r john

We have crows that steal eggs even out of the chicken coop. We have overcome the problem by not letting the chickens out until the afternoon as they lay eggs normally in the morning and have replaced the nest boxes with plastic auto roll trays so that as soon as the chicken stands up the egg rolls under cover and can be collected from the outside by lifting a lid.

Mike Haych wrote:

Marty Mitchell wrote:Here is a link to the FLOW forum. Michael Bush actually popping into the conversation to help someone. Seems like he might be on board with the FLOW... or is at least taking a look at it. This thread for not using an excluder.
http://forum.honeyflow.com/t/my-experience-of-using-flow-frames-without-an-excluder/2956/7

As Milkwood Permaculture says:

The other concern we have with this device is that it encourages + celebrates beekeeper-centric beekeeping, and infers that bee stewardship is totally easy. It’s all about the punchline.

I really detest this milkwood statement. As far as I am concerned bee stewardship IS totally easy. Its humans that make it difficult. In UK we have a collapse in bee population with many experienced bee keepers struggling to keep hives alive. I like many traditional bee keepers have followed the mantra of intervention on a regular basis to spot pests and diseases and prevention of swarms. Quite frankly as a policy it has failed miserably. When I lost my last colony I decided to restock with a new buckfast queen and a minimalist approach ie less than 5 interventions per year and the encouragement of swarms. The change has been dramatic instead of failing colonies and the total lack of swarms we now have healthy colonies and swarms which are all captured and used to expand the number of colonies.

As for the freeflow I look forward to actual results rather than hearsay. Certainly as a commercial producer it could be an additional tool in the minimal intervention tool chest if it works in the field.

Your making life far more complicated then it needs to be. All you need is a low head stream engine providing 12V and then a shurflo extreme 12V pump which will lift over 40mtrs so will easily do 100ft. If your worried about flooding then the stream engine and pump could all be mounted in a steel rope tethered canoe with the water pipe cable tied to the steel rope.

You can compress natural gas but you need equipment similar to that used for diving equipment. If you want more details just google Jean Pain and watch the videos of him travelling around in his 2CV van with compressed gas bottles derived from woodchip compost.

Sorry Steve when I said normal diesel engine I meant Mr Lister non of this eco warrior EGR needing ECU's. Thats just for the corporates to screw more out of you on increased maintenance costs.
Getting back to basics a lot of the problems associated with coal slurries are due to the impurities found in the coal. Wood on the other hand is a clean product which when torrefied produces a pure charcoal product. Due to its pure nature its easy to grind down in a ball mill to a consistent less than 20 micron size. Its then a simple mixing process if you can make peanut butter you can make charcoal slurry.

Steve

I would agree with you if you where using charcoal slurry in an ordinary engine as you have no lubrication however by adding oil in the mix you solve the lubrication problem.


A bit of bed time reading for you

http://www.comb.ritsumei.ac.jp/combust/Paper_Plastic/Paper068.pdf

Sorry missed this. Charcoal slurry is the end product of our torrefied wood process and can be used direct in modified diesel engines or in normal diesel engines if incorporated with an oil additive.