The Ice Man cometh…
The Ice Man
Most of us North Carolinians will go through our entire lives without being featured on WRAL’s Tar Heel Traveler even once.
My dad’s now been featured twice. (Scroll down for a link to his other piece.)
And nope, they sure don’t make’em like that anymore.
Check it out @
http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/travel/video/11306326/
Posted in Classic Walker | Tags: dad, tar heel traveler
Her majesty the queen (center, with much larger abdomen) and worker bees in one of our hives.
Long live the queen
Every colony has a single queen bee.
The hive depends on the queen for its survival because only the queen can lay eggs and make more bees. (This is technically not true—on rare occasions, worker bees have been known to lay eggs when stressed or in the absence of a queen, but since workers never mate, their eggs are unfertilized and can only make drones, or males, and the last thing a stressed colony needs is more males.)
Without a queen, a hive is doomed.
Making a Queen
Many commercial beekeepers “make” their own queens to insure their hives have desirable traits like good hygiene (for warding off mites and other parasite-borne diseases) and good foraging habits. Queen raising itself is a fascinating branch of apiculture, but I won’t get into that here.
Left to their own, a healthy, functioning hive will make a new queen when their existing queen is injured, diseased, or otherwise not doing her queenly duties. A hive will also make a new queen before they swarm. I’ll cover swarming in a later installment.
The queen bee is genetically identical to worker bees but is radically different physically. Worker bees “make” a queen from a regular egg by feeding a female larva a special diet called royal jelly during the first few days of development. While any healthy fertilized egg can be made into a queen, queens are typically raised in special cells called queen cups.
When the worker bees decide—that for whatever reason—it’s time for a new queen, they will construct special queen cups, which are larger than the typical worker bee cells. Beekeepers are always on the lookout for queen cups, because, depending on where they’re constructed (middle of the hive or bottom of the hive), the location tells the beekeeper whether the hive is getting ready to swarm (swarm cups), or whether the hive has a failing queen (supersedure cups).
Royal Diet
The existing queen lays a fertilized egg in these queen cells just like she does in all other cells. The egg in a queen cup is genetically identical to worker bee eggs.
The secret is in the diet. The worker bees feed the larvae that they want to turn into queens a special diet of royal jelly, which changes the physiology of the developing larvae from a worker bee to a queen bee, who has a much longer lifespan, and fully functional, enlarged ovaries.
Queen larvae in royal jelly from Wikipedia
The Virgin Queen, or a Portrait of the Queen as a Young Bee
When a young queen emerges from her cell, the very first thing she will do is hunt down other queens in the hive and kill them. She will also look for other queen cells within which there may be young unhatched queens and kill them, too. Or, she may be killed.
In the end, there can be only one queen.
After this bit of Shakespearean drama, the virgin queen will spend several days in the hive developing her muscles, and then she’s ready to mate.
A Royal Rendezvous
When a virgin queen is approximately a week old, she will take several mating flights where she will fly to designated mating spots known only to bees and mate with up to 10-20 males, or drones, who are there just waiting for her. The queen mates only with drones from other hives, and stores their sperm in her large abdomen. A queen goes through this mating ritual only once in her lifetime.
Once she returns to the hive, the now mated queen completes her transformation and will “harden” over the next several days (as if killing all her siblings then mating for days wasn’t enough).
A mated, hardened queen can no longer fly, and will spend the rest of her years in the darkness of the hive, fulfilling her duty—laying eggs. There is only one exception to this, and that’s when a hive swarms, so potentially, a queen may be outside twice in her lifetime. I’ll talk more about swarms later.
Royal Life
While all other honeybees live at most several months, a queen bee can live for many years.
A queen can lay hundreds of thousands of eggs during her lifetime, and during the population build-up leading to the spring nectar flow, a queen will lay thousands of eggs each day.
A queen makes a female bee by fertilizing the egg with the sperm she has stored as she is laying the egg. Similarly, she makes male bees, or drones, by withholding sperm and laying an unfertilized egg. That’s why drones have no fathers—their genes come from their mother only—whereas worker bees (and queens) have both a mother and a father.
Worker bees tell the queen whether to lay male or female eggs by the size of the cells they build—a queen knows to lay male eggs in larger cells for drones, and fertilized female eggs for female worker bees (or a new queen).
The Royal Sting
Only female honeybees can sting, but while worker bees can only sting once (stinging is fatal for worker bees), queens can sting indefinitely. Luckily, queens are very docile, except towards other queens, whom they will fight to the death.
Remember, there can be only one queen.
What do you want to know about queen bees? Use the comment box below to ask.
