The bees. They lost their heads.... or their bodies.

It snowed in northern Utah this weekend. The forecast suggested a good three to four inches of white fluffy snow. Naturally I suspected we would get around an inch. Needless to say, I was shocked when I woke up on Saturday morning to a good 12 inches of snow, the bottom two inches being slush. I spent a good hour and a half shoveling the driveway and the part of the back yard that is a moderately impervious surface (read that as concrete with cracks) so the dogs don't think they need to use it as their own, nearby, potty spot. I subsequently braved the continuing blizzard and questionable roads to take the two dogs our for our standard Saturday morning outing. They enjoyed the romp through snow that appeared to make them look like fuzzy snowplows. The backstory is unimportant with the exception that, following all of the shoveling (which I also did several more times during the day) I didn't feel like doing much else outside and had work to do. I mean, real proposal writing-type work, not to mention a deconstructed bathroom that requires additional attention to get back in to proper functioning condition. All of that to say, I didn't take the compost bin out to the back yard and attempt to dump it into the, now filled with snow because I left the lid off, compost bin. Tonight, Sunday, it had to happen. The compost bin was overflowing and, as one of my standard house chores, it had been neglected. After emptying the bin, and cursing myself for leaving the lid off, I plowed through the snow, right past one of our beehives. This particular hive has done quite well for being an Eco Bee Box "mini-hive". I'm not sure if I expect them to make it through the winter or not, but to this point, they have done well.

A shot from early January 2016. A warm day, roughly 38*F.

As is the case with all hives in the winter, the live bees will carry their dead counterparts outside and dump them on the stoop or in the snow, which makes the area appear like a bee graveyard, which, I suppose it is. This particular hive has a small ramp and board under it, for no other reason then to help the bees get into the hive and catch the dead bees for my inspection and subsequent cleaning up. On this evening, as I tromped by in somewhere between twelve to fourteen inches of snow, I noted that the pile of dead bees that had previously been there in subsequent days, was now significantly diminished. My initial assessment was the wind blew them off; however, upon closer examination, I discovered that, while the bee bodies were gone, their heads all remained in small scattered piles on the board.

The bees, they lost their bodies.

While I have no idea if it is bird, mammal, insect, or other (I doubt insect due to temperatures), I thought it post worth for the sheer fact that I enjoy the fact that something is foraging on these dead creatures, for better or worse.

****************** UPDATED*********************

After a number of weeks keeping an eye out, and finally placing a good, old-fashioned mouse trap, the culprit, and six of his kin, have been dispatched. I normally would go for a live trip or similar, but the mice are hard on bees and I know the mice aren't suffering from colony collapse. I'll keep the traps set for a few more weeks just to help keep the pressure off the hives. Of course, the large hives all have mouse guards, I'll look in to something similar for the mini-hives for next winter.

Zika and Beekeeping in the United States

I've recently been reading up (as I'm sure many have) on the mosquito-borne Zika virus and have been considering the impact from the perspective of a beekeeper. Why bring it up in relation to beekeeping? Because we already, at present, deal with fairly extensive mosquito spraying for other health and safety reasons, including West Nile. There is an interesting research paper by Bogoch et al. that contains this figure:

Indeed, with changes in climate, our proximity to wetlands (along the Wasatch Front, the back valleys, and the Cache Valley - where I happen to keep bees), we could also be subject to seasonal occurrences here. If you take a look at the map, you can zoom in on the Utah area and see that modeling already predicts suitable habitat to support an outbreak around the Great Salt Lake.

The full article is here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673616000805

This will bring additional required spray instances to many who keep bees should the outbreak spread into these seasonal mid-latitude regions.


Another interesting graphic:

Data curated by HealthGrove

A few interesting graphics regarding gun control.

A few interesting graphics regarding gun control and background checks.

Data curated by FindTheData

Data curated by FindTheData

Supporting employees in an organization that isn't interested in supporting them.

Here's a quandary: You have employees that are amazing. In fact, some of the most driven and intelligent people you know. They work hard, in fact, harder than they get paid for and they do a great job on the work they complete. Sounds like ideal candidates for rewards, kudos, hey, even salary increases, right? Of course I'm right. The problem is, working for a public university, an institution of higher education where bright people help improve our world, one finds it almost impossible to offer rewards to employees due to rules, regulations, and the nature of higher education and research.

