insects and Coffee

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?