Down to Four

Perry dropped out this morning, leaving only four candidates in the GOP race to be the nominee for President.

Thoughts? Good news for Gingrich, bad news for Romney.

Romney is thriving on having the evangelical vote split among several candidates, one of them being Perry. With Perry out of the way, that vote is now only split two ways. More than that, however, is that with the vote split only two ways, the pressure on Santorum (weaker than Gingrich at this point) builds to drop out as well.

If Santorum drops, this is suddenly nowhere near over. In fact, if Santorum drops, I think the momentum shifts back to Gingrich.

At this point, Romney has got to put the race away on Saturday if he wants to win this. His debate performance Monday night was weak (for him), weak enough that the door is clearly open for a second front runner candidate to step in and establish himself. Tonight, Romney needs to go on the offensive, he needs to be openly defensive instead of privately defensive (his defense of the tax returns is his single worst mistake so far, and he lost huge points there). He needs to put the arguments in his camp and his corner instead of battling on the others’ fields.

To be honest, I had hoped that Perry would hold out through Saturday if only to disrupt the evangelical vote. With that option out of the way, Romney is going to have to hold his own camp AND convince the rest his ideas are the best. He is fast running out of the split-vote advantage that gave McCain the win in 2008.

This nomination is still Romney’s to lose, but South Carolina has changed from a really-nice-to-win state to a MUST-WIN state for Romney. The longer this is drawn out, the more likely it is that he’ll lose. Simple as that.

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A couple thoughts on religion…. With Perry dropping out, this virtually guarantees that a non-protestant will win the nomination. Romney is LDS (Mormon), Gingrich and Santorum are Catholic, and Paul is Baptist. Should Paul win (he won’t) he’d keep the protestant streak alive for the GOP.

The religion of a candidate shouldn’t matter, of course, but I do think it interesting that this election will likely put out a candidate that pretty much goes against all the stereotypes some would place on the GOP.

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A couple thoughts on  Sarah Palin…. Last night, Gingrich stated that he would certainly consider having a seat at the table for Palin should he win the nomination. As a former Alaskan who thought Palin a strong governor, may I just say BARF!?! I’m not an Obama fan (that much is clear), but I’m not a big Gingrich fan either. However, if Palin is on the Gingrich ticket, I will run screaming for the exits. She was a capable and good governor in Alaska. She is NOT ready for primetime.

I was initially very excited when McCain tapped her as his running mate. But it quickly became evident that she was nowhere near ready.

Sarah Palin–Thanks for all your work in Alaska. Please go home.

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A couple thoughts on Super PACs…. I desperately hope that the concept of Super PACS is revisited post-election. They are incredibly dangerous for our democracy, especially the complete lack of accountability. If nothing else, I hope that current campaign finance laws will be applied to Super PACs to help control them.

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An Unscheduled Visit to the Hives

Well… hive I guess, since Hive 2 died back in November/December.

Yesterday, I had that gut feeling that told me to go heft Hive 1. I did, and I was surprised to find it on the light side. Light enough that I could lift both deeps with just one hand. I may be only a first-year beekeeper, but even I know that being that light means problems.

This winter has been so weird. It’s been extremely mild with very little snow. In fact, our first snow fall was only a week ago, and it was so minor that it was hardly worth mentioning. Saturday, it got over 50 degrees, and the bees were out in force. It’s been interesting.

Because of the warmth, though, I don’t know that the bees have ever truly clustered or that they ever really stopped raising large quantities of brood. They are tearing through their reserves at a remarkable pace, and the hefting confirmed that yesterday.

I tried to get a hold of Aleisha (my mentor), but when I couldn’t get her, I jumped to my second favorite source of instruction: YouTube! Most of the videos I saw showed people doing either a 2:1 sugar syrup OR just dry sugar. I did see one video where a guy put in two full frames of honey he had in reserve, and that’s when I remembered that I lost Hive 2 and that Hive 2 left behind a full deep full of honey.

I tried to find some support for putting that deep on top of Hive 1–essentially expanding the hive upwards to three deeps–and I couldn’t. I also, however, didn’t see anything online saying not to do it, so….

Late last night, in the rain, and with a friend holding a big umbrella over Hive 1, I did just that. It was very dark and kind of cold, so I worked very fast (less than 30 seconds with the hive actually open). I didn’t get to see too much of what was going on inside the hive because I was using the car headlights to give me light (horizontal instead of vertical light), but the bees did pour out the top when the lid came off. They also poured out of one general area, so it looks like they were at least somewhat clustered.

All in all, I’d claim it a success. I’d certainly rather not have to do that, but I’m glad I had the option.

Now, the pros:

• I much prefer feeding the bees their own honey as opposed to sugar syrup or dry sugar. It’s just more natural for them.
• The frames I added also had pollen in them, which is a second bonus.

For the cons:

• It was cold. I wish I could have avoided that, but it looks like winter is finally settling in on us, and I could either do it now or in several weeks. I don’t know that they would have survived that long.
• I gave them frames from a hive that died, and I still don’t know the cause of death. Right now, I’m assuming Varroa weakened the hive and then wasps finished it off, but I just don’t know. The good news is that the freezing temps we have had should have killed off most any dangers on those frames, but I simply don’t know.
• I no longer have those ten frames to give the bees an early start in the spring.

I was also a little worried about getting them back down into two deeps, but since I plan on splitting that hive, I’m not all that worried.

Last note… Right before adding the third super, I hefted the box once more. I was probably off on my initial estimate (not as light as I thought), and doing the math in my head, I realized that they probably ate about half of their stores, which is roughly where they should be (roughly half-way through winter = half of their stores). So there is a chance I over reacted. But acting with less than complete knowledge, I did the best I could.

Now I’m hoping for validation from the rest of the beekeepers who read this…. (sitting here waiting with fingers crossed….)

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