Hi all,
    Been back from EAS for a couple weeks now and have just now found
the time to write some of my recollections from the short course and
conference.
    Some of my favorite times were spent in the bee yard with Steve
Taber, who is an entertainer first and a honeybee researcher second (and
more of both than I'll ever be). He had us rolling and still passed on
some great info... as well as his hat and polish slippers which somehow
showed up on the auction block Thurs. night <G>
    A really good session was on how some beekeepers keep their records,
ranging from a voice activated tape recorded (which you can then
transcribe later), using a palm pilot (a hand held computer that one
uses a stylus to write on) in a plastic baggie, a system of letters and
colored markers that one writes on the hive with, and all of them sound
more efficient than badly scribbled notes on lined paper that I try
days/weeks/months later to read and enter into our database program.
    There were also a number of good classes/presentations/and
conversations on pollination of different crops as well as
presentations/discussions on other pollinators that I enjoyed.
    The most fun I had was at the auction. Besides the usual foolishness
and the ritual stealing of a featured speaker's stuff for auction...
This year, one of the Blohm brothers had a great idea. That idea was to
auction off 1/2 hour of a well known/prominent
beekeeper/entomologist/researcher's time for the highest bidder to have
for uninterrupted information exchange. This got twisted up a bit when
one entomologist's wife bought his half hour for herself (and made him
pay for it), and when several others were "bought" for the sole purpose
of making them drink too much honey beer and threatening to make them
act out bee behavior.
 
All in all another good conference...
 
Kathy (wondering whether ABF or AHP are half as much fun)