More info:
Posted in Beekeeping, Life on the Farm | Tags: apiculture, honeybees, queen bee
People are always so curious when they find out I’m a beekeeper. We’ll be sitting in a meeting at work talking about product roadmaps and deployment strategy, and the next thing you know, bee’s out of the hive, and everyone wants to know if:
Wherever the place, whatever the excuse, I love talking about honeybees because being a steward and caretaker of honeybees has been one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences since Lisa and I got into beekeeping a few years ago.
Over the next several posts, I’m going to share just a few things we’ve learned about honeybees over the last few years.
Walker’s bee hives
The honeybee colony
What we typically call a honeybee hive is a colony—a super organism—made up of tens of thousands of honeybees. The honeybee colony is one of the most complex social structures in the animal kingdom.
Within the colony, each honeybee plays a very specific role . Throughout their short individual lives, honeybees progress through a hierarchy of distinct and complex roles such as nursery duties, housekeeping, undertaking, taking care of the queen, mating with the queen, guarding the hive, foraging for pollen, nectar or water, and scouting for a new place to live.
At its peak (late spring/early summer), an average hive will have over 50,000 bees.
More info:
No place like hive
While the honeybees can make their home in all kinds of places, from holes in trees to cracks in chimneys, the most common man-made structure for keeping bees is the Langstroth hive, which remains pretty much unchanged since Lorenzo Langstroth figured out how to put movable, reusable frames in a box.
More info:
Honeybee democracy
While the honeybee colony has a single queen, it is not a monarchy. The queen, while vital to the colony’s survival, is pretty much a figurehead, and honeybees make all of their decisions democratically. Almost.
All important decisions are made collectively and collaboratively by the worker bees via a process called decentralized decision making (ant colonies are similar).
More info:
Her majesty the queen (center, with the extended abdomen) and worker bees
Females rule!
99.99% of all honeybees seen out in the world are worker bees, which are all female.
The worker bees also make all the decisions in the hive.
Worker bees decide when to collect pollen, when to collect nectar, where to put things, when to replace their queen, when to make drones, when to replicate their colony and swarm, and where to live when they swarm.
The only males in the hive are the drones whose sole purpose, as far as we know, is to mate with queens in the spring. A drone does not have a father, can not sting, and is only kept around the hive during mating season, after which they are kicked out of the hive to die of starvation since males are also incapable of work and do not contribute otherwise to the colony.
During their short life, drones beg for food by stroking the heads of worker bees.
Next, more about her majesty the queen!
What questions do you have about honeybees?
Posted in Life on the Farm | Tags: apiculture, beekeeping, honeybees
There is no real knowing apart from metaphor. ~Nietzsche
Middle school — no place for the faint of heart!
The other night, my wife and I attended middle school orientation with our youngest son. The session was geared towards anxious rising sixth graders about to make their jump from the cosseted comforts of elementary school to the hormone-fueled chaos of middle school, and their even more anxious parents bracing for the storm of adolescence. Having already shepherded two boys through, we could pick out first-timers—the ones taking copious notes on their iPads—with ease.
Before diving into the logistical and academic differences between elementary and middle school, the principal dove right into the Top Five Fears of Rising Sixth Graders. Apparently someone did a study.
As we listened to the things that keep rising sixth graders up at night, I was struck by the similarity between eleven and twelve year-olds’ fears of middle school and the things that keep us adults from being and doing our best in our adult-world places.
Here are the top five fears of rising sixth graders, in reverse order, pretty much as stated by the principal.
5) Fitting In – that they will be different than everyone else.
4) Hard – that sixth grade will be too hard. Or not hard enough.
3) Friends – that they’ll be separated from friends or will not make new friends.
2) Lost – that they’ll get lost navigating the hallways between classes, they’ll be embarrassed to ask for help, and no one will help them anyway, and someone will discover their puny carcass weeks later in an eighth grade hall.
1) And the number one fear of rising sixth graders, by a wide margin, turns out to be… about lockers! That they won’t be able to find it, that they won’t be able to open it, or close it, or that they’ll be stuffed in it, or that they’ll have some other unsavory exchange with it.
Boy, talk about metaphors! I once worked at a place—a major pharma firm in RTP—where three months after I started, I still did not have badge access to my office or access to systems I needed access to, to do what they were paying me to do. Every day, I’d have to get a security guard to let me in my office, where I would read the newspaper, surf the web, and, frustrated and bored, look for another job, which I soon found. At my next job, I had all the access I needed within days.
What do you think about this list? How do the fears of sixth graders compare to your anxieties of starting a new job or going to new place, or even, where you are today? How important is it to be able to fit in? How important is it to be able to easily navigate around an organization or its processes without having to have a PhD in confusion? How important is it to be appropriately challenged by the work, without having to work hard just to be challenged? How important are these factors in influencing your productivity, and ultimately defining your experience?
