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Portrait Session at Marsh Creek State Park
Adventures in Beekeeping: Installation and First Inspection
We installed a 3lb package of ~10,000 bees on 4-8-2017 into a 10 frame deep hive we purchased from a commercial beekeeper in Middletown, Delaware. The comb was already built out in every frame, which gave us anxiety about American Foul Brood and varroa mite leftovers. My dealer assured me the comb was fine and to just dump my new bees in, no problem. On the plus side, the old brood comb should make establishment easier for the new colony.
Installation: 4-8-2017
Our only fail was with the queen cage; I put it candy-plug side down. This can be an issue when nurse bees accompany the queen, who could suddenly die and block the candy plug hole which would trap the queen. Fortunately, our cage didn’t have a nurse bee, so the anxiety around our plug-down mistake was a non-issue. Otherwise, the installation was super quick and a total rush! We gained a ton of confidence by attending the CHESCO Beekeeping conference this Spring in West Chester, Pennsylvania. We also have a few local mentors and I’m constantly texting Chris from Tesla Bee Supplies, where we purchased the package. The bees actually came from Oreland, CA, then arrived at the Wilkes Bare, Pennsylvania Mann Lake dealer where Chris picked them up and distributed. I’ve heard negative things about Mann Lake bees, but fingers crossed, ours are doing ok at least after a week.
First Inspection: 4-14-2017
We went in with a plan; ensure the queen has been uncaged, find her, check for eggs, remove the queen cage and add a gallon of syrup. Apparently you must use syrup, not sugar-water. There’s a difference? The ratio we used was 1:1, water to store-bought sugar. We just picked up a one lb. bag from Food Lion. Krissy and I both got suited up. I managed to snag a full XXL beekeeping suit with veil on Craigslist for $35. Score! My veil came from Forest Hill Woodworking near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
We settled on this hive inspection checklist from littlehouseonthebighill.com. I should also mention that the Beekeeping Techniques Facebook group was super helpful. Most nights I’d be reading posts before bed, trying to learn from others mistakes.
Here’s a little video documenting our first inspection. We’re super goofy about finding the queen right away, ha.
Final observations:
Found the queen right away, but we need to ensure she’s laying. I’ll give it another 5 days or so and go in to look for eggs. They took a whole gallon today after I’d initially topped off the internal feeder 6 days ago, but I’m curious how long we’ll need to feed. Apparently it’ll be obvious when they’re done with the syrup. The other thing, I found some ants roaming around, we’ll see how that plays out. Oh and our mentor suggested adding popsicle sticks below the commuter-style top to provide more ventilation. They didn’t make any effort to seal the top because of this 1/4″ gap. A telescopic cover is in the works with these plans from michiganbees.org,
RGB
Take a red, green, and blue gel and make three images of a single subject. Combine everything in Photoshop and set the images to the Screen overlay mode. Adjust curves and color balance to create a full color image.
This is a great way to educate folks in a digital photography class on the additive and subtractive color spectrum. I’ve been teaching it for years and the results from students are always unique and interesting, their happy accidents always lead to interesting imagery.
Joshua Tree National Park, 2017
A recent trip to the high desert! Images uploaded with a little watermark logo for demonstration purposes in my Portfolio Production class at Cecil College.
Skull Rock!
Full moon in our backyard
Joshua Tree National Park, south entrance. We’ve arrived!
Hike from Jumbo Rocks Campground
Old VW almost rolled away, we tossed a little rock under the front wheel. Jumbo Rocks campground was the best!
Big rocks at the base of Ryan Mountain, Joshua Tree National Park
Aerial, Estate Photography, and a new website for A.S. Jacono Contractors
My family in Delaware are amazing craftsmen! They’re building new custom homes in the Middletown area and are constantly busy with various project. This past summer I helped them create a new web presence and made images of their constructions. More images on their site below. Thanks Tony!
Website: asjacono.com
Gear: A7s, Go-Pro Hero 4, Phantom 2
Tofu Scramble is the Ultimate Fridge Cleaner
Butternut beet walnut spinach salad with chickpea and garlic-ginger lemon dressing
Meeting Ground Inc. Photography Workshop and Portrait Session
Today I visited the good folks at Meeting Ground at their quiet homeless center safe-house in Elkton, MD. They brought me in to conduct a photography workshop for staff because of the high volume of good deeds that needs promoting. For example, someone might donate 10 boxes of cereal, a dozen sticks of various deodorant, shaving cream, and the staff will photograph the items to share on social media. After the lessons I made portraits of the group. These folks are doing Gods work, good on ’em.
HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams DIY Reality Series on Instagram
Our family was selected to participate in HGTV’s Home by Sherwin Williams #WelcomeHomeSeries, a rigorous DIY reality series that had us sanding, spackling, and painting a bunch of rooms in our home. We documented the process and it was published on the the HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams Instagram page in Summer of 2016.
