his product was skeptical, that he didn't use his own products or know what he was doing, that he was providing subpar feeders to customers around the country...

"You are not the wood!" I want to tell him. But I think he's just one of those high-blood-pressure curmudgeon kind of people that I don't have time for. I'm moving on. If I ever need another Warré hive, I'll just buy it from another store. Although after reading Anaiis Salles' Bee Green Philly post, I'm wondering where that might be. The beekeeping supply store in Denver sells hives but they don't sell parts or accessories, and that's a whole 'nother bee in my bonnet right there.

I need to count to ten.

I Should be Committed. Care to Join Me?

"They're coming to take me away haha."--Napoleon XIV

Had I any idea what is involved in organizing a charity walk from scratch, I'd never have opened my mouth. I've had no time for bees at all, because I found myself elected to the Walkathon Committee. Between work, major projects in the Backyard (a second hive AND new bees are on the way, so stay tuned...) and inventing the wheel, I am ready to be committed ho ho, hee hee, ha ha.

But lookit! All the dain bramage I've gotten from building this blog paid off, and I've set up both a web page for people to sign-up for the walk and a page strictly for fundraising. The walk will benefit the MdDS Foundation, which is working to find a cure for me. In case you don't know, my brain is literally damaged. It happened on a plane flight and now my brain can't tell if I'm moving or the world around me is moving. You'd never know it by looking at me - it's an invisible illness- but I feel like a bobble head doll. It's like having sea legs for weeks and weeks, only for me I have plane brain and it's been 4 years. But that's enough about me.

Through the magic of Google, I found the MdDS Foundation and MdDSers around the world: Great Britain, Sweden, Australia, Canada and more countries than I can list. I even found a couple of MdDSers in the Denver area. So that is how three brain-damaged women came to put together an international charity walk and virtual walk. We hope to work some magic of our own, since there is no cure for MdDS. Yet.

The foundation's slogan is "We Rock!... but We Don't Want To." A groaner, I know. But it gave us the nickname for our walk, the Rock'n Stroll. It's set for October 16 and there is a two-for-one matching donation program in place. For every dollar we raise, an anonymous donor will match it with two more! So we invite you to join us on that day whether you live in Italy, Germany, Turkey or Greece... If you live in the US or Europe, we've even got a cool graphic tee for you. Gratis!

AND... I'm negotiating schwag for Team Challengers. Team Spokane is leading the US, ahead of Team New England. Team UK is bringing up the rear. How about your neck of the woods? Come on... take the challenge.

The big orange button will take you to the sign-up page with all the details.

THANK YOU

P.S.: the bold countries are where most of my regular blog readers live. The map below shows where we have cyberwalkers. Pretty neat, don't you think?

View International Walk for MdDS in a larger map

RANT: Natural My @SS

I am so sick of people questioning others' desire to super their TBH, saying it's "not natural." Why do some presume that all TBH beekeepers are "natural" beekeepers? Face it, people, keeping bees in a box is not natural, no matter how you shape it. Especially here in The States. Doesn't matter what you put in/don't put in, on or under a hive, European honeybees are, well, European.

Can't we just keep bees because we want to keep bees, and keep it at that? A beekeeper's motivation is personal and it should not be questioned. It's not any of our business, any more than another person's religious orientation.

Of course everyone is entitled to an opinion. I just don't see how opinions, in and of themselves, are very helpful. Too often, a question is posed in the forums and all the inquirer gets is opinion. I would like to see presumptions/assumptions put aside so when a new beekeeper asks, "Can I super my TBH?" they simply get an answer (which would be "Yes") and no BS. e.g.: a) "Top Bar Hives are supposed to be natural." There's that word! along with a presumption! Or b) "I don't get the whole going with TBH, then supering thing." That's not an answer people!

Native bee on Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun'

Which leads me to another thing. I implore all forum participants, before you hit "Submit," ask yourself, "Have I answered the question?" If you can't say, "Yes" did you at least provide a lead? If not, don't hit that button. Please. And Thank You.