So, what's the difference between:
- fees and reward during mining in a pool
Block reward is the sum of the block subsidy (currently 25 BTC) and the transaction fees of all the transactions that are included in the block.
Each pool has their own rules on what they pay to the miners that particpate in the pool. Some share the fees, some don't.
- having my wallet stored and ran by a bitcoind node
I don't understand the question. Stored where?
On the bitcoind node I ran this:
When does this fee ever get calculated?
When you use that bitcoind to create a bitcoin transaction to transfer value that you control to some other bitcoin address.
Also, what is my bitcoind node doing with all its 57 peer connections?
Receiving transactions, making sure they are valid, and then relaying them to peers that don't have them yet.
Receiving blocks, making sure they are valid, adding them to your local copy of the blockchain, and then relaying them to peers that don't have them yet.