Today is a special day. It’s Nikola Tesla Day. But, it’s also the anniversary the first day of the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, which started on a sultry Tennessee morn, almost 100 years ago. And it’s Don’t Step on a Bee Day – let’s see if we can keep that up all week!
Also, on this brilliant July Tesla-Scopes-Don’t-Step-on-a-Bee Day, I am breaking my long self-imposed blogging hiatus. I’m doing that with an important public-service announcement.
Many of you know that I have a motor neuron disorder (similar to ALS). For me, typing, guitaring, walking, and singing Verdi’s La Traviata have become increasingly difficult. You’d think that would be enough of a challenge, but in late May, I decided to have a heart attack. For extra drama, I scheduled it on my wife’s birthday, following a lovely meal of our favourite East Indian take out. (Restaurants were still Covid-closed at the time, so we ate at home with the kids.)
Here’s my PSA. If you’ve just had a delicious dinner with family and you start to have serious heart burn, maybe it’s something else. After our dinner, I felt awfully unwell – dizzy and weak with uncomfortable chest pains. The birthday girl suggested that we visit the hospital, but I wasn’t interested in going anywhere. I was sure I had overeaten, and in half an hour, I was feeling better and shuffled off to bed. However, I had barely touched the pillow when I had a painful jolt to the chest, neck, and arms. No one in my large family had ever had a heart attack, so I quickly ruled that out. However, I was feeling quite badly and agreed to go to the hospital. Within half an hour, I was wired up and blood tests were happening. Then I had the third heart attack of the evening. It was very serious. A few hours later, doctors placed a stent in a primary artery entering my heart – it was almost completely clogged with bacon grease.
So, my PSA-warning to everyone reading this. Even if you and your ancestors have no history of heart issues, even if you are not overweight, even if your last cholesterol blood work was fine, you need to know the signs of a heart attack and be prepared to expect the unexpected. Some of the signs which I ignored were long-term fatigue and swollen feet. That had been going on for months. The immediate signs which took me to the hospital were severe pain in my chest and arms. Don’t be a Ron. Take these signs as deadly serious warnings.
I am still recovering and have reduced my work, but I hope to get back to blogging about bees regularly again. Today is a start. Meanwhile, pay attention to your body – and don’t step on a bee, either.
Bad Beekeeping Blog 
This is, perhaps, a more “interesting” story than we might have wished for from you. Best wishes for a full recovery.
(And if this is a duplicate comment, I blame word press.)
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Doing better each day. Thanks!
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Ron, glad you went in for that hospital visit or we would not be reading this! Hope you are on the mend. FWIW friends who are ER nurses say men often delay seeking help for heart attacks when they have them on Fridays, figure they can hang tough for the weekend….which means they end up with much more damage to the heart (when they manage to survive to Monday). So good on you for going in!
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Thank you. You are a great guy.
My husband had a heart attack while we were bike riding.
On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 7:26 PM Bad Beekeeping Blog wrote:
> Ron Miksha posted: ” Today is a special day. It’s Nikola Tesla Day. But, > it’s also the anniversary the first day of the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, which > started on a sultry Tennessee morn, almost 100 years ago. And it’s Don’t > Step on a Bee Day – let’s see if we can keep that up ” >
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Thanks for the kind words, Pamela.
So sorry to hear about your husband. Heart problems are usually entirely unexpected and too often tragic.
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Hi Ron,
Sorry to hear about the heart, get well soon, I miss your blogs.
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I am so glad u are okay. I hope recovery is going well. Thank you for all that u do.
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I am so glad u are okay. I hope recovery is going well. Thank you for all that u do.
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You are an inspiration and are amazing. I am very happy for you and us readers that you made it through this episode. Listen and take care of your body and mind as much as you can, take it easy and still work hard on yourself. CIAO and take good care. Stefan
*—*
*Live Simply*
* _O (` |> ,|. `-‘*
On Sun, 11 Jul 2021 at 02:26, Bad Beekeeping Blog wrote:
> Ron Miksha posted: ” Today is a special day. It’s Nikola Tesla Day. But, > it’s also the anniversary the first day of the “Scopes Monkey Trial”, which > started on a sultry Tennessee morn, almost 100 years ago. And it’s Don’t > Step on a Bee Day – let’s see if we can keep that up ” >
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I’m hoping you recover well. Glad you’re writing again.
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Hi Ron,
That’s a good message, everyone should take those signs seriously.
My father went to the hospital with the same issue some years ago. Fortunately he had a full recovery so follow the doctor’s orders and “don’t be a Ron”.
It’s been a real pleasure to talk with you about bees and we hope to chat again in the near future.
Get well soon, me and Silvia are waiting for you in Tuscany 🙂
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I hope you are continuing to get better Ron.
A few days ago I had a conversation about small cell beekeeping with someone that only has bees in the wall of a building, no actual managed hive. They were pretty certain that what was wrong with the beekeeping industry was the foundation that is used is raising bees that are too big. I searched your site and didn’t see anything. What I did find was not very scientific and it looked like just an idea that someone thinks is a good idea. What are your thoughts.
Dale Harden
beekeeper549@yahoo.com
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Hi Dale,
I am getting better. I feel like I have had the extended warranty on my old body renewed.
I don’t know much about small-cell beekeeping. Some day, I should ask a few people for their thoughts and report what I learn. I remember when I was a youngster, I showed my father tiny honey bees in a hive. He figured that they came from small brood cells, the sort you sometimes find on burr comb and on frames with holes that bees have patched. My father figured that tiny bees would carry half the nectar but would be able to sneak into veils more easily. I guess he wouldn’t have favoured them. That was before varroa. We have to be careful not to conflate the presence of lots of drone cells with increased varroa as due to cell structure size, of course, because large-sized cells are not the problem in the case of drones, but rather it’s the extra days of drone development that give varroa an edge.
You prompt some good questions. When did our common brood cell-size become established? Was it based on a large number of measurements from a variety of honey bee subspecies, or just the Italian bees that were so popular at the time that foundation was first being milled? Are there advantages to different sizes, race to race? Are small cell sizes, in fact, better? I don’t know.
Take care,
Ron
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your thoughts are similar to mine. I think it is something that may attract attention from people that don’t actually keep any bees. There’s an automatic hive that you simply put a jar below the valve and open it up.
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