How'd it go today?

[rumination]

They "hibernate" over the winter, which here is about the end of September till April. No care necessary. If there's a problem I have a beekeeper friend who lives nearby who can check in on them for me.

 

[No_Bivy]

they cluster.....and virbrate around the Queen...they never sleep. Eat constantly and move shoulder muscles to generate heat.....93degrees in the cluster center....despite the outside temp.....CRAZY

 

[stehansen]

So does that mean they need to be well fed going into the winter?

 

[rumination]

Yes. Usually it's just a matter of knowing how much honey to leave for them to get through the winter. In a tough year, though, you might have to feed them.

 

[No_Bivy]

possibly....by feeding now, they store it around the brood chamber and in the super above. When temp get cold, they cluster. This cluster will slowly migrate around the "stores" of sugar/honey....If they run low, you can put sugar on in the hive(syrup/jar or baggie feeders), and they will cluster near it.....hopefully surviving the winter

 

[rumination]

Since I'm doing top bar hives, as opposed to John's Langstroth hives, there might be slight differences in methodology.

 

[No_Bivy]

I saw a top bar hive on a bid the other day....You have any pics of your set up....are you have to really follow how they are building comb?

 

[CurSedVoyce]

That's cool Brett... Hope the increase goes well Brian...
Andy.. For ground work two guys at 45.00 per is fair. Your saws, gas etc. No chipping.. No bigger equipment... ie tractor. Tractor with bush hog here gets 60-65 per hour all by itself. With operator inclusive. Also make sure you get a trip fee per day if it is that far out, unless he will put you up or let you camp for a few days at a time. Be sure you have redundancy in your saws and plenty of chain and sharpening tools. You are on the clock when sharpening also. If you sub out the tractor.. Just ask the operator how many acres he/she can mow per day or hour. Bid that.. No problem unless there is a terrain or rock or obstacle issue... Slows the tractor down. Remember trees are brush in the air... It takes almost the same amount of effort dropping and brushing the trees as brush on the ground would.. For my neck of the woods I can figure about 600-1000 per acre depending on density and terrain not including brush hog and tractor... If I use rope with me on it.. 50 per hour for just me. Doubt you have that issue there. Depending on the amount of brush piles from the acreage I have to burn I may charge the HO for the propane/accelerant.

Well got the last tree down and everything cleaned up from today. Cut the HO a sweet deal on it all and still got a tip. I will probably be back for 2 more TDs this fall or winter. Not to mention some burning possible fire wood processing. I climbed 4 white oaks and 3 live oaks today and I am beat. Lowered most of it. Check came in the mail from an over due payment plus the check for today and I am happy. Should have all my payments due after vacation out before vacation Peace of mind. More good news came in today and I should have a trailer load of 2X6X16 before or after vacation... Probably after as I have to build with them quick. Tomorrow I finish up a little job and deliver some fire wood to fill in a cancellation.
Oh.. And Rob took a blow to the head today from pole saw work. Probably could have used stitches but he does not believe in stitching a head wound unless it is a flap that need replaced. So he feels he needs to wear PPE now..:roll: So I am buying him his own helmut Maybe a head ache will finally get it through his head

 

[stehansen]

This africanized bee thing has me scared to get into the business.

 

[sawinredneck]

If I can sb out the brush hogging, that will be their deal, I don't want a cut and I think it can be done local cheaper than I can do it. I've seen it advertised around Wichita for $65 an acre, being rural it might be cheaper there if I can find the people.
The only equipment I plan on using is my saws and the mini. I have pelnty of saws and chains, and the mini is just there to make it easier for me, I've drug enough brush, I don't care to if I don't have to! I am hoping I can set up a burn pile and not have to haul all this crap out! I have no idea at this time what the trees are yet but there might be some usable firewood in this area.
A whole lot of speculation until I see it for now.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

A whole lot of speculation until I see it for now.

Yup.. Take a good walk over it and try to section it out in what you can accomplish in a day.... Add that up on your day rate. Add some percentage in case.. And you have an estimate.
Pad it somewhere for the mini use

 

[Al Smith]

Met with my daughter,grand daughter,niece and grand nephew at red lobster . Great time .

Got the news my son and DIL are awaiting the arrival of a son due Dec 20 .

Busy day today .I'm going to first help a guy get a metal lathe in operation running a 3 phase motor on single phase .Some time afterwards Tom is having trouble with his bucket truck .

Evidently his throttle is not comming up when the truck is sat for use .On a normal truck with a mewchanical linkage once the pump shows pressure a line goes via the linkage to the carb increasing the rpms' .

This one in an International diesel,"fly by wire" ,no mechanical linkage .I know absolutely nothing about them so this will be a learning experiance .

