Russian Civil War???? And a day in the life here.
Friday, June 23rd, day 50 - This might be brief because I'm pretty distracted by news out of Russia right now.
Once again a field visit in the morning. This was to a demonstration farm school just outside of town here. We had gone to this place last year but there were too many other people active on the property and we couldn't open hives. This time we were able to. Had a scare in the beginning when we didn't seem to have a smoker and I was about to facepalm myself into another dimension but then one was found.
The first hive we looked at was strong, though it didn't have any honey we could extract. It was interesting and a good case study for showing the trainees how you can read a hive like a book -- because it had evidence its been running a honey deficit, old honey stores substantially consumed, but some newly stored honey, and drone cells that the hives only make if they're feeling optimistic about conditions. There was a lot of brood so since there was a lot of brood and the bees were optimistic, we split the hive, which is always a very valuable lesson.
With the second group we went to a second hive and this one did actually have honey to harvest, which always makes people happy. The person responsible for these local hives is the regional beekeeping association president and I like him, he is knowledgeable, generally correct, and happily and seemlessly takes onboard what I say. I think everyone had a good time during this field visit and it was productive. (Though two of our staff, Williams and the photographer, apparently both got bees in their suits and had to withdraw).
Then we had training in the lecture hall till five, which would be the end of training. As you know I always stress about hitting the timing marks. Ended my prepared materials at 4:30, which seemed appropriate for using the last half hour for questions ... but then there were only a handful of questions. D'oh! But by playing one video of me going through a hive back in Australia, then taking questions on that, and then Williams took the floor to tell them about the various sponsor's websites and where tehy can find the pictures and videos from this training, and that took us right through to five. Tomorrow (Saturday) there'll be closing ceremonies.
And then one of the leaders came in after five with the bucket of honey we'd harvested today and processed it for Williams to video. I would have kind of preferred to do it live before the trainees but ah well.
RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR???
And then this evening the Russian mercenary force Wagner seems to have declared itself in mutiny against the Ministry of Defense of Russia, and the latter in return called for his arrest. Wagner says Russia MoD forces attacked their base with rockets and Ukrainian sources seem to also report much to their suprise Russian forces being shelled from behind. Currently it appears the 25,000 strong Wagner force is advancing in two massive columns to Moscow and the major city of Rostov, and in those and other places Russia has instituted a "Plan Fortress" calling all police paramilitary and reserves to immediate duty.
And it's 23:21 and I should go to bed but this is seriously crazy news. This really sounds like a civil war or coup in Russia. I think Prigozhin (leader of Wagner) is absolutely dreaming if he thinks he can take over and hold the Russian state, but maybe he saw that he was on the outs in the growing rivalry he's had with the MoD and its death out a window over there to lose at that kind of game so he had no choice but to go for broke. Really I think this sounds like absolutely great news for Ukraine and the possible implosion of the Russian state. The one big downside is absolute lunatic Russian warlords with nukes is a scary scary scary thought (but how many of them actually function, really)