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Author Topic: Hi from North East Scotland  (Read 2233 times)

Offline gerryt

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Hi from North East Scotland
« on: June 06, 2011, 06:13:43 pm »
Hi all

Just registered with the forum and thought I'd make myself known.  I keep bees in Moray in north east Scotland - got 5 colonies just now and hoping to increase my numbers up to twenty or so over the next few years.

I'm pretty heavily involved with my local association  - I'm on the committee and have been leading our first attempts at small scale queen rearing using Vince Cook's method this summer.  I'm also responsible for the redesign of our website (see link below!)  so please take a look and tell me what you think of it.

Hoping to learn lots from you all.
Beekeeping in Nth East Scotland

http://www.moraybeekeepers.co.uk/

Offline Kathyp

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2011, 08:52:16 pm »
i think you might be the first from Scotland!  :-)  welcome.  glad you found us.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline AllenF

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #2 on: June 06, 2011, 09:15:11 pm »
I your site, and welcome to the forum.

Offline SerenaSYH

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2011, 01:53:22 am »
Darn, I wanted to see your website link  :( but can't! Maybe you can contact Admin and try to have this resolved...When you're new, it takes awhile to be able to post photos and urls.

Mine would never work until I finally had to ask Admin for permission to do so.

I am very happy you are here. I have lots of friends from the U.K. as well (I've got a border collie that I train in agility) and a few rose friends across the Atlantic, lol! I live in Kansas City/Overland Park.

I am a website designer/formerly a 3D animator until the architectural industry hit the fan. So yes, I'd love to take a look at what you have. I am crazy about the bees, but of course, I hardly know a thing about them except for what I've researched online about and from joining this forum :D On the other hand, I'd have more informative views on websites, hehe!

Offline gerryt

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2011, 02:10:30 am »
Thanks for the welcome guys - much appreciated.

It's funny when people from the US say they have an affinity with Scotland/the UK I always want to say that I have the same in reverse if you know what I mean!  Never been to your shores but I'd love to.

Serena - the link in my sig works for me and I think Allen got to the site ok.  I didn't put a link in the post because I read about not being able to for a while after joining.  It's just our local association website and blog so no great shakes by your standards.  But I'm trying to drag our association into the 21st century and used Wordpress to build it.

Thanks again

Gerry
Beekeeping in Nth East Scotland

http://www.moraybeekeepers.co.uk/

Offline SerenaSYH

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2011, 05:05:51 am »
Well, Kansas City is absolutely dreadful compared to the beauty of Scotland...You have beautiful cliffs and moors and so many wonders to enjoy. I am absolutely dyin' to visit the U.K. someday. My friend Dorset Mike keeps saying the I've got to visit and come with him to see Mottisfont, and he'll board me up there. He also jokes that he's only gonna buy a one-way ticket so that I can't go back to Kansas, hahaha! Oh, I just noticed your link at the bottom, *facepalm.

Gerry, I think you did a FANTASTIC job with the organization of the site. I really enjoyed the Background "honeycomb" geometric... Artistically, I think you can upload a less pixelated version of the banner graphic....With that size you really don't need to worry about image compression so you should be able to have the original .jpg fitted. I use Photoshop for resizing to the exact dimensions of the image you need.
That banner is actually 960 pixels x 198 pixels without the black frame. You will also need a drop shadow behind the white text to make it pop out from the beehive photo to increase readability of the text. Having too much image compression lessens the wow factor of a nice hive imagery.

The clickable thin blue tabs are a very! nice touch...I can't stand it when one gets obnoxious large tabs.

For the actual menu you could possibly streamline "Educational Courses", "Calendar", and the "The Apiary" under the Umbrella Category of "Social Events" or "Participate!" You can thus implement those blue clickable sub-tabs when needed.

At the top of the page, I would put the icons of Facebook, Twitter, and the Blog.

I noticed that in most of the sections of the website, you took advantage of a clickable small thumbnail version versus an enlarged image. But for some reason the News section does not "enlarge". When one is able to click on a thumbnail, it's nice to have an actual 640x480 image for example. People love this because they can see the faces instead of "too small" to see clearly and adds to the popularity of the site for visitors.

On the Calendar page, make sure the hyperlinks are in blue, and not the red, for consistency. Just an aesthetics consideration...

On the right side, I might make a suggestion that it be organized thusly since you should group the elements directly relating to the website first.

Swarm Collection
Make a Donation
Tag Cloud
Archives
People Who Like Us
Then finally the related links:
Scottish Beekeeping (list this first? since it has your forum link?)
General Beekeeping

Now all we need to do is get Dave Cushman to hire you to help him redo that site of his, lol!

Offline gerryt

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2011, 06:02:55 am »
Wow Serena that's some serious input!  Many thanks.  I think I like most of your suggestions and I'm quite protective of "my" website hehe!  How much do I owe you?!

Not sure when I'll get time to implement all of that as some of the pages are already in the queue for some serious work already such as stitching images into the rather large expanses of text we have.  But it's a work in progress and I'll print your suggestions out for reference.  Using Wordpress I'm bound to a large extent by the theme I've chosen.  I'm not enough of a tech-head to be able to edit the theme's code without making a mess of it.  This theme is the last of around 4 I tried out.  One of the themes I did try to edit and made such a mess of it I had to do a complete re-install of Wordpress!  So I'm very much an amateur but luckily Wordpress is pretty good for the likes of me.

