We extracted honey today from the hives at the school. One (1) student showed up to help, which a charitable sort might not consider too bad I suppose, given it's midsummer and all. But it does bespeak a certain lack of obsession on the part of this year's class. Lack of obsession has no place in a beekeeper's heart. Though, it is true, fewer students meant less honey fell off the truck than is often the case.

I think we got a bit over 100 pounds today, with a several more supers (another 70-80 pounds perhaps) still waiting to be capped by the bees before being harvested. Not bad for a bunch of bugs, especially given the apocalypse I returned to last year.

I am supposed to be getting pictures soon and will post them -- if and only if they show me as I was, heroically and stoically getting stung multiple times by the one particularly ornery hive, all so you can sweeten your tea.

Comments

Unknown said…
Dan, What has happened to you? I thought you were of sound mind (and, I guess, sound body). You wrote the following: "This is as strange as it sounds. Somehow the market has utterly failed in supplying the demand." This is ludicrous, this is not a failure of the marketplace, but this is what happens when markets are not allowed to function. Try and open a day care. Good luck getting the insurance and state/federal licenses. The process is so onerous and counterproductive that it makes daycares few and far between and does NOT allow a proper market solution to what should be an easy solution (given the demand). You sound like Palin and Obama blaming the market instead of the hand cuffs that our heroic state and federal leadership imposes. For shame!
July 10, 2009 at 9:04 PM
DM said…
I sound like Palin?? What cha talkin' 'bout?

Markets can't be allowed to function unrestrained when dealing with children, you end up with situations like the poisoned milk crisis in China, a land where the market is king much more than here in the USSA. Greed and safety for kids are not compatible, even the incompetent hand of the state is preferable to these idiots running daycares to make the standards (and especially the national chains). I know there is an absurd and almost insurrmountable amount of redtape and insurance hassles to opening a day care, but the alternative is, of course, dangerous and substandard places, if not actual havens for abuse of kids. Even the inspected ones have violations all the time-- everything from outlets uncovered to dangerous chemicals in reach of kids and infants face down and covered with blankets. Virginia, a miserable and incompetent state in many administrative respects, at least provides consumers a way to see if the daycares are deathtraps. Someone needs to keep tabs on these places and there needs to be recourse for parents.

What I don't get is why more options don't open that charge more and offer more--the demand is certainly there. The daycare options are almost universally lowgrade for everyone but the rich.
July 16, 2009 at 3:29 PM
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