The bees, Audrey, approaching Holidays

During my lunchbreak Tuesday, I followed through on combining two hives in order to save the weak hive. First, I had to open both hives and go through the weak hive to see if I could find the queen. I searched every frame carefully and could not locate the queen. I even separated out clumps of bees to see if she was being hidden in the little mass of bees. No luck. So, I put the newspaper as instructed on the top of the brood box of the strong hive and placed the brood box of the weak hive on top of the newspaper. After reassembling the other hive parts, I set aside the extra parts from the hive I had moved into the new location, and I walked away.

The bees in the two hives will chew through the newspaper to see what is going on and as they do they will interact in small numbers to acclimate to each other. The theory is that this extended time of interaction as they clear out the newspaper between the brood boxes, will limit the killing off of the disparate populations in those two brood boxes. I am anxious to see if we succeeded but am cautioned about moving too quickly. What I have planned is to go once again over my lunch hour today and peep into the hive to see how the integration as gone or if I did something wrong and stressed out the two hives in my attempt to integrate them. I will also put out some syrup for the bees to give them some extra rations to get them over the stress. Winter is approaching very quickly and my bees need to be ready.

Brittany and Andrew are enjoying being back in New Jersey. Her three girls are thoroughly enjoying being in the church school. Zoe and Sophia are accelerating in their learning with the very structured curriculum being taught and Audrey is enjoying being in the office with Brittany. Audrey, as would be expected is the main attraction at the school. A popularity in which she has limited interest. Brittany tells us that there are three or four students that seek out Audrey every chance they get and though Audrey tolerates this attention there is one particular favorite of hers, Ethan Fisher. While she will allow herself to be carried away by certain of the young ladies at the school without too much protestation, she actively seeks out Ethan Fisher. Nonetheless, the Kim family is enjoying their life in the relocation.

Brittany was telling us as Mama and I drove home from church last night that during their ongoing Missions Conference and the dinners associated with that conference, there is a gentleman at the church who is about my age, mirroring my hairless pate, sporting glasses that Audrey has been peculiarly focused on. As Brittany began to decipher her baby talk, she realized that Audrey was identifying this gentleman as Papi – my moniker. She was thinking of me as she looked at this man. Brittany did not try to correct her. After all it is close enough in her little mind, but at least Papi has a significant place in her memory.

In our discussion last night Brittany broached the subject of Mama and I flying to New Jersey for the Christmas holidays. Mama and I are definitely interested to see if we can work that out, but it is early in the process. Christmas in New Jersey might be fun if the covid restrictions do not interfere with our personal festivities. It has been at least ten years since I have been back to visit the church and the friends we have there. Mama got a short visit when she helped Brittany and Andrew make the move back to New Jersey from Kansas. If we do get to go, Audrey can get a few days of close contact to formalize and augment her memories of Papi and Grammy.  

A service repairman came to the house yesterday to evaluate our freezer failure issue. He spent a few minutes looking over the freezer, determined that the thermostat had failed, promised to order the part and gave Mama an invoice for $90 to cover the fifteen-minute service call. The original proclamation was that the replacement part will take anywhere from one to seven weeks depending on whether the part will be shipped from the East or the West coast, but to our surprise, the part was found in Dallas and the repair will be made tomorrow. The part is about $60. How much we will be charged to have the part installed is still in question, but it should return our freezer to service. That will help.

I have my final class for the week tomorrow. It is a little bit of a struggle to present three eight-hour classes in a week. Fortunately, the day between the Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes allows me to rest my voice, which is strained by the middle of the afternoon portion of each class. I am participating in a rewriting of the class material to facilitate onboarding instructors for the class as we look to make the material less dependent on the presenter being someone with field knowledge in the industry.

We will see how that pans out.