Unfortunately Dave passed away this year.  His website is still going though and stands as a legacy to the worldwide beekeeping community.

Gerry
Beekeeping in Nth East Scotland

http://www.moraybeekeepers.co.uk/

Offline SerenaSYH

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2011, 01:22:47 am »
Gerry, you did a wonderful job on that website, and your Society members are very lucky and blessed having you manage it. Yes, James and I are tech-heads so-to-speak, and just like you describe, if you mess up the code elements in Word Press, it can be a hair puller. Word Press is predominantly PHP, whereas my specialty is HTML and Flash actionscripting. Almost every single one of our websites are actually custom-designed. We don't go through Word Press except for helping clients who want to set up their blogs or to help them initially learn how to set up their WordPress. And just like you, we let the clients know that this is one of the biggest minuses of using Word Press. There are definite restrictions and when you want to go beyond the template, you really have to know what one is doing or else you have to start all over again, just like you describe.

I am real sorry to hear about Dave! It won't be for long though before the website will vanish, sadly. Websites have to be paid (registrar and domain name) so with no one to maintain it, once the domain name expires after a year, someone else will take it. There are certain, ummm, foreign countries that actually browse for expired domain names and buy them out so that you have to re-buy the name at a very high price. It's a pretty brutal world out there. Tons of hackers and spammers and you have to constantly guard against those **#!$% too.

Hey, maybe it's a possibility to have a special Memorandum page telling of Dave Cushman's life and works as well. And maybe links to his papers and writings. It'd be so wonderful to preserve this legacy.

Oh, one more thing-- what you can do is have a backup, pseudo-site that you can run tests on. That way, if you mess up, it's no big deal...

By the way, Gerry if you know of any beekeeper who uses heather as feeding grounds for bees, please let me know, lol!!!! I am trying to use heather to feed the bees! but am not sure how successful this endeavor it going to bee! I would love your help with that...In the U.S. heather is pretty difficult to find. I've already made about 15 orders of Heather and Heath and am crossing my fingers that the bees like it! I need to find out the acidic soil balance I'll need, etc. etc. I also am concerned that if the soil is too well-fertilized that the Heath/Heather may not bloom at all. The heath and heather will be mingled with my roses and I'm trying to not fertilize near the heath's future planting grounds. The roses are currently being fed with coffee grinds, tea leaves, and bananas as well as organic sea tea. :)

Offline gerryt

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2011, 11:25:55 am »
Thanks for the kind words again Serena.  I'd love to know how to set up the backup/test website as that would be a great help in trying things out.  I must say that for all its faults (the automatic update feature being one example of that) Wordpress is a pretty good option for an association like ours.  One of the main things I wanted was to make it easy to hand over to another amateur like me when my time with it is up.  Wordpress really lends itself to that.

Dave's website is thankfully being kept going by someone at the BBKA (english beek'ing assoc) so hopefully it'll be around for some time and will be a fitting legacy for Dave.

As to heather did you know that Scotland is famous for it's heather honey?!!  In fact if the weather is good my bees are within flying distance of a heather moor and I get a super or two of heather honey most years.   A good number of beekeepers move colonies on to heather moors in late July/August to take advantage of it.  But as to cultivation of heather I can't help.  We have mountainsides covered in the stuff - vast amounts in fact.  In order to get much honey from heather the bees need to be able to access acres of it.  Not to dissuade you from cultivating it as the bees love garden varieties as well - I think you know much more than I do about the soil conditions etc it needs!  Good luck with your project.

Cheers

Gerry
Beekeeping in Nth East Scotland

http://www.moraybeekeepers.co.uk/

Offline SerenaSYH

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Re: Hi from North East Scotland
« Reply #9 on: June 16, 2011, 01:09:18 am »
Gerry, so sorry it is taking me so long to reply! I had a super busy week with the freelancing so just came back! Actually I am thinking that the FASTEST way to protect the site is to create a folder on your computer drive with the Blog's name on it. Then under that folder create new folders, each with a corresponding date to it. Download the ENTIRE contents of the original site into the corresponding date BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THE SITE. That way in case the site gets messed up, all you have to do is delete all the site files and reupload the entire content of the original site back up again. Then let's say 2 weeks later you decide to change the site again. Redownload the entire site to a new dated folder. Then go back to the site and make your changes. So on and so forth.

The trickiest thing is being sure that you copy every single!!! file out...

Anyway, you have MUCH TO BE PROUD OF with your site. The only thing is that no one can fill your shoes at your association. I'm 100% positive about this, lol! Most people just do NOT have the know-how. Even an experienced web developer has to "work" it, before getting the interface.

About the heather, I was sooo hoping the heather would bring in the honeybees, but whoops, I had no idea it would take FIELDS UPON FIELDS of heather, lol! It is such a pretty plant and mine finally arrived. They are baby plants however! so it will take a loooong time for me to get them goin' at that! haha!

I have to giggle each time I see the tiny small plants; oh well, but at least they seem to be growing and adapting real good1 I've been feeding them tea leaves and it seems to be working well!

As for honeybees, all I can do is live vicariously through you all. Much to my horror I saw my new neigbors hire an exterminator 2 weeks ago and their house got hosed down with deadly pesticide. YIIIIKES! Did see some honeybees on my Russian sage today, so I am continuing to cross my fingers.

 

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