One of our horses, Shasta, can also be seen.  He’s standing in the middle of the field near the bottom of the picture.

We may not be the biggest apiary, but we do claim overwhelming dominance in the space race.  Strangely, this article does not mention Stonewall Apiary in its list of objects visible from space.  A glaring oversight!

Want to see for yourself?  Check it out on our Location page.  Just click on the satellite view (”sat”) and zoom in.

Stonewall Apiary from space

Check out the site if you have a chance and watch this space for more information.  If you have any feedback about this project, be sure to letus know.

Those of you who run websites know that there are some costs involved, hence the need for some advertising.  One of my ads was for a web host and it was run through ClickBank.  Eight people I know asked me for hosting recommendations in the last year.  I sugested the ad on my site and even helped several of them to set up their hosting accounts, first clicking through on my site, naturally.  Each of those clicks should have brought in about $35 to my account.  But what did ClickBank register?  Nothing.  I emailed them to ask why I wasn’t getting credit for the purchases - there has been no response from them in spite of repeated efforts to contact them.

The lesson, for me at least: Stay away from ClickBank.  Zero reliability, zero customer service, in my opinion.  Who wants to work with a company that won’t even respond to you?

You may have had a better experience with ClickBank.  I hope so, because mine was terrible.

The upside?  Now I’m using ICDSoft for ct-honey.com and the beeblog - superb reliability and incredible customer service. 

Two examples:

1. One of my pages just wasn’t working.  I couldn’t figure out what the problem was, but I suspected that there was a problem with file permissions.  I contacted ICDSoft for assistance.  They checked the permissions, which were fine.  They then proceeded to DEBUG my code, which was also fine.  Finally, they realized that I had changed my database structure and forgotten to change my code!  All of these things, of course, are far above and beyond their customer service requirements.  This was a problem with what I had done, yet they took the time to help me as much as they could, which turned out to be quite a bit.  That is amazing customer service, in my opinion.

2. Someone clicked on my ICDSoft ad.  They have a thirty-day trial period, during which a new customers can delete their accounts and get a full refund.  The trial period ended on the 19th of this month.  I received my commission on the 20th.  Obviously, I can trust ICDSoft, unlike ClickBank.

In terms of cost, it is usually less expensive to purchase one 100-strip pack of Apistan rather than eight 10-strip packages.  But this option leaves you with twenty unused strips.  These strips either go to waste or sit around until it is time to medicate again.  Because I am concerned with the effectiveness of medication after it has been opened and sitting around for months, my preference is to never purchase more than I need, even if it costs a few dollars more.

Because other people may feel differently, a later phase of the Medication Calculator will allow users to select between two options: best price and least waste.  But that is some time off, since there is still much work to be done to finish up the installation of the calculators.

If you have any comments about how this service may be improved, please let me know.

Now is the time to start thinking about your spring medication.  Before you place your order, try out the ct-honey.com Medication Calculator.

After a few weeks of relatively warm weather, we had a winter storm in early March.  Worried about the bees since they had previously been quite active, I threaded the external sensors from three indoor/outdoor thermometers through the inner cover holes of three hives until they came to rest on top of the clusters.

 I closed the outer covers and left the hives alone for about three hours.  To my surprise, although the outside temperature was 17 degrees Fahrenheit, it was a surprisingly warm 52 degrees in one hive and 49 degrees in the other two.  None of the hives are wrapped, but they all have a piece of 1/2-inch foam insulation between the outer cover and the inner cover.

Check out the ct-honey.com Medication Calculator at http://ct-honey.com/medication.php.

Next to be added is one of the foulbrood medications - probably Terramycin.  If you would like to see a medication added to the calculator, let me know and I’ll do my best to add it as soon as possible.

If you have ideas about how the calculator can be improved, please leave a comment.  I would love to hear your ideas.

One feature I’m considering adding is the ability to email the results to yourself.  I’m not going to add it unless there is some interest, so be sure to tell me if you would like it.