Category Archives: Ray Davies

Beek’s Log: Priming Freddie’s pump (ewwww!)

Met up with Fuzzy the other day and told him my tale of woe. He concurred that Freddie was likely robbed clean and suggested (among other things) that I swap a few frames of brood from his namesake swarm hive in to Freddie to give it a jump start. Great idea.

So today I went out and began the inspection of the hives with opening up Freddie… boy, it’s looking weaker than ever. I pulled a fairly barren couple of frames, covered Freddie then headed down to Fuzzy and – seeing how Fuzzy’s got maybe 5 or 6 frames of capped brood – I swapped out bare frames from Freddie with 2 of Fuzzy’s and planted them in Freddie. When I closed up Freddie for the night, I also reduced the entrance to the hive by ~50% to reduce the amount of cold air coming in / heat loss. Next, I cracked open Ray and – boy howdy – Ray is absolutely jam packed with capped brood… it seems obvious now that Ray robbed Freddie’s honey and that has boosted Ray’s Queen production / the whole damn place is jumping. (In fact, it looks just like Freddie did before he was jumped, beaten, robbed and left dying and dead.)

In all the excitement I forgot to take a frame Ray and juice up Freddie a bit more, so I’ll have to do that tomorrow.

Shoulda stuck with cats.

Beek’s log: Oct 26th – Ray gets a second story…

As I mentioned the other day, today I installed the harvested medium frames that I took from Freddie last month. I pre-assembled the super, suited up and quickly installed it w/out using any smoke… no sense disorienting any of them more than necessary.

I do have to say, though, that the frames were literally dripping with honey… (and Al, in case you’re reading this) I ran my finger through the honey pooled on the lower part of each frame and – boy howdy – was it good 😉 If I recall correctly, there’s a bit of honey pooled on the bottom of the cooler so, yep, I’m going in there tomorrow to scoop it out and put it in my coffee / honey jar. (The cooler is spotless inside as it gets washed ‘n’ dried before each harvest use “just in case”.

Free honey – woo hoo!

Speaking of Ray (Davies, of The Kinks), here’s a link to THE Kinks website that Kinks fans follow. For years there have been an annual gathering (in London) of The Kastoff Kinks – former members of The Kinks, guys’n’gals who played as part of The Kinks changing lineup. Over the years they’ve gotten pretty much every former Kink to join in at one time or another. Well, this time – and the past few years off’n’on, I believe, Ray showed up and everyone had a grand time.

Here’s the link to some pics and a write up http://kastoffkinks.co.uk/konvention.htm

As a 45 year fan of The Kinks, and Ray in particular, I’m pleased to see him spending time with some of his former band mates and local fans. In the critical world, Ray is regarded as one of the best lyricists of modern music… equal to Lennon and / or McCartney. But probably much more than either of those guys, he’s struggled with some real demons and only in the past 20 or so years has he really seemed to become comfortable with himself / his place in “history” (as it were).

Very cool, Ray, very cool. (And to Olga, too, for the pics and write up. Olga’s great, btw!)