Top of the List- A Damn Good Roof
Its starting to blow and rain, and you can't sit down in the grass any more without getting your butt wet. That's called Fall. And around about Halloween, all the leaves that are up in the trees today, will be on the ground. Minus a few tough stragglers, which is true of all tough stragglers.
Not being a tough straggler, I am preparing my hives as best I can for a wet winter. I don't get the El Nino thing, or global warming, or what it's supposed to do- except to know- its all topsy turvey. Even if it weren't, I have always thought that a year was designed- I assume by a higher, more intelligent, power, to be just precisely long enough to pretty much forget what happened the year before.
That might not be you.
I have 18 hives I think now. Spread up and down the valley. Each one seems pretty tough, packed with bees, and going into winter. A few, I guess, aren't quite up to snuff- but they all seem to have queens, all have stores, and all have brood. So I am sketching and laying awake nights trying to visualize what exactly the perfect Northwest hive would look like. I am convinced that the dampness is the main thing we are fighting here.
Which is, I admit, because I am an architect. And dampness is something we deal with. In fact, minus the aesthetics of it all, its our main thing. Roofs. Keeping people inside, dry, warm, and having a nice time around a table eating, or reading a book on a sofa with a view. That sort of thing. But it all revolves around the main thing in architecture- which, without, architecture would not exist. The Roof. The roof, more than walls or floors.
So I think I think that if I just figured out the right roof for a hive, I'd do a great service to bee hivery.
Yet- I am ashamed to say it eludes me. I want it to do a lot more than just keep rain off. I want to be able to feed them through the roof- and vent- and see them when i need to inspect- and keep the whole damn hive clean and happy- and the entry dry- and, and, and. There is a lot a roof needs to do. And sure, no doubt, like kids, bees would be happy with a piece of cardboard and a stick, and don't need anything fancy, but still- it fricking moldy and damp around here- and rains pretty much non-stop til April- and if I were a tiny animal less than a 1/4 inch high- it wouldn't be my favorite time of year, and I'd pretty much put a damn good roof at the top of my list.
Not being a tough straggler, I am preparing my hives as best I can for a wet winter. I don't get the El Nino thing, or global warming, or what it's supposed to do- except to know- its all topsy turvey. Even if it weren't, I have always thought that a year was designed- I assume by a higher, more intelligent, power, to be just precisely long enough to pretty much forget what happened the year before.
That might not be you.
I have 18 hives I think now. Spread up and down the valley. Each one seems pretty tough, packed with bees, and going into winter. A few, I guess, aren't quite up to snuff- but they all seem to have queens, all have stores, and all have brood. So I am sketching and laying awake nights trying to visualize what exactly the perfect Northwest hive would look like. I am convinced that the dampness is the main thing we are fighting here.
Which is, I admit, because I am an architect. And dampness is something we deal with. In fact, minus the aesthetics of it all, its our main thing. Roofs. Keeping people inside, dry, warm, and having a nice time around a table eating, or reading a book on a sofa with a view. That sort of thing. But it all revolves around the main thing in architecture- which, without, architecture would not exist. The Roof. The roof, more than walls or floors.
So I think I think that if I just figured out the right roof for a hive, I'd do a great service to bee hivery.
Yet- I am ashamed to say it eludes me. I want it to do a lot more than just keep rain off. I want to be able to feed them through the roof- and vent- and see them when i need to inspect- and keep the whole damn hive clean and happy- and the entry dry- and, and, and. There is a lot a roof needs to do. And sure, no doubt, like kids, bees would be happy with a piece of cardboard and a stick, and don't need anything fancy, but still- it fricking moldy and damp around here- and rains pretty much non-stop til April- and if I were a tiny animal less than a 1/4 inch high- it wouldn't be my favorite time of year, and I'd pretty much put a damn good roof at the top of my list.
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