I thought I had found a wondrful new area. It came complete with an enthusiastic owner and a waterfowl refuge with lots of short grass prairie and boggy margins behind me. Well, I found out why it was not occupied. It is dry, hot and the soil holds little water apparently. All that alfalfa in the CRP just stalled out and the blooms seem to offer little. The strongest couple of hives I put there are making a little honey but the rest are just making a living. Now I know why the commercial guys in the area weren't already there. Now the landowner is doing what the guvmint requires of him which is trim down the forage so fire cannot run across it as fast. The landowner was kind and only trashed half of it, so he wasn't leaving me without any forage. It cost him money not to do the whole thing at once and I owe him even if his efforts in my behalf are largely in vain. I will have to include some mead I have fermenting in my rent.