Making competent Bl21(DE3) cells

The starter culture from 7/11 overgrew to around an OD of 3 (want OD around 0.5) so I am re-picking colonies to make a new starter culture in 7 ml of LB broth. Put in 37 C incubator t 9:40 AM
Using this protocol.
At 1 pm (3 h 20 m) the OD was up to 0.52, (shooting for between 0.4 and 0.6)
Added 0.5 ml to 50 ml of zymo broth. Left at RT for an hour and placed into 21 C incubator starting at 2 pm 7/12.
- The incubator started at around 27 C at 2 pm and is taking a while to ramp down.
At 5:50 Pm the OD is 0.087, which seems rather high for only 4 hours. The protocol says 10 to 36 hours.
At 7:50 pm (6 hour incubation time) The OD is 0.45 and I stopped incubating and began the protocol for making cells.
After completion of the protocol, I aliquoted the cells (100 ul) into 50 pcr tubes in the -80C, second row fourth unit from the bottom.

Transformation with pET24a+AmelF3 (Honeybee silk)

Thaw a tube of NEB 5-alpha Competent E. coli cells on ice for 10 minutes.
Split into two aliquots of 25uL.
Add 1uL of the 3:1 to one tube, and the 5:1 ligated product to the second aliquot.
Place the mixture on ice for 30 minutes.
Heat shock at exactly 42°C for exactly 30 seconds.
Place on ice for 5 minutes.
Pipette 850 µl of room temperature SOC into a culture tube.
Pipette 100uL of RT SOC into the tubs, transfer each to a prepared culture tube (from last step)
Place at 37°C for 60 minutes in the shaker incubator.
Warm kanamycin plates to 37°C.
Make 2 ten-fold dilutions in SOC.
Plate 100uL of each dilution (1:1, 1:10, 1:100) and spread with beads.
Incubate at 37C overnight (put in 1:00PM)