Week 16 Bonus Entry - Colouring Outside the Lines: Smurf Village!

[aggienaut]

   Beehives need to be painted. Usually we paint them white so they don't get too hot in the sun. When we got our first batch of beehives, we sent technician* Jeremy to the store to buy white paint.
   Since we didn't particularly care what shade of white it was, he bough a big bucket of paint from the "oops" pile at home depot at half off. Jeremy brought the paint back but then he had to go out on a job, so it came down to technician Bob and I to paint the hives (boss Dave was also not present). So we crack open the bucket, and "oh, its light blue? ... okay I guess the decision was made to go with light blue ::shrug::" so we paint all the boxes baby blue.
   Dave comes back "What the! Why are the hives BLUE?!"
   Jeremy comes back "What the?! I bought white paint!" We all look at the bucket. It does indeed say "white paint." Evidently it was in the 'oops' bin precisely because it was not white at all!

   Light blue is an entirely adequate colour for a beehive -- bees don't really care what colour their hive is-- so we put them out in the field.
   In the future, however, we painted all our equipment white.
   And eventually, it came to be that we had white boxes on top of blue boxes. I have named this corner of the bee yard smurf village

"Smurf Village!"

---

note: this is not my official LJ Idol entry, just another bonus entry inspired by the topic.

* the technicians are from the bee control (ie abatement, ie, exterminating) side of the business. In case you're wondering who these technicians are and what they do.

Comments

[glowy-lovers.livejournal.com]

Smurf village :) I love it :)

Gargamel

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I suppose that makes me gargamel :D

[violetarojo.livejournal.com]

Aha! That was a great read!

[fsk8ing-judge.livejournal.com]

This entry made my morning. I was sitting and having my morning tea at the computer as I read it--SWOOSH!, some of the tea went flying out of my mouth as I burst out laughing, then proceeded to choke on the remainder. Great post. Great pics. :)

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

And why are our home beehives pale green? To be camouflaged as cable boxes in our bee phobic neighborhood.

We call it "cable green."

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I love the Smurf village!

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Nice post and well-illustrated.

Beekeeping has always fascinated me, though I've never taken any steps in that direction.

I am also fascinated by the "another bogus entry" aspect. I've considered doing something along the same lines (heck, at one point, I figured the proper approach to LJ Idol was to write two or three entries and then submit the best one) but have overwhelmed by life's demands.

Cheers...

Bonus Entries

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

Yeah I've come close to making bonus entries of the ideas I didn't go with several times in the past but usually never got around to it. Last week I made two. And the week before that I was writing essentially waht was going to just be a bonus entry and then going to post a bye, but decided the bonus entry was actually good enough for a real entry.

Also been thinking about writing more than one entry and then maybe a poll to let the readers decide which one to submit.

Re: Bonus Entries

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. You know, given the pretty loose "structure" of the competition (e.g., I don't think anyone's entry has ever been disqualified for being "off-topic," and I know people have played around with byes - declaring them, then taking them back... and possibly the other way around, too, by posting and then declaring a bye) I wonder if one could, within the rules, post a comment that pointed to multiple entries, in effect inviting others to take their pick (!?).

Just musing, dontchaknow.

Cheers...

Re: Bonus Entries

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah I've thought of that to. I think I was thinking about doing that for a specific topic .. maybe it was "open topic"? Since I usually find a way to push the definition of the topic prompt, for the "open topic" I was thinking about pushing the question of what constitutes an entry at all. Was thinking of posting a series of small interconnected entries all tagged the same and in my comment to the official entry-linking entry link back to the tag. Maybe next year early in the competition when I have some room for shenanigans I'll try something saucy.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I think you should make all your beehives like this. It looks super.

britishishish...ness

[pixieinthemist.livejournal.com]

you spelled colouring with a 'u'!!!1!!

Re: britishishish...ness

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Spelling it with a u is actually one less key stroke. See to spell it with a u we type

[c], [o], [l], [o], [u], [r]

versus

[c], [o], [l], [o], [u], [backspace], [r]

:D

[gratefuladdict.livejournal.com]

How do YOU know that the bees don't have a preference? Have you been tracking the rate of bee stings before and after the color swap, hmmmm?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Haha I should. "Hmmmm 5 stings in the face from these ones, 7 from these ones .... its still not a statistically significant sample though, time to dance around the hives some more..."

[gratefuladdict.livejournal.com]

I could suggest a few lab rats people...

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I could never be that cruel to a rat! ;D