A shout out to my blogging buddies The Prospect of Bees for inspiring my recent purchase of a Milwaukee M18 reciprocating saw, shown here surrounded by pieces of fence rails. Prospect’s recent infomercial of a post on the 12-volt version of this saw inspired some research and an eventual purchase. Since this is my first and likely only cordless saw, I settled on the 18-volt version, finding a special online deal from Home Depot that included the complete kit (saw, charger, battery) as well as an extra battery.
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Eponine
Long Live the Queen
We’ve been experiencing the joys and challenges of beekeeping. Overall I am reasonably happy with our progress. For our two Langstroth hives, one is booming and one has a new queen. The top bar hive continues to perplex me, though it seems to be doing well. Read on for the recent hive report.
The hives on May 23, showing how we added a third box onto one hive (Mars) and reduced the middle hive (Jupiter) down to a single deep.
That Which We Call a Hive
Does naming something give us power over it? Fantasy books will often incorporate this idea as a key aspect of their world, from A Wizard of Earthsea to Eragon. I admit to being a long-time fan of the genre. In such books, knowing the true name of an object allows control over it.
I’m not sure if this is true with beehives, but names provide a measure of familiarity and comfort. We finished naming our hives this past week, so I thought a blog post was in order. Continue reading
