Last day of honey harvest 2012 ... unless we take off some in the fall (which is doubtful). It has taken Sue Neal and I five days to harvest our honey. We extract about 200 pounds (90 kg) each afternoon, six frames at a time ... usually 5-7 medium supers. Above is a frame of capped honey before it is decapped (skimming off the wax from the top of the comb) and extracting (spinning the frames in a large centrifuge called an extractor).
Finished reading "State of Wonder" by Ann Patchett (Nashville author) this weekend. Rachel and Sue Neal had read it before me. It was interesting ... ethnobotantist blot near Manuas in Brazil ... lots of sub-plots with personal drama. I am not the reader that my wife and daughters are but, I liked the book and it reminded me of the time Sue Neal and I spent in the Paraquay River basin / Pantanal.
The ethnobotany was a little thin. My favorite naturalist / ethnobotanist is Richard Schultes. I read an article in the New Yorker years ago about is exploits in the Amazon. Wow! The real pioneers for exploring the Amazon are in the mid 1800's (we only really know the ones that weren't killed or died of yellow fever) ... Alfred Russel Wallace (did he beat Darwin to the theory of evolution?), Richard Spruce (the real deal in exploration and botany) and Henry Walter Bates (remember Batesian mimcry, he thought was a proof of evolution) ... what a wonderful time for science ... and my favorite Brazilian explorer, Candido Rondon (he saved Teddy Roosevelt's life when Teddy was showboating down in Brazil pretending to be an explorer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cândido_Rondon
It rained about a 1/2 inch yesterday ... settled the dust but did not help the drought situation. Rained about 2" just north of us ... hit or miss this time of the year with thunderstorms. As Sue Neal said ... at least we know it can rain ... and, it cooled us down.
Bats were right on time last night just after 8:00. More than usual ... maybe 10-12.
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