Aaron Althouse

My main features are a pocket clip, thumb assist, blade lock, and blade hardness (not to mention how it fits in yer hand). I have a number of blades with different blade lengths and edges, but the one I keep in my pocket for daily use is the  Browning Mountain TI 3". The handle is just right for my hand and it's not too intrusive a size so as to be bulky or obvious. At around $20 you can't go wrong. When needed, I've pulled it completely apart with an allen wrench set, cleaned it, and put it back together in just a few minutes. It always holds its edge.

You might try a 55 gallon barrel - that's what we did with our 1st hog. Heated the water with a weed burner and hoisted it into the barrel with the excavator boom. Not the most elegant solution but it worked!

Whatever you do, DON'T overheat the water. Also - avoid any temptation to scald the hair off with flame.  

-AA

I'd swap crimson clover for red clover (or add it in as well) as it seems to be a better bee forage. Good vendor. That's who I buy from.

If you want to see pictures and read more details on my post mortem, search my name and "bees" in google (aaron althouse bees) and you should come up with links to the other forum I frequent. If that doesn't work, send me a Mooseage and I'll follow up with you.

Agreed with Micheal's comment above regarding starting out with standard equipment.

One thing I wish I knew before starting out is to standardize on (Lang) medium boxes. They do fine as brood chambers and serve as honey supers, and you can move them around easier when laden, than moving deeps.

I also think a person could start with a Top Bar Hive, which alleviates the moving boxes issue and lessens the bending & tending.

Mainly you'll need to think about how much of a hands-on beek you want to be and that will help drive some of your choices.

Hi Julia,

I live on the Olympic Peninsula, so I'm not too far away from you and have had similar observations. Last Sunday was a nice enough day, so I took my hive apart and did a pretty thorough but *quick* inspection. I did not take it apart enough to look for brood since I see many young bees in the hive. At least they look “fresh” to me, and I see lots of orientation flights when the days warm up. I assume the queen is busy doing her thing and don’t need to disturb her or her brood.

So my take is that queens here are laying now to prepare for the spring flow.

Aaron

Hi Blythe,

I live over near Port Ludlow and experienced a hive loss earlier this year. I did a post mortem and found many of the same symptoms you describe - most notably few dead bees, no brood, and no real distinct signs of starvation or disease. I saw them flying on "warm" days up to about 3 weeks before I pulled the lid and saw it was a dead out. The best guess from a number of beeks is that the queen failed/died/whatever in late fall, and the survivors dwindled and they eventually lost enough mass to keep themselves warm and froze.

Aaron

I was able to use the link below, downloaded the file and get the key in email without issues. Just adding my experiences.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2015/01/google-earth-pro-is-now-free.html

Rebecca Norman wrote:Hmm, we might like to copy that. How are the logs/boards secured, eg at that upper point? Are they nailed in? (Seems unlikely with those split logs) Or resting on spikes in the vertical, or what?

That was what I was going to ask. I can't tell from the images.

Thanks!

Oh! Makes sense - lol. Thanks again for the information!