tIDbits

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/internet/28netflix.html
The biggest lesson learned, according to members of the two top teams, was the power of collaboration. It was not a single insight, algorithm or concept that allowed both teams to surpass the goal Netflix,……Instead, they say, the formula for success was to bring together people with complementary skills and combine different methods of problem-solving.
The [...]

Lots of activity in the bee yard this weekend…
Found some queen cups and cells in Macintosh – here you can see a new queen is chewing her way out of the bottom of the circled cell.
The bees have started capping honey for the winter. Hope there will be enough good weather and plants for [...]

My friend Juli thought she might have a swarm of honey bees in a lobster buoy on her front porch (this is, after all, Maine).
So, I  went over to look at lunchtime, as the prospect of a swarm to plop in a nuc (nucleus hive) was appealing (free-bees).
Sadly, she had  nasty yellow jackets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_jacket)
For those [...]

Damn ants took advantage of my two weak nuc (nucleus) hives and crawled up and infested the place.  They were there to steal the 1:1 sugar:water syrup that I had left to feed weak bees, as it was going to be a rainy week.  The nucs were made with bees from one of my stronger [...]