This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 26, 2023. The New York Times recently reviewed a book a few years ago that I have not read but whose title I certainly agree with: Love Your Enemies. The book is by Arthur C. Brooks, who is among other things • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 19, 2023. This newsletter will have something special for its readers during the month of June. First, in each weekly edition, we will present one of the chapters of my latest book, Women With Words: Female Journalists and Writers (Heads and • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 12, 2023. Sometimes you have to simply accept responsibility. That happened to me last week when my website crashed and burned. The technician employed by my hosting service, the guy who took my call, was a terribly nice fellow, but it • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,845) on Friday, May 5, 2023. During my nearly four decades as a college professor, I cannot remember a course that I taught where I did not take attendance—and emphasize to the students how important it is that they “show up.” Students would express a • Read More »
Last week after writing a bit about capturing a swarm of bees, my old friend Hal M. wrote: Jim, very interesting, but how do you “put” them in a box. And don’t say “very carefully.” So, I decided I should say a bit more about swarms. Actually, “very carefully” would not be a good answer in any • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,569) on Friday, June 12, 2020. We are well into the garden season, and tomatoes are appearing on the vines and blooms on the bean plants. Potatoes, sometimes, produce a single, beautiful blossom late in the life of the plant. I say “sometimes” because • Read More »
My beekeeping partner John and I opened our four beehives on Sunday afternoon for the first time since the bees had been installed on April 2. Bloom-wise, it has so far been a good spring for the bees. First there was the crimson clover that was blooming in abundance when the bees first joined us. • Read More »
Bees give us honey. It’s a wonderful food, and many people make a living by harvesting and selling honey. Bees also pollinate many of our crops. Some estimate that up to 30 percent of what we eat is on our tables because of honeybees. Important as these activities are to humans, neither is central to • Read More »
The New York Times is often cited by me as a balanced, thoroughly researched, and well-written source of information. But in a recent article about the supposed health benefits of bee products (The Wellness World’s Buzzy New Best Friend – The New York Times), such as honey and pollen, the Times reporter, who shall go • Read More »
The day we harvest honey always proves to be the most physically demanding day of the year. That day occurred last Friday (June 15).
Here are a couple of recently-completed watercolors that I am donating to the Blount County Beekeepers Association annual auction on Monday evening. Both have mountain-ish backgrounds, and one is based on a recent photograph by my good friend Jim Bennett. The BCBA auction raises money for grants to new beekeepers, one of the many great things the • Read More »
But wild bees were probably not very hard to find, and to find a stash with 50 pounds of honey must have been a pretty good day’s haul. Wild bees, unfortunately, are no longer plentiful enough for a young boy to enjoy hunting them.
The last day of the year holds a special place on the JPROF.com calendar. It’s the day in 2004 that the site went live. Thus, we celebrate our fourth anniversary today. The site has come a long way from that small study and cold winter in Emory, Virginia, where it was first conceived and built. • Read More »