I’m breaking my longest blogging hiatus since I began spewing my myopic insights on the internet, way back in the mid-90s.  Several folks wrote, asking if I were still alive. I didn’t answer them. Then it occurred to me that a non-answer to that question might be taken as an answer. So, here I am, alive – or what passes for it in my world.

What can I say? I got busy, something had to give, and that was you, dear reader of this blog. After a few weeks away, coming back to post here began to feel like calling old friends after ignoring them for a couple of years. It was like that feeling you get when you finally head off to check on the hive at Uncle Attila’s – you know that he’ll come running out of the house, grinning, and saying something like, “I figured you forgot all about your hive. So, I sold it.” Thanks, Attila-bacsi.

The past weeks buzzed by in a haze for me. I had nights with only five or six hours of sleep – and I felt it! Most of my woke hours were productive, but not so memorable – except for a few events that are unforgettable. Those include my American Bee Journal article on the life of beekeeper/philosopher Richard Taylor. The occasion was the centenary of Dr Taylor’s birth. Then, I prepared and led a beekeeping workshop at Tsuut’ina Nation. Somewhere in that haze was an interview at CJSW, the university radio station, followed by a couple of articles for the British Columbia beekeepers’ BeesCene magazine, then I wrote for the United Beekeepers of Alberta (see our newsletter, here), presented some research at the Alberta Native Bees Council AGM, and I helped teach responsible beekeeping at the semi-annual Calgary Beekeeper’s course. Those were all memorable (ma raison de vivre, pour ainsi dire) but, meanwhile, I was running a biological statistics lab while taking a grad-school course in statistics – well there’s the haze. Let me simply say, I survived. Now 2020 is looking down at us all like a loaded 30-30.

There’s been a bit of bee news going on around the world. But I was too busy to notice. Now that I finally have a little time (until the winter session starts at the university), I hope to get back to following the news and posting regularly.  I’ll start by reminding you that tomorrow, December 18, is national “I Love Honey Day.”  Indulge in some . . .