Our time back in Bali went really fast. Plan was to get Kekai into the field with me doing a 4-day observation trial at about 1,000m and figuring out how to track bee movement using some fluorescent dust that I'd had him bring with him from the U.S. (I've been trying to figure out flight distance for the Trigona since that makes a real difference in how many bees can be in an area. He only had a week with us after Flores, so we had to be efficient in how we used the time. We spent his first day just doing regular hive counts, then on the next day went to Hutan Desa Batur Selatan in Kintamani to start the 4-day trial.
fI was really excited for this baiting I've been trying to get access to forest almost my whole time on Bali and have only been able to get permission to work in some of the river edge agroforest owned by Tirta. We had driven through the Hutan Desa when Kalani visited and Tirta had just gotten in touch with the village head and received permission for me to work there -- a big win for my research design! We baited traps on July 5th but when we came back up on the 6th it was really overcast and no insects came to the honey. Then it started raining. and raining. and raining. And we had to call off the trial and couldn't start the distance testing either. It was pretty disappointing. I don't have any photos from my camera but luckily I had Kekai to share his.
Also on the first day (when we still thought we had lots of dry days ahead!) we went with Kekai up to the Pura at Top Sai and got to see a mixed Apis cerana and Trigona laeviceps operation right up against some real forest which was pretty cool. Not enough time left in my grant to follow up on that but good to know it's there (and we have an invitation to come back and do work there).
We did our best to find indoor things to do (aside from the boringness of data entry and reading books!) and went to see a couple farmers, bought some freshly roasted coffee for Kekai to bring back, and visited the Neka Museum in Ubud. We also went out for pork ribs at Kayana Warung with Bagus and Wayan and Gong Gek and their families.
The week went fast and we spent his last day and last night in Denpasar to be close to the airport Luckily weather was better down there and so we took advantage of the sun and spent a day at the Bali zoo. Not a bad zoo and several native Indonesian animals which was fun
Before we knew it, it was time to make our midnight trip to the airport and say a sad goodbye. Both kids will have left for college before we get home so it was really hard only seeing them for a few weeks this year :-(