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FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 2020
Danica Kirka
LONDON (AP) - In the end, Marga-
ret Payne scaled her mountain, one
step at a time.
The 90-year-old grandmother
who launched an epic climb to
raise money for charity completed
her fundraiser on Tuesday. Payne
scaled the stairs at her home the
equivalent of 731 metres - enough
to reach the peak of Scotland's
iconic Suilven mountain.
Payne, who is from Ardvar in the
Scottish Highlands, calculated that
climbing 282 lights of her staircase
would get her to the top of a moun-
tain she climbed only once, when
she was 15.
“I just climbed a few stairs ev-
ery day until I got to the top, 282
times,” Payne told
The Associated
Press
. The feat took her 73 days
and kept her busy for 10 weeks
while the United Kingdom (UK)
sheltered in lockdown due to the
COVID19 pandemic.
Payne took on the challenge af-
ter being inspired by military veter-
an Tom Moore, who completed 100
laps of his garden just before his
100
th
birthday to raise money for
the National Health Service (NHS).
The feat captivated the lock-
down nation, and Moore ended
up raising some GBP33 million
(USD40 million).
Watching his feat on television,
Payne's daughter, Nicky McArthur,
told her mother, “Look at what Tom
is doing. We should turn your stair
climbing into something.”
Suddenly, Payne's regular ex-
ercise routine on wet and windy
Scottish days was transformed into
her own fundraiser for the NHS in
gratitude for the care for her hus-
band, Jim, received before he died
on Christmas Day last year. Three
other charities, NHS Highlands,
Highlands Hospice and RNL will
also beneit.
Her desire to help struck a chord
in a country where 42,927 people
with the coronavirus have died and
the efforts of the NHS have been
heralded as nothing short of heroic.
Payne has raised GBP416,000
(USD521,000), much of which
came in small donations from
people who were struggling in the
pandemic. Among her many fans
are Prince Charles and his wife,
Camilla, who wrote Payne to praise
her accomplishments.
“There could hardly be a better
example of this indomitable spirit
than your own magniicent efforts
in raising money for vital charities,”
Charles wrote. “It is people like
yourself who show that, for every
hardship there has been a hero - or,
of course, a heroine.”
Payne seemed properly pleased
with completing her epic climb, in
part because it helped her show
herself what she could do, to move
past her own personal grief and to
help others. Her telephone keeps
ringing sometimes with reporters,
sometimes it is just people who
want to cheer her on.
“I can't imagine myself ever do-
ing anything like this again,” Payne
said. “But I think that it is important,
as you get old, that you don't sit
back and think 'I'm getting old, I
can just relax.' If you want to keep
going, you must keep active, and
keep walking.”
Grandma climbs ‘mountain’,
one step at a time
Margaret Payne poses for a photo on the stairs of her home in Sutherland, Scotland. PHOTO: AP
Seth Borenstein
AP - American honeybee colonies
have bounced back after a bad
year, the annual beekeeping
survey inds.
Beekeepers only lost 22.2
per cent of their colonies this
past winter, from October 1 to
March 31, which is lower than
the average of 28.6 per cent,
according to the Bee Informed
Partnership’s annual survey of
thousands of beekeepers. It was
the second smallest winter loss
in the 14 years of surveying done
by several different United States
(US) universities.
Last
winter’s
loss
was
considerably less than the
previous winter of 20182019
when a record 37.7 per cent of
colonies died off, the scientists
found. After that bad winter,
the losses continued through
the summer of 2019, when
beekeepers reported a 32 per
cent loss rate. That’s much higher
than the average of 21.6 per cent
for summer losses. Those summer
losses were driven more by hives
of commercial beekeepers than
backyard hobbyists, said Bee
PartnershipScientiicCoordinator
Nathalie Steinhauer.
While the summer losses are
bad, winter deaths are “really
the test of colony health”, so the
results overall are good news,
Steinhauer said. “It turned out to
be a very good year.”
Populations tend to be
cyclical with good years following
bad ones, she said. The scientists
surveyed
3,377
commercial
beekeepers
and
backyard
enthusiasts in the US.
“One would hope that a
lower winter loss means a better
2020 assuming that the weather
cooperates and beekeepers
don’t end up skimping on colony
management,” said University
of Montana bee expert Jerry
Bromenshenk, who wasn’t part of
the study.
Beekeepers in the US also may
be taking more of their colonies
indoors in the winter, helping
them survive, said University
of Georgia entomologist Keith
Delaplane. New US Department
of Agriculture research suggests
putting bees in “cold storage”
helps them survive the winter.
For decades scientists have
been watching the population of
pollinators - crucial to the world’s
food supply - shrink. Honeybees,
the most easily tracked, are
threatened by mites, diseases,
pesticides and loss of food.
Loss rates now being seen
“are part of the new normal”,
Steinhauer said.
US honeybees bounce back after
a bad year
The queen bee and worker bees move around a hive at the Veterans
Affairs in Manchester, New Hampshire. PHOTO: AP