John Lennon could never Imagine

Sunday I worked in the church nursery. I held “Tyler”, an infant about the size of a medium woodchuck and dripping germ laden fluids from every orofice. Tyler fussed on and off and needed constant attention. Bonnie, the nursery commandant, decided I should change Tyler since I had him mostly quiet. I found his diaper bag, pulled out a clean diaper and noticed a bottle containing a white liquid. The changing tables were full. Rather than stand in line, I sat in a chair and stuck the nipple in Tyler’s mouth. He sucked madly, then his eyes closed: sound asleep in less than a minute. That meant I didn’t have to change his diaper.

Sitting with a sleeping baby and nothing else to do, I looked at the disposible diaper. It had little ducks printed on it in faint pastel colors. Out of the duck bills came little music notes and there were words with the notes. I had to take off my glasses and hold the diaper practically against my eye to focus.

“Imagine all the people

Living life in Peace…”

Wow! John Lennon, immortalized on disposible diapers! Could he ever have imagined that? Did Yoko Ono sell those words to Pampers? How much did they pay? What else could we immortalize on diapers?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

“Baby got big Back…”

Churches should print their own complimentary diapers:

“Let the little children come unto me…” Matt 1914

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…” 1Cor 15:51

Will any of my words ever find their way onto disposible diapers? Probably not.

pesticide free beekeeping

In the August issue of Bee Culture, Dr. Malcolm Sanford, columnist and editor of the Apis newsletter http://apis.shorturl.com/, makes the shocking confession that he doesn’t actually keep bees. This is like learning that Dr. Spock didn’t raise his own children and almost as bad as learning the truth about Santa Claus.

Dr. Sanford’s reason for giving up bees: he doesn’t like dispensing pesticides to keep his colonies alive and to keep bees today it’s just too much work and expense.

Good news! Not everybody uses drugs in their hives or even practices labor intensive control measures to keep their colonies alive. I’ve kept bees drug free for four years (sort of). No, it’s not the same as before mites. I spend most of my bee work propagating colonies that survive the winter rather than making lots of honey.

Five years ago, I manned the honey bee exhibit at the county fair with Dan King, a stubborn eighty something year old beekeeper. We talked about our own beekeeping practices during lulls in the crowds. He “never used Ap’stan”, never “seen a mite in any of his hives” (the inspector claimed there were plenty of mites), and had nothing good to say about “them perfessors over t’Cornell that don’t know what they’re talking about.” Dan suffered big losses for years, but kept propagating bees from the surviving colonies. He medicated with wintergreen oil and was sure that killed the mites. I suspect Dan was practicing natural selection.

If Dan kept bees without pesticides, I thought I’d try. By the second year, all my colonies died of American Foulbrood. I caught several swarms and divided them in year three. All but two died the third winter, again with foulbrood. This spring a bear tore up one of those. I grafted queens and split the strong hive into seven small hives. That’s not usually a good idea, but 100 years ago, beekeepers frequently set aside a small number of colonies and split them to increase their stock or replace winter losses. In 1899, C.C. Miller split 9 weak hives into 56 without feeding (Fifty Years among the Bees). I improved my chances by early feeding. On the other hand, it’s nearly impossible to split a hive evenly 7 ways. Some started with only a few hundred bees, and not all queens were equal.

Will they survive this winter? We’ll see. I’m hoping global warming pushes us into USDA zone 5 from our current zone 4.

Mysterious Image Appears

Bath, NY—Pilgrims and woodworkers converged on Garreson Lumber Company in Bath, NY, recently to view an image on the warehouse bearing an uncanny resemblance to Yankee woodworker, Norm Abram. Earlier in the summer, Peter Sieling noticed a stain in the rear side of the warehouse, apparently the result of rain driven by wind against the exterior wall and mixing with a layer of fine sawdust.

Once reported to the media, people came from all over the United States, jamming the parking lot. They left flowers, helium balloons, and slips of paper stuck underneath the battens on the wall. “People were crying, clutching Kleenex, walking up and hugging the image, kissing it, kneeling, telling it their problems, making their kids do the same,” stated Walter Woodward, office manager of the popular lumber company.

Experts agree that the image resembles the outline of Norm complete with plaid shirt and leather tool belt. According to Dr. Billy Blessing, internationally renowned image expert, “Norm seems to be encouraging folks to shop at Garreson Lumber Company, although why he appears on the back of the building rather than the front is a curious contradiction.”

Norm Abram’s publicist refuses to comment, other than to deny any responsibility for the image’s appearance. Peter Sieling, proprietor of Garreson Lumber Co., cautions, “Please remind folks not to leave lit candles behind the warehouse as it poses a fire hazard.”

Image update:

Yesterday I asked my son Evan to wash the truck. He got to fooling with the hose and decided to see what would happen if he “accidentally” hit Norm. When the wall dried, the silhouette looked exactly like a 3 month pregnant Britney Spears. I power-washed the wall. Now it looks like the mind of Walter Woodward: a blank slate.