June Question of the Month - Join the conversation and receive a badge

This is a great question for the month. I am really impressed by the variety of knowledge people are sharing! I am more of the "Jack of many trades, master of few" but I'll pick one that nobody else has yet. I was going to talk about building with Lego sets but @Scalperjim beat me to it with his great examples. So, my pick is that in addition to growing a small garden of vegetables and fruit, my wife and I also keep honey bees in our yard. We started in 2012 and still experience something new every summer. We get 50-70 pounds of honey a year that we sell to acquaintances and give to family. My wife usually goes in without gloves and has been stung more than me — don't tell her I said it's because she's a little rough with them — but I've only been stung three times and twice was when I was mowing, so does that even count?

A new colony for 2024 after a collapse of our previous batch:

The queen bee is packaged with a handful of drones in this little cage within the shipping box. They get themselves out by chewing through a sugar cube at the end. We remove the metal disk so they can get through the sugar cube:

The queen's cage is placed between two frames in the hive with a rubber band. The shipping box is placed within the hive next to the frames overnight so the bees make their way out, flocking to the queen and getting acquainted to their new environment.

A syrup of sugar and water in the feeder gives them sustenance since there's no pollen or nectar available in upstate New York for them to feed on in early April. The tin can came inside the shipping container with sugar water for them during the move, we let them finish it off instead of getting rid of it. Another box is placed around these feeders and then the lid goes on top:

That's the easy part. Extracting the honey in the fall is more complicated. This colony has been very busy so far, and even provided this stray piece of honeycomb that we took out since it wasn't attached to a frame. Makes a good backdrop for some Lego photography:

I hope this was interesting. If you want to learn more, there are local beekeepers that will literally swarm you with knowledge to get your own colony going.

I feel like I know a little about a lot more things than alot about one thing. I am a lifelong learner, and go down all sorts of rabbit holes when I am bored. I have taught myself photography, cold process soapmaking, making handmade journals, scrapbooking, vinyl cutting, 3d printing on a small scale, hobby laser cutting, learned about different divination methods, basic leatherworking, and now am starting on learning more about data science and python coding.

I know a lot about travel. Pre-Covid, I was a part time travel agent.

I know a LOT about horses - more than I ever thought I would want to know. My daughter started riding as a toddler (the benefit of living next door to an equestrian facility). She competed starting at age 6 and received a scholarship to ride with her college in Tennessee. Since equestrian events are year-round, that's pretty much where we have lived our lives for the last 15 plus years! We've owned a few horses over the years, and they are great animals!

I am exactly the same! Terrible at test taking, but amazing at remembering people on shows and movies. And if I can't remember, I am an IMDB champion!

It surprises others often that I know a lot about a lot of different things.

I grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in South Australia. I know a lot about dry-land farming!

I moved to the city at 18yo and randomly landed a job in a chemical testing lab in a textile factory - I learned how to replicate colours in various fabrics from physical samples of tissues, or paint, or photos. I learned that purple dye in ancient times came from crushed up sea snails! Something like 10,000 snails were needed to make just 1gram of dye which is why purple was colour only used for royalty!

I worked in high school science labs and learned that street lights being orange or white (at least it's what they are here in Australia) is because mercury burns white and sodium burns yellow/orange.

I worked in road construction (my first project role! woot!!) and learned that the strength of a road comes from everything under the asphalt, not the asphalt itself! Different layers of 'base' (or dirt) provide unique density and stability and the asphalt is a waterproofing to keep it all dry and strong! I also learned how totally amazing it is to be on a highway construction, standing in a farmer's paddock watching a dynamite blast to cut a new highway through a hill!

I worked in a research centre where they studied circadian rhythms. Research participants would stay for up to 2 weeks with no real-time cues - no natural light, no clocks, no live tv, definitely no internet! The researchers controlled their awake and sleep times and shifted their body clocks over that time by a few hours to see how the brain's innate circadian rhythms were impacted. Amazing stuff that helps with shift work rosters and so much more!

I worked in universities and learned about the delicate balance for academics in teaching, research and service loads! I also developed my advocacy skills to get better outcomes for them in this often-unfairly-balanced system. I learned I was capable of planning and managing a tour (several times) for groups of up to 40 international visitors, to 5 cities (in Australia that is a LOT of distance!), and keep it all in budget, on time, and change itinerary mid-tour. All in a clunky generic spreadsheet - oh to have had Smartsheet in those days!

And just over a year ago I was introduced to Smartsheet and now am one of the most experienced users in my organisation. I love diving into new (to me) technology and finding all the ways we can leverage it to make our working lives better.

It surprised me too, sometimes, that I know so much about so many things - and I don't have a university degree in anything.