badmoonryzn Hatfield

Oh, I forgot to say one other way they used to get the bees. They used a vacuum connected to a long hose. They used a stand to hold the hose next to the hole in the nest and turned on the vac. The hose must have been 40 feet long and the stand that help the end of the hose up by the nest looked like a big long mike stand. They took every bee they could get their hands on, so I figured they must have been worth quite a bit of money. I often wondered how much money it was worth to collect nests during the summer, but none of the guys would ever let on who they sold the bees to. I will say after a few years the bees around here declined quite a bit. I have often wondered how it effected the local wildlife that depended on the bees for food.

Hmmm???

OK, all things being done from a control of 3 inch high lawn, with 30 blades of grass per square inch, with each blade being 1/8 of an inch wide by 1/100 of an inch thick. I came up with this after looking at the Kentucky blue grass growing on my front lawn. Looking at the rolling mass of a push reel mower with the blades being set up with the proper tolerance and sharpened. We will use a power reel mower with 6 blades and a push reel mower with 6 blades each geared 11 to 1. We can push the un-powered mower without grass at X pounds of force on the handles. Then we can take the power mower with out grass and push it. This may be a problem because I have never seen a power reel mower that did not have a powered drive system. There are so many variables involved with rolling mass I suppose all I can say at this point is, HELP! If we un hook the drive and just push the mower it will take more X to get it rolling because of the extra weight of the engine, but because of the extra weight it would maintain a constant speed with less power. I am not a mathematician, so I need someone who is to continue with this problem because my head is starting to hurt. I used one of the push mowers for years because my pop used one when he was a kid and honestly I think it was some kind of a get even thing or learning thing. You know, if it was good enough for me by golly, it is good enough for you type thing. I do know when he took over the lawn mowing chores he purchased a power reel mower. lol He never again said anything about the push mower being a good thing. Mowing one of those dichondra lawns proved to be more of a problem because it was thick and the blades were a half an inch thick too. I am not sure what kind of grass that stuff is, but it looks more like clover with one leaf. The one thing a reel mower has going for it is the perfect cut. The rotating blades cut on an anvil and pull the grass in to the blade and anvil for a nice straight level cut. That must be why they use them on the greens of a golf course. It would be interesting to see how much power it take to run each of the mowers, but I will never use an un-powered mower again regardless of the outcome. I may convert mine to battery powered electric so I can charge it with my solar power or water/wind powered gen, but that is another story. All in all the amount of power used to push the mower across the lawn is more than I want to do and while there may be people who want to use those nasty things, I am not one of them. I also have a lawn that is over one acre, so it ain't-a-gonna-happen. lol Cheers!

As a child around 1070 I saw a nest that was four feet wide and about 3 feet high hanging from the beam of an old saw mill. That year was warm from spring all the way through the fall and the bees developed very large nests. My friends and I were not able to keep messing with the biggest nest we had ever seen and we all got stung a few times trying to run away from a cloud of bees that followed us for several hundred yards. I have never seen that many bee in one place before, nor have I ever seen a nest that large again. The nest surrounded a big beam and was calling out to us. Please throw a rock and see what happens. Please, Please! throw a rock. Well, I watched as my buddy pitch a small rock. He missed and I missed until one of us decided we needed to get a little bit closer and use a larger rock. I found one round river rock about three inches in diameter and gave it a hurl. I hit the nest dead center. A million bees came out of that nest and started to chase me. I ran out of the building and headed toward my aunts house , I got a few of the bees in my hair  and a couple of stings on my head, but I was lucky one of the other guys got ten or so stings on his face and the other guy got about the same. I left exactly at the same time I threw the rock and I still got stung so those bees are pretty fast. When I went back later the nest had fallen to the floor of the mill and there were a ton of angry bees, so I stayed far away. If you got close enough to the bees they took off after you again so it seemed to me the bees had good vision. My rock throwing days at bee nests came to an end that day, however it was really cool to see that black cloud come out of the nest. Cheeers

Interesting, the critter remembers pain, it does not say anything about it being self aware. While the process of metamorphosis is awesome I can't get to carried away with something like this because I'll bet most all creatures that start out as grubs that change into something else remembers most everything from it's pupa stage because the brain is the same. What is the big deal about maintaining an infant learning process in the same brain? I would hope the critter's early development would stay intact so it would not need to learn everything all over again. Personally I believe evolution would allow for these kind of processes.