 

[Mr. Sir]

Al, it's probably something simple, like a bad switch, loose connection, or a fuse. I've got the same setup on my bucket and it sometime just stops working. Shut the key off, start it up again, and its fine. :what:

 

[Al Smith]

I pretty much figure that's about what it has to be . Tom was concerned the pump wasn't putting out enough pressure but I've as yet to ever see the pump go out on a bucket truck .According to him it works but just at a very slow rate because of no increase in engine speed . The rest of the boom system is just standard HI-Ranger of which I'm pretty familiar with .

Buckets and other man lift devices have such a high built in safety factor that unless a person intentionaly bypassed something ,no component is under high stress such as the hydraulic system in general .

 

[Al Smith]

Oh just a tid bit which means nothing .Tom had a relic of a 42 footer once,old as the hills .It used a solinoid to increase the speed via a pressure switch .

The thing was so old you couldn't find parts for it .I made a solinoid from a Chevy stater solinoid which worked better than the original .Hillbilly ingenuity .

The damned old fossil also had a rebuilt Chevy water pump rebuilt with Ford components . You have enough junk you can make anything work .McGiver strikes again .

 

[rumination]

I saw a top bar hive on a bid the other day....You have any pics of your set up....are you have to really follow how they are building comb?

I'll try to get some pictures later today. With the top bar hive there is some regular checking up involved to make sure they're building straight comb. Once you have a few hives going and you can swap straight combs from one to another then it becomes much easier. Once the bees have a couple straight combs as a guide anything they build in between will be straight too. So it's just a matter of constantly putting in empty top bars between straight combs at about the same rate that they're wanting to build comb. Once things get set with a new hive then it's not too difficult, you can be in and out of the hive in under 10 minutes. You've got to check at the very least every 2 weeks during the flowering season, though, otherwise you can end up with a serious mess of cross combing.


Steve, are africanized bees a problem in your area? How cold does it get in the winter time? I sure wouldn't want to deal with them.

 

[stehansen]

Not yet Leon, but they are pretty close. I think our winter is substantially milder than yours. We don't go much below freezing for any length of time. I live in Stanislaus County. I think the yellow counties have the bees and the brown counties are next.

 

[rumination]

You're probably in their transition zone then. During the summer the africanized bees will swarm and move north, but then will either die or move back down south when winter comes or things stop flowering. They can't handle cold at all, they're a tropical bee.

 

[stehansen]

Did you have to get a county inspection or permit for your bees Leon? SoCal was a really nice place for beekeeping because they had year round food available.

 

[rumination]

No inspection or permit necessary here for just a few personal beehives Steve. I think the commercial guys with 1000s of hives probably do get inspected regularly, but I'm not sure they even need a permit, just need to register as a commercial beekeeper.

However, if your neighbors complain about your bees they can get the honeybee inspector to come out and try to solve the problem. Also I think you can have the honeybee inspector come out to identify disease problems if your bees are unhealthy.

 

[lumberjack]

I went out and used a hook shaped tool to pull the fuel rack back to the governor (from shut off to WOT), and moved the throttle lever to WOT so the governor wouldn't snap back and the engine fired right up like it didn't just take 4 month vacation.

I just talked to my old diesel mechanic, he said that's the second time he's heard of that spring breaking. The first time it was in a Perkins. He also said I might be able to fix it through the shut off's cutout, but he didn't think I needed to pull the timing cogs (uses a timing belt) which is fantastic to pull the governor.

I'm searching for the part online so perhaps I can see how it goes together. I'm not overly optomistic that I can put the spring in without pulling the governor. If anyone has relevant info, I'm all ears (Deutz 1011, 4cyl Turbo)

 

[sawinredneck]

Looked at the "clearing job" today, not as bad as I expected, remove two Pines, one dead, one in a bad spot. Stake up a Peach tree, remove a huge TV antena (60ish ft. high), weedeat and mow three or four acres, a little dirt/gravel work, then clear underbrush and raise an evergreen hegde row to five ft. I figure two guys, three days and bid it at $1300, he didn't even flinch.
There is a lot more there that I can/could do so we will see how it goes as we proceed. He has a fish pond he wants out, this thing is solid concrete, six inch walls three ft. deep! We'll see if I want to tackle it, he was unable to move it with a mini-ex! He's just overwhelmed trying to work on the house and catch up with everything else.
It's 100 mile round trip though!

 

[Newfie]

I bet he didn't flinch. You work way too cheap Andy. Maybe prices are drastically different around you.

 

[sawinredneck]

I'm broke! The trees are easy flops, no climbing and I can burn there. The hardest work will be cleaning up the hedge and I think we can be done faster than three days.

 

[brendonv]

Price sounds like a day of work in my hood.

Double those numbers.