This would have been my fourth year as a beekeeper.  Whoever coined the term “beekeeper” had it all wrong.  Humans don’t keep bees.  Bees are a wild inspect.  Yes, they may agree to live in a wooden box hive for a short time but it is only because it is to their temporary advantage.

If you recall my story from last year I bought a package of bees with a queen.  Inside of a week the queen disappeared.  A have cannot survive without a queen.  The good folks who I buy my bee packages from took pity on my and gave me a second queen.  I never knew what happened to her.  My hunch is that she was rejected and the drones killed her.  This was short sighted because without a queen they all died within a month.  By August the hive was empty.
I had great resolve this year.  The bees were not to come from Florida but from Georgia.  The bee mongers drove to Georgia and watched them be carefully loaded into their temporary homes and were personally transported to south central Wisconsin.  The bees were ready for pick-up on Monday, my bee keeping friend and I made the trip to Columbus Tuesday afternoon.

We placed the queen in the hive and shook the bees into the box hive.  That evening I watched the bees fly around their new home and discover Wisconsin.  On Wednesday I was busy and didn’t pay much attention to the bees.  Wednesday night I noticed there were no bees going in and out of their new home.  We enjoyed dinner with our bee keeping friends and I expressed my fear that they were gone.  Just gone.

Thursday afternoon I suited up and took apart the wood hive.  As I suspected gone.  Only a few dead bees filled the bottom of the hive.  “I QUIT” I shouted to no one in the back yard – Mother Nature heard me I’m sure.  I let my friend know my bee keeping days were at an end.   I called the bee sellers to sell my sad, sad story.  They offered to give me another package, with a queen free.  Sorry, no.

On Saturday I met my friend down town for coffee.  From across the street he shouted “You won’t believe what happened.”  We bought our coffee and sat outside the coffee shop in the town square.  “They’re gone.”

“What?”
“I gave them a new queen and they’re gone.”
How likely is it that we both purchased bee packages and both swarmed away.  I guess Wisconsin isn’t Georgia.
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They are gone bees.     

​Roadside Sales
For the third consecutive year I’ve traveled to Ashland Wisconsin in mid-May for a few days of personal respite.  Quite by accident the last few years I’ve become intrigued with birding.  Birding requires being very alert and sensitive to your outdoor environment and is an activity that helps hone those skills for writing.
I drove the first leg of the five hour trip and my wife drove the last half which gave me the opportunity to just look.  What I saw was disturbing.  I call them road sales.  People will put items near the road with a sign FOR SALE in three foot letters. 
Sometimes they even include the price – which is always in even dollars - $1500. Why not get creative and post $1434.76?
It was disturbing because of the number and variety of items.  A lot of the things were recreational – boats all shapes and sizes, camping trailers, tents, snowmobiles.  Others were household equipment – lawn mowers, lawn tractors, rakes, shovels, etc.  There was some farm equipment – tractors, wagons, and a manure spreader.  I must have seen at least 50 items for sale.
I’ve pondered why people sell by the road and wonder if they are successful.  I desperately want to stop at one and ask the owner if they sell by the road often and is it successful.  I see it as an act of desperation.
The economy is supposed to be humming along just fine but by the number of roadside sales I don’t think it has reached north central Wisconsin.
Make a comment if you thought the Blog title was about book sales!
   
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​Wisconsin Community Media Award
 
I have been a volunteer radio host at 103.5 FM The Sun community radio station since September 2015.  It’s a non-profit, low power station that provides free public service primarily to Sun Prairie but programming is live streamed at: www.sunprairiemediacenter.com.
I talk with a variety of artists including:  writers, editors, publisher’s playwrights, musicians, composers, and actors.  My guests share their stories about living a creative life. 
I am proud to announce for the second consecutive year I have won a Wisconsin Community Media Award for Achievement in the Talk Show Category.
Listen on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday every month at 9:30 am to hear me interview a fascinating artist.
Go to my Events Page at:  www.rexowens.us for a list of who I will interview.    

​Lake Fly Writers Conference
 
https://www.lakeflywriters.org/
 
Click on the link to learn about the fantastic Lakefly Writers Conference in Oshkosh, Wisconsin on Friday May 11 and Saturday May 12.
I am presenting “How to Create A Successful Blog” at 3:10 pm on Friday, May 11th.

Blog 5-2-18
 
Be Careful What You Say
 
Last Tuesday I had the perfect book launch.  Over thirty people attended, my wife served the best Irish tea cake on the planet, and the audience asked intelligent and interesting questions.  The event lasted just an hour and people lingered for another thirty minutes after my presentation buying books, asking more questions and having me sign their books.

In all the presentations I’ve made about writing I always make one point, that for me at least, as proven to be true – that is, the real writing begins with re-writing.  For a 90,000 novel it takes me about 11 months to finish the first ROUGH draft.  I always put the draft aside for at least a month.  The next thing I do is read the rough draft just to see if it is a story worth re-working and polishing.  I have been lucky, with all three of my novels I’ve found them worth undergoing the re-writing process.

As I was packing up books following the book launch my publisher approached me.  She said she had a question that she didn’t want to ask during my presentation.  I couldn’t imagine what question she wouldn’t ask in front of the audience.

“Did you really mean what you said about re-writing?”  she wondered.
“Yes, of course, I really think the real writing happens in re-writing.”
She smiled and her eyes twinkled ‘gotch ya’. “Well, would you be willing to re-write Murphy’s Troubles? (My first novel).  What could I say?
“Of course.”

“Sure, just rip it apart.  Start all over if you want.  I have this image for a cover.”
I thought fast to recover from understanding the size of the job I just agreed to undertake.   “It will give me something creative to do again – not just promoting books.  I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Doesn’t matter.  I have to drive back to Milwaukee”

So there you have it.  I’ve made a commitment to re-write my first book.  When I am honest with myself and the world I know it needs the work.
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So, fellow writers, be careful what you say – especially when your publisher is in the room.