Meliou is a beekeeping company that appeared in an episode of a show called Bulletproof. It’s a show about cops or spies or something, but that is barely important to this review beyond the fact that Meliou, the company, is owned by members of the Markides Crime Family, who are probably the villains of the show.

Based in Cyprus and founded in 1954, Meliou is a thriving business that, in addition to making honey, makes olive oil and wine and soap and who knows what else. They have hives by the dozens. Possibly hundreds of employees. In fact, it’s so successful that the members of the crime family are not the ones being reviewed here today. They ain’t Beekeepers, they just own the company. Aside from the fact that the criminals use false hives as a place to keep weapons, this is just an unconnected enterprise. I could probably argue that some of the cartel’s muscle may have day jobs here, so maybe there are combat-ready Beekeepers, but we don’t know that. Seems like normal folks.

Three Honeycombs out of Five. We’re told the company is good for the island, and I assume that by the time the show ends the cartel is no longer in charge. I usually rate “standard successful beekeepers” at Two, but this does seem to be a bigger scale than usual. This isn’t someone with a successful hive in their back yard, it’s an international company. If the individuals who do actually make up the Beekeepers here happen to be screwups, we don’t get to see that, so I am giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Hark! Do you hear those trumpets? Why, that’s the sound of the Dark Lord Char’Nagh riding down the mountain to let us know that another year has ended.

It felt like 2023 whizzed by, didn’t it? It just went by so quickly. I know that’s just what happens as one piles years upon years, but I’m not a fan. It feels like I’m forever trying to catch up to the flow of time, but if I take a rest I fall behind. Let’s hope that maybe in 2024 I’m not so overwhelmed.

I don’t know that I have anything else to report right now. Judging from the last two days, I think I’m getting over a light case of food poisoning. I’m not sure what I ate that caused it, but my body has reacted by kicking out as much fluid as it can without me becoming a desiccated husk. But hey, I don’t get ill like that very often, so let’s hope that ending 2023 that way means a fresh start for 2024.

Yesterday morning I spent some time with my family. About fifteen minutes (or more) of this were spent with me getting my hair styled by my four-year-old niece. She was very good at being a stylist, making conversation with her client, which included the following exchange that came as she was working on the top of my head:

Her: “Why is there so much skin on top?”

PDR: “I don’t know.”

Her: “I know. It’s ’cause you’re old.”

She was right, of course, so I wanted this recorded for posterity.