One of my all-time favorite metaphors is back when I used to have to drive over at least a dozen speed bumps in the parking deck before I even walked into my office every morning. Everyone complained. Speed bumps remained. What was the complaint, really?
Metaphors define our narrative. Your turn. What are your middle-school or adult-world metaphors?
Posted in Workish | Tags: communication, information
Tom ready to party with the Easter Bunny
Full Circle
Years ago, in the late nineties, I ran into Bob Young, founder and then-CEO of Red Hat. The encounter wasn’t planned but it wasn’t entirely random either. I had been eyeing making a move from DataFlow, a traditional brick-and-mortar-reluctantly-gone-techno where I worked, to Red Hat, which, even in its pre-IPO days, had a reputation for the type of transformational workplace culture that I wanted to be a part of. Since my office was so close, I’d often drive by Red Hat’s old office on Meridian Parkway in RTP. There was a nice little pond there with a walking trail where I’d have lunch, then walk around the lake, tossing Bojangle’s fries at the geese.
One evening, after a particularly long day at work, I drove by the pond and then, on a whim, stopped by the Red Hat building. Back then, I drove a convertible ’72 VW Super Beetle with racing stripes up the middle and the top perpetually down. When I got there, the parking lot was pretty much empty except a handful of cars. I parked by the front door, turned off the ignition, and, wouldn’t you know it—out comes Bob Young, who walks right up to me and says “What a great car!”
What happened over the next few minutes is a little fuzzy. I did get around to asking Bob (he was always, and still is Bob, never Mr. Young or anything like that (follow him @CaretakerBob)) whether he’d like to see my car in the parking lot more regularly, like Monday through Friday, and eventually got an interview for an engineering role at Red Hat. But for a whole host of reasons, including the stupor of the dot-com bubble and the impending doom of Y2K, I ended up leaving DataFlow for a lucrative position with IBM, just down the road, the other direction.
Fast forward fifteen years. With two great stints behind me, first with @IBM, then @BCBSNC, I now find myself at a different place in my life. I’ve always been pragmatic, never one to spend energy on what might have been, so while I don’t second-guess the decision I made then, faced with the same question today, the answer is predictably different. I do often think about the road or trail ahead, and what could be. None of us are where we were then. We’ve all moved and grown and evolved—me to my mountain, Red Hat to its cool digs downtown Raleigh. But is there a spot in that parking lot now, not for a ’72 Super Beetle, but for a ’79 Harley or a ’67 Ford pickup with a big-block V8 and four on-the-floor? I wonder.
Posted in Classic Walker, Workish | Tags: dataflow, red hat, vw bug
Sex, cigarettes, Buicks… And no, it’s not Jersey Shore!
WRAL’s Tar Heel Traveler features my dad and his collection of old Life and Look magazines tonight! Check it out @ www.wral.com/lifestyles/travel/video/10946341/. That’s the old home place where I grew up! (Or at least, one of the places.) I remember putting the roof on that outbuilding he’s sitting in, using my brother-in-law Schatten’s cordless drill as a hammer. Good times! More on all that later, but check out the old block!
Posted in Classic Walker | Tags: dad, home place, john walker sr., tar heel traveler
Mine!
Play Like a Girl!
My wife Lisa coaches girls’ recreational league volleyball for ages 10-13. I love all kinds of sports, but no other sport comes close to girls’ volleyball in terms of sheer excitement and drama. Volleyball is intense. It’s physically and mentally demanding. Volleyball is brutal, which is probably why there is no boys’ volleyball, at least on the east coast, where boys are content consussing eachother in helmets.
Coach Lisa is an incredible coach and a great ambassador of the sport. “It’s one thing to coach volleyball players,” she says, “but it’s a lot more fun just helping girls become volleyball players.” That transformation is one of the most amazing things to watch, and I get to see it year after year.
Her team is the Carrboro Blue Jays, and each year, the Blue Jays start out like the Bad News Bears of volleyball—a few strong returning players, and a ragtag bunch of new girls who can barely identify a volleyball let alone make meaningful contact with it. Many have never played sports of any kind, and these girls are usually the ones whose parents enroll them in volleyball because they think it will be easy. Oh, you just swat at the ball, what’s so hard about that, right?
Those parents are in for an education, which usually starts the first time little Sally comes home with a big red volleyball imprint on her face. Early on, any contact with the ball is accidental. Receiving a serve, they look at each other expecting the other to take it as the ball hits the floor. “Talk talk talk,” Coach Lisa will say. “Have something to say about every ball, every contact!” Very next serve, they look at each other in silence as the ball hits the floor. “You’re a volleyball player,” Coach Lisa will say, firm but encouraging. “That’s your ball! Go get it!”
