I just spent the last three days getting the ebooks right for The Practical Queen Breeder and Beekeeping Naturally-A Simple Recipe. You would think you could just generate them but that hasn't been the way it's worked. The toughest was the Kindle format .mobi file but .epub was a close second. First the aspect ratio of all the images was messed up. Then the headings and such were off. Various methods would yield pictures that moved away from their captions, lots of blank pages, repeated distorted pictures etc. I finally worked out a process and the right settings to do the conversion so it's acceptable. The .mobi still doesn't look like my original, but it's not bad. Thank goodness the .pdf was straight forward. Anyway if you would like them in ebook form the links are at the bottom after the print links:
http://www.xstarpublishing.com/#ThePracticalQueenBreeder
http://www.xstarpublishing.com/#BeekeepingNaturally
Also my other books are available in EBook format at http://www.xstarpublishing.com
I saw this frenzy going on and turned the cover over to block the entrance. They were doing this same thing before I blocked it. They would pile up until they would fall in clumps. I slowed it down to try to see it better.
I consider propolizing a good trait for bees (maybe not for the beekeeper). Here is a mating nuc I found this year. The drilled hole is about 5/8". The reduced hole is about 5/16".
It wasn't working right and then it would and then it wouldn't. This is what I found. It couldn't get out, so I left it and used another smoker. It was finally out after two days.
We needed to feed because of a dearth and we still needed to finish building up the 8 frame nucs for winter. We bought 50 six gallon buckets and bought 3,450 pounds of sugar in 25 lb bags. We worked out the maximum strength we could do with hot water from my tap (140 F) and not have it crystallize out. We put one 25 pound bag in each bucket with a heaping tablespoon of ascorbic acid, then 18 pints of water and stir it with a five gallon paint stirrer. After 10 to 30 minutes we stir it again.
