First visit (and miticide) of Spring

It was fine, still and fairly warm, so we went into the hives for the first visit of Spring. We took off the insulation and put two Bayvarol strips in each (due out on October 17th). There was brood in both, so there are queens in there. 

Rachael's hive (the Flow hive boxes with Langstroth frames on the right) seemed great, with a bit of room and some honey and plenty of activity. 

Rachael's busy bees seem to be using both the porch and a side entrance on the right between the pebbles. . 

Malka's hive gave us quite a surprise: when we took the insulation off there were ants living underneath! Some were even in with the bees. We wiped the ants up with wet cloths and left the insulation off on the hope they'll go somewhere else. We think that hive had almost all empty frames in the bottom box, brood in the middle one and honey on the top. 

We've swapped the bottom and top box so they have honey below and somewhere to go. Which is something that beekeepers do sometimes, I hope it goes well. 

Here's Malka's hive with heaps of pollen being brought in. 

Afterwards: fine and warm in the bee coop

Arthritis.

I was diagnosed with arthritis in my hands in January 2020, it is now August. I remember that at the beginning of December my hands felt healthy and normal. I was using them as a vice for light carpentry and they didn't get tired or sore while doing that, or while driving, knitting or doing intensive pre-house-selling cleaning. By Christmas, they did. And then after Christmas I felt viral, but what ached was little joints in my hands, not big joints like usual. 

At some point it occurred to me that I might have arthritis, upon being asked, my doctor agreed and suggested I take paracetamol (aka acetaminophen) and do some research. 

He suggested I start with https://www.arthritis.org.nz/ as it's really good, and then look further afield and get x-rays if I wanted to. 

I haven't got around to the x-rays but here are the most useful things I've learnt so far: 

1. Strength is comfort: A study of retired British nurses scheduled for arthritis-related hip and knee operations were divided into two groups. Participants in one group lost 5-10% of their weight, participants in the other group didn't. The now-lighter participants' pain was so reduced that they often decided they didn't need surgery after all. Now, I'm not into losing weight, but I know that one thing that weight reduction did was make the load less in proportion to the strength of the joint, so my PT and I have been strengthening the muscles around my hands, wrists and elbows instead. I can knit all day again. 

2. Movement is prevention (sometimes even improvement): I heard at a hand arthritis seminar that the most arthritis-preventative thing one can do is move each joint through all of its comfortable range 10x every day. I made up my own ways of doing that and it feels like I've been helping some joints much more than others, so now I'm learning CARs (controlled articular rotations) https://www.coachmattmovement.com/morning-routine as they're supposed to be the best way of moving everything. My bad elbow is hurting less and for less long already. 

Matt doesn't demonstrate finger CARs in that video, there are some here https://www.invertedgear.com/blogs/inverted-gear-blog/finger-wrist-and-elbow-self-care-for-grip-fighters-and-keyboard-warriors 

https://drnotley.com/enjoy-healthy-elbows-wrist-and-hands-with-these-circle-exercises/ 

https://youtu.be/7dqgb7Q2d_0 

3. And there are heaps of tools and aids, my current best tool is that Stuff Stays Put stuff. Y'know sort of blobby sheets that you line shelves with so things don't slide off? We leave a couple of 6" squares around the kitchen and open jars with it flopped on the lid. 

Oh, and Red Tiger Balm on the sore spots really helps too. 

Picture This

In winter the bees cuddle up and take turns doing ab crunches in order to stay warm. We wrapped them with insulation to help out. I expected that not looking in would be quite tricky, but when I thought it would be like cruelly pulling all the blankets off them and would make them grumpy, I found it easy to leave them to their mysteries. 

I borrowed an infra-red camera and today we unwrapped Rachael's hive from its silver winter jacket. Looks like there is a nice warm cluster of bees at the sunnier end of the hive. Though, to be fair, this close to the solstice there is only sun on the bee coop first thing in the morning. 

We say "winter" but there have been a lot of calm days with 14°C highs on which I've been seeing a good number of foragers coming and going. Lately it's often been with almost white pollen (possibly from the Roy Street magnolia trees just down the hill), although the ones coming in when I wanted a photo just now must have been doing something else. The porch is still cute, however, and I think they like it. 

While the hive was unwrapped we quickly peeked in the windows and were pleased to see honey on the outside frames and a few bees working there too, so maybe these had found some early nectar.  

Picture This: https://youtu.be/QbdCpi4qTNY 

by Blondie