I've had this problem looming over my head for the better part of five years. Great people doing excellent work, and almost no way to reward what they do. And that poses a problem. How long would you work in an environment where your work seems less-than-appreciated? How long would you keep up the good work ethic without a reasonable (more than cost-of-living) salary increase? The answer is pretty clear... not long. And who can blame someone who want to be rewarded for their hard work? I certainly can't.

Downloading, importing, and projecting PRISM climate data

This was a email I put together for a USU QCNR graduate student. Maybe someone else will find the information useful. I suggest using caution since this information is subject to change as Esri/EPSG may change transformations and PRISM may change data formats/etc. Please leave a note if you find errors and I will attempt to clarify and/or fix. It is was a copy/paste job email to blog - so user be warned.

1. Download the desired data from PRISM (prism.oregonstate.edu)
2. Download (or view) the associated FGDC Metadata. Note that the various details are NOT the same for each PRISM layer. Projections and cell sizes vary product to product.
3. Use the ASCII to Raster tool in ArcToolbox
1. Input the downloaded ASCII file
2. Assign the output file a .tif extension. We generally try to work with tiff files since they are universally read by GIS and RS software. You can also use .img files since they have similar properties if you wish. Avoid leaving it blank (native ArcGIS format) or assigning a .jpg format.
4. Use the Define Projection tool to assign the proper projection to the newly imported file
1. ArcGIS will make a best guess about the initial projection and use that projection in your ArcMap view. Do not rely on the project-on-the-fly functions for anything beyond looking at the data; never for analysis.
5. After defining the projection you need to reproject the data to match the best option for your field data or analysis region. This is done using the Project Raster (for raster data) utility in ArcToolbox. Note that the PRSIM data is generally developed using WGS72, WGS84 or NAD83/GRS80. This is not adequate or acceptable for inter-continental spatial analysis.
1. Depending on the scale of your study, you will want to select the correct projection. If you conducting a multi-state or regional study that would stretch across UTM zones, I suggest using Albers Equal Area (USGS version); if you are working in a small area, such as the state of Utah, and all of your data is within one UTM zone, I suggest stepping from unprojected (geographic) to Albers (or similar) and then to UTM. You can go from unprojected straight to UTM if you wish, but realize that you need to subset the data (extract by mask) to your study area once you complete the process and that any data outside of your UTM zone is invalid as it is spatially inaccurate. 
2. In the Project Raster tool, add your Input Raster; assuming you have defined the original projection, it will populate under Input Coordinate System.
3. Select an output location. I suggest that you do not allow it to go to Default.gdb. You will also need to give it a file extension, similar to above, I suggest that you use .tif.
4. Select the Output Coordinate System. This is where you select the best system depending on the coordinate and system and scale of your study. Don't mix coordinate system if at all possible. Actually, just don't mix coordinate systems!
5. Selection of the correct Geographic Transformation is the next step. Geographic transformations can be thought of as the equations used to convert from one projection to another. Some conversions require these transformations, others do not. Without going in to a long-winded discussion about what/why/how, you can turn here (http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/Geographic_Transformation) for a basic discussion; and here (http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2009/05/06/about-geographic-transformations-and-how-to-choose-the-right-one/) for an in-depth discussion of which one is the correct one to choose.
1. Generally speaking, when your focus area is the 48 contiguous US states and you are moving from WGS84 to NAD83, you can opt for either NAD_1983_To_WGS_1984_5 (don't let the from and to confuse the issue here, it will work correctly even though the logic seems wrong), or according to Esri, the more accurate transformation is now WGS_1984_(ITRF00)_To_NAD_1983. You can also see here (http://support.esri.com/en/knowledgebase/techarticles/detail/24159) and here (http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/40988-WGS_1984_(ITRF00)_To_NAD_1983-when-to-use) for further details. 
2. If you are moving from GCS_WGS_1972 to NAD83, you will need to add to selections to the Geographic Transformations box; that is, the first one will be WGS_1972_to_WGS_1984_2 (which is slightly better than _1) and the second transformation will be WGS_1984_(ITRF00)_To_NAD_1983. Another good discussion about "what to use" is here (http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/48328-Datum-NAD83-NA2011).
6. Leave the Resampling Technique as NEAREST
7. Output Cell Size, set this based on the metadata. Generally PRISM has 1KM and 4 or 5KM data; you can also download 800m Normals data, just make sure you opt for the correct cell size according to the product you download. I suggest not leaving the default as you will end up with oddly-sized cells.
8. Click OK
6. Once it is properly projected to the continental (Projected) projection, you can step down to UTM or use the data as is. You can also subset the data (extract by mask) at this point.

- 19 August 2013