The other (very!) exciting thing that happened this week is that I finally figured out a simple question that I can answer with some relatively straightforward monitoring that I can do now without waiting on someone to get me to a forest or a fieldsite. I worked on data sheets over the weekend and arranged to go to Pak Sinto/Wayan's house on Monday. I am hiring his son (Dena) to take data for me twice a day on activity from the hives he keeps, including follow up after splitting hives. It was a really good day. Wayan and Dena are really easy to work with, quick to figure out what I needed (despite my first-grader vocabulary), and know an awful lot about native bees. Yay!!
In addition to all the great beekeeping, Wayan has a super-interesting property with a dense combination of home gardens, agroforestry and animal husbandry.