And each year, somewhere around the middle of the season, the magic starts to happen. The endless drills start paying off, and guided by muscle memory and new instinct, the new girls start going to the ball. They start making not just contact, but deliberate contact. They get more and more confident in themselves and their teammates. They start defending. They start passing and setting. They start running their offense and attack. They bump and dig and ace serves. Most important, they talk—uncertainly at first, than louder and louder. “MINE!” “Abby!” “OUT OUT OUT!!!” They start winning games, and then winning matches. Coach Lisa keeps at them. “You’re a volleyball player. You know what to do! Go get it!” “Talk talk talk!”
Something else happens each year. In what has now become the stuff of lore and legend and an annual Carrboro tradition, every year, the Blue Jays, just reaching their stride at the end of the season, pick off team after team in the tournament, and end up playing the Ravens for the league championship. The Ravens are an institution, and a perennial favorite. They always have the tallest, most experienced girls, many of whom already play for their school and travel teams. They have great skills, mature play, and great communication. This year’s no different.
So, there I am, just the other night, watching one of the greatest volleyball matches since last year, when the Blue Jays came back from behind to beat the Ravens for the championship. Once again, the Ravens are long and strong, and look like a varsity team compared to the scrawny Blue Jays. The gym is packed with Blue Jay parents who are not quite sure of what to make of all this—their daughters, who just a few months ago were terrified a ball would come near them, are playing for the championship. The girls are confident, poised, relaxed. Parents are a wreck. So much pressure! One Raven has a college-level jump serve that is incredible to watch and nearly impossible to defend, but the Blue Jays defend it over and over. They call each other’s names as they pass and set. “Emily!” “Lauren!” “MINE!” Parents are hysterical.
First game is close, but the Ravens take it. Second game is back and forth. After a particularly exciting volley, our smallest and most inexperienced player defends a blistering spike with perfect form. The mom sitting next to me is astonished. “She’s, like, playing VOLLEYBALL!” I’m grinning from ear to ear. The Blue Jays are talking, calling each ball. They hi-five each other not just after a kill, but after they shank one into the bleachers, too—something boys would never do. When one gets out of position to save an errant ball, they all adjust to cover. It’s a thing of beauty.
It always makes me a little envious to watch girls playing at this level. Thinking about my work, why can’t we be like these ten and twelve year-old girls, I wonder. Conquering fear, taking ownership, facing risk, hard work, commitment, communication, leadership, teamwork, trust, these girls have it all.
In my world, many get skittish when facing risk or responsibility. These girls square up to it. We look around and ask “Who can take that?” These girls call it, “MINE!” We hoard information. They communicate their every move. When things don’t go well, we get defensive. They hi-hive each other. Their coach trusts and encourages them to do what they’re trained to do, inspires them to be what they’re capable of being. “Play every ball,” she says. “Go get it!” When we look over to the sidelines, we often see our coaches fussing at each other, trying to decide what to do. In the end, there is a lot of headshaking and waving off. Let that one go. Too risky. Not so fast. CYA. We watch as balls hit the floor. Where is our Coach Lisa?
The Blue Jays play great volleyball, but on this night, it’s not enough, and they eventually lose the match to the Ravens who are just too powerful and too deep. At the end of the night, the girls are spent, but they are beaming. In a few short months, they have become the volleyball players Coach Lisa knew they would, and they go home, each one having learned not just a skill but an ethic many of us struggle with our entire lives. Go to the ball. Under pressure. Square up. Call it. Play it. Attack. Give it everything you got. Trust each other to do the same. Encourage each other to succeed, support each other when you don’t. Look out for one another. Play like a girl.
That’s not just how you win—that’s how you succeed.
Mine!
Follow me and the Blue Jays @CarrboroMan.
Posted in Workish | Tags: blue jays, carrboro, coaching, girls volleyball, leadership, lisa, volleyball, work
When I first started blogging, I swore I would blog at least weekly and not let my blog atrophy. Here I am, more than a month since my last blog and even the crickets have packed their little cricket bags and moved on.
It’s not as if I don’t have anything to blog about. What with my outsourcing and honeymoon with Fujitsu, the one whole week of NC spring, house hunting, getting the garden ready, building new raised beds with my new 12” compound miter saw, middle school basketball tournament (2nd place) followed by AAU basketball (a win!), Kung Foo belt tests (red belt, black stripe next!), trudging through swamps in search of a ghost, middle and high school orientations, finishing my AIIM ECM Master thesis, baseball tryouts, a stand-up comedy competition, and countless concerts, movies and meals, each of them blog worthy, you’d think I’d have some material. Well, I do, and I’ll get back and blog about any one of these things as soon as I have a few free minutes.
Ralph ready to launch
Until then, I’m going to leave you with a post about the thing I am most excited about—the start of Carrboro rec. girls volleyball season!
Posted in Uncategorized
Black tied and ready to party
