At first I did not think about it much… in fact other folks too were just walking down the side walk without a care… but then I thought to take a closer look at the floating debris… and it turned out to bee ants. Lots and lots of ants. Thousands and thousands of them, in a cloud of mating joy.
Here is a close up shot >>>
Yes it has been quite some time since I have posted to the insects and Coffee… and a lot of things have happened in both of these worlds…
First the Big News:
As of two and a half weeks now I no longer work for Batdorf and Bronson… I have moved across town and I now work with the folks at Espresso Parts and with Olympia Coffee Roasters.
It has been a great change for me… work is good >>> most of the past two weeks I have been working with Terry Z. and Dave Ringwood (the two leads on this project) restoring a Marzocco GS2 Paddle Machine and a Single Group GS Semi-Auto. Things are coming together quite nice with both of these Machines (we’ll have them both at the Espresso Parts Booth at Coffee Fest North West… the 2 Group will be fired up and ready to go!)
Been working the Cafe at Olympia Coffee as well, two days a week now. getting the feel for the Big Truck Espresso Blend and all that. Top Pick right now in the Cafe >>> Olympia’s Ethiopia Sidamo as SOE. Awesome! Heavy body, sweet, sweet, sweet, touch of fruit, and Coco finish… did I say Heavy? Yes!
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Finished up with the Mazzer/ROBUR MOD… (at least until tonights tweak idea…). Dave White has cut some out of a sheet of plastic with Espresso Parts <Laser Ingraver>, so clean and crisp. Actually looks like something real.
Did I say I love my new work? Well I do, great crew here at Espresso Parts.
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Other news >>>
The Carpenter Ant that I have in Captivity (that does not sound nice), rather I have homed in a NASA Space-Gel Ant Farm has 6 Eggs, 5 Larva, and 3 pupating young in Cocoons. Very exciting! I had just about given up on her laying viable eggs.
Friday a week ago (05-16-2008), I noticed that the Carpenter Ants were swarming. New Queens were out flying looking to start new Colonies.
I have been looking to start a “Ant Farm” from a queen for years, and now here they were, and I was here walking from one work meeting to the next with out any thing to capture and store one until I got her home to the Gel Box I had waiting for just one of these ants.
Alas, to keep it short… once again at work (05-22-2008), I hear a shriek from the LAB, followed by “elvin will know what to do.” Yes! It was in fact a wing-less Queen crawling about. I shook her from the LAB tamping Scale, and put her in a Transportation tube with NASA Ant Gel.
Here she is with her first egg >>>
The “Ant Farm” that I have her in is quite small… I will have to (like to) build a larger one. One which Carpenter Ants will be more at home in, one with wood and such things to dig about in.
Updates:
05-28-2008: She now has eight eggs that she is brooding. If in fact it was a parasitic mite that was on her, it now seems to be gone.
05-31-2008: As of today she has ten eggs. Not seeing much change in the first eggs laid… maybe a little darker, no… it is clearing on the ends, definite clear liquid in the tips of the older eggs).
06-10-2008: Two new eggs today; total of twelve. (possibly thirteen: There is one eggs in the rubble pile that she discarded a week ago, making it nine eggs for a day and then back to ten that she was brooding… bottom line— twelve that she is brooding as of today).
06-12-2008: Fourteen eggs total now.
06-27-2008: Seems she is down to eleven eggs now… not sure why she would eat them, I have heard that they will eat there eggs. Maybe they were not developing like she wanted? Any thoughts out there from the Entomologists or any other Ant Nerds?
Then again all my days seems too long of late… soon all will be good.
Headed up to Seattle to set-up an Espresso machine in the Meadowsweet Farms (milk) booth, at the NWFS Trade Show.
Back to Olympia just in time to catch a swarm of bees and hive them.
Then back to the cafe… closing the shop and then practicing my espresso, latte kung-fu (to relax; burnt thru 2# of coffee and a gallon of milk).
Highlight of the day, catching the swarm. Always exciting! Even more exciting is seeing the swarm take flight from a hive, the sky seems alive and 20,000 bees in the air in a relatively small area is pretty impressive. When I got home, for they were in my backyard, they had already clumped together in a tree.
Originally uploaded by mchlvn
just testing out the flickr straight to blog posting (did not work out so well, had to get in to wordpress and change up the post a bit :( ). Shot this grasshopper December 2007, in Mexico.
<<< will up-date later…
getting around to uploading some of my Insect photos from the trip to Mexico we took in December… and to getting some of my older photos off the old server and up on to Flickr.
Here is a great shot from June 30, 2007 >>>
<<< Potato Bug(Woodlouse), infested with Parasitic mites… these mites look(at this magnification) just like the Varroa Mites that are causing the Honey Bees of the world so much trouble.
Note: Not sure if I put this specimen in my freezer collection for further investigation. I’ll have to check, and if so bust out the microscope.
Update: I did not put this specimen in the deep freeze… kicking myself for not doing this, it would have been nice to get some micro-scope photos of these mites.
and here are some ant photos from Mexico… lapping up the water sweating from a Pina Colada >>>
<<< I need to get a better Macro Lens.
Shot this fly down in Cape Kiwanda, OR.
The only bug I got close enough to shoot all weekend.
Got out for a short walk today… my bees(as much as one can call any Apis their own) were flying, the sun was out and I took the opportunity to hunt down some Hazelnut trees… to see if they were in bloom yet, and to see if the bees were collecting pollen from them.
Alas, the catkins are in bloom, at least starting to bloom, did see two honey bees in the tree a few blocks from my house… not the frenzy that I was hoping to see, but as there was not much pollen going into the hives it was no surprise.
It’s always good to see the bees flying this time of year, there is always the worry that they will not make it thru the winter, and to see the pollen coming in is true excitement… pollen being the protein source for the raising up of new young bees(with out this boon of pollen in late winter there might not be enough bees to bring a hive in to spring with any hope of survival).
This year is the first that the catkins have bloomed this late… it seems that the past 6 years they have been in bloom right about the second week of January. The weather has been very cold this winter. Most of this week is is going to be flying weather for the bees… I expect to see the pollen flowing any day now.
Expected tempuratures for the next five days: Highs: 48/58f(9/14c) :: Lows: 29/39f (-2/4c)
I know. It has been a month now since my return from Mexico, but… here are a coulpe a Insect photos that I just had to share here on the Blog. There are more on the FLICKR site, and soon… soon there will be more from that trip and some of the shots I got around Olympia and Atlanta last year (well last summer, yeah… that does not sound as bad).
Moth in Playa del Carmen >>>
I know. It has been a month now since my return from Mexico, but… here are a coulpe a Insect photos that I just had to share here on the Blog. There are more on the FLICKR site, and soon… soon there will be more from that trip and some of the shots I got around Olympia and Atlanta last year (well last summer, yeah… that does not sound as bad).
<<< Wasp, or maybe a Fly? Technicaly speaking.
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