Up here in the northwest we use to have problems with those critters every year. There are several guys who come up every year to get as many Yellow Jackets as they can. They sell them to a company that makes anti venom. They worked as a team and removed the nest at night. These guys used a big black 33 gallon garbage bag. They had a ladder and a bucket truck. They would put they bag over the nest and close it up around the nest. They did it very quickly. I watched them one night do about ten of the nests around our property. They also put out traps made from gallon milk jugs. They put a little water in them with a few drops of a pheromone to attract the bees with yellow jackets on, as my daughter called them. lol

They also wanted the bees we call bald face hornets. They pointed out to me that they are not a hornet, as there are no hornets in the United States. They are another variety of the Yellow Jacket. These were the most desirable ones because they weighted a gram per bee. The black yellow jackets were worth about a dollar a piece. Anyway, They were quite good at getting that bag over the nests without missing. Then they put the bags in a cooler full of dry ice. They put them in a deep freeze as soon as they got to where they were staying. They used C02 to spray on the nests to get the bees to become inactive in nests that they thought may become a problem getting the bag over it without getting the bees angry and getting themselves stung. These guys said they earned 25k every summer capturing yellow jackets and other stinging insects. Oh, they said they could not get stung through the plastic bags, but I did not test it out. lol I hope this helps.
Cheers,
dent

Hey Paul and readers,

I have or had six pine trees we planted 20+ years ago. I lost one four years ago and I am losing one now. It will not survive the summer. These trees are thirty to 40 feet high. Five years ago one started to look like it was not getting enough water. They are 60 feet from a river and the water table is around 15 feet and less in the winter.  The topsoil is about three to four feet deep where the trees are planted and under that is river rock. The trees are located toward the end of the septic tank drain field, about 20 feet away. These trees did great until the five+ years ago. They started to turn brown on the end of the needles. This happened for a couple of years but recovered in the winter. I tested the soil and PH and balanced it all around the house, however it was close anyway. The maples went nuts and started to grow 20 feet a year and the rest of the trees, pines, firs and cedars did real good too. A year later the brown needles came back around mid July. The trees were watered extra and the one tree started it brown needle stuff again next July.

I took a sample of the tree limb to the local nursery, but they said it may be a lack of water, but he was not sure because it looked pretty normal. Trust me it is not a lack of water. There are five trees within eight feet of each other and they are fine. A friend found about something called rust that attacks the roots of the white pine and I guess it stops the tree from drawing water but this tree is between the others and it would seem they would have caught it first and if the first tree that died could have spread the problem to the ones that were closer. They are white pines if that helps. They all put out cones this year except the one that is dying now. The rest of the trees look great except one and the one that is a goner. It will most likely die in the next two or three years like the others. I hate to loose these trees, as my children planted them when they were little. I have looked this problem up on the internet, books, took it to several places and so far nothing.

I have a few fiends who have asked people at the University and they all say it looks OK to them. Several said that pines look like that during the late summer, but my other ones look fine throughout the summer. When I water the lawn they get water too. During the hot parts of the summer I water the trees too. I have two other little pines. I am not sure what they are called because they came from a nursery where the trees are grafted from a pine tree that grows on the coast off the edge of the high cliffs. They are small pine shrubs I guess and they use the root from this tough little pine and a small round pine tree on the top. It takes the shape of a big ball with a short stalk about four feet high. They are both doing great too. Any ideas would be great and if needed I can take pictures. Thanks for the great site.
Kind regards
Dent

OK Paul,

I love your web site, however with you recommending pushing one of those monsters and telling people it is easier to push one of those than it is to use a push power mower? OK, now that statement makes me wonder about you. I think someone has brainwashed you at an early age about pushing a reel mower vs. on pushing a mower powered by an engine or motor of some type. Did your mom or dad tell you this and give you a cookie or a heath bar every time they told you it twenty-one times?  I use to mow my papa's lawn from the time I was around seven years old until I was eighteen year old. We lived in Fullerton CA and in San Jose CA and my dad and others felt it necessary to take care of a  dichondra lawn. GRRRR!

I hated that blasted stuff and the only way he said I could cut the crap was with a reel mower. That funny little lawn could really get thick and was quite a chore for a little guy like me to mow. I would have to get a running start on the cement sidewalk, driveway of something mowed for about ten feet to make it to the other side without stopping because of, Not enough power in the kid. lol Finally when I was 18 and moving out he purchased a gas powered reel mower. While I admit I have not put a load cell on the bars of a push mower and checked to see how much weight it took to push through the grass of a one inch trim of normal grass. I'll bet the power mower is a lot less. I have used both myself and I know it is a lot easier to push the one that cuts the grass with a four horse engine through the grass. Nice try though. lol I love your Web site. It is really full of so many useful things. Thanks for taking the time to build it and sharing the information with us all!

Best Regards,
Dent

dribble on!