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Author Topic: I am all ears, give us a rundown please  (Read 18771 times)

Offline hardwood

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #60 on: January 02, 2011, 08:28:20 pm »
All I can say is " Man up and grow a pair...what are you afraid of?"

Scott
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

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Offline deknow

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #61 on: January 03, 2011, 10:53:37 am »
a few thoughts....

1.  once the queen has been released, i'd be willing to bet that on balance, first year beekeepers with little experience generally do the bees more harm than good when they inspect the colony.  brood is spread too far, bees (the queen?) get rolled and killed... bees are inspected once or twice a week because the beekeeper can't stand to not know what is going on in the box.  i don't see a problem with this (see below), but if "caring" for the bees is the primary concern, inspections should be infrequent and one should not even have bees until spending a season working with another beekeeper.

2.  i'm a big fan of learning about bees, i just don't think that everyone has that as a goal.

3.  i think the overriding goal of beeschools (having new beekeepers successfully overwinter their first hive) is problematic.  i think the goal _should_ be learning about bees....which means (for someone with little or no experience) more frequent inspections than is "good for the bees" (once a week seems about right to me), and even going so far as to keep an observation hive their first year (something i know micahael bush has been saying for a long time).  even if a new hive dies, you've got comb for next year....and although it is dificult for a newbee to maintain an observation hive, they will learn more in trying to do so than they will in several years of keeping one or two hives.

4.  unlike buying a cow or a flock of chickens, bees largely take care of themselves.  "leaving them alone" is very different than having chickens in a coop or a cow tied to a pole and not feeding and watering them.

5.  if i have some kind of moral responisiblity towards "caring" for the bees i purchase, i wonder how i should boil a lobster i purchase?

deknow

Offline Acebird

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #62 on: January 03, 2011, 11:07:32 am »
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brood is spread too far, bees (the queen?) get rolled and killed...


I have seen this term used more than once.  What is getting rolled and how does one avoid it?
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Offline Kathyp

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #63 on: January 03, 2011, 11:17:48 am »
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i wonder how i should boil a lobster i purchase?

rolling boil.  don't over cook.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline hardwood

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #64 on: January 03, 2011, 11:26:48 am »
When you pull up on a frame with little space between the next frame the bees in between the frames are "rolled" between the two. That's why you should pull an outside frame first and slide the second frame to the outside wall of the hive to give yourself (and the bees) some room. The outside frames are normally storage (not brood) frames and the queen is less likely to be there.

You wouldn't want to pull a center frame first.

Scott
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Offline VolunteerK9

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #65 on: January 03, 2011, 11:35:19 am »
a few thoughts....



4.  unlike buying a cow or a flock of chickens, bees largely take care of themselves.  "leaving them alone" is very different than having chickens in a coop or a cow tied to a pole and not feeding and watering them.

5.  if i have some kind of moral responisiblity towards "caring" for the bees i purchase, i wonder how i should boil a lobster i purchase?

deknow

Yes and no. I can evaluate my chickens egg laying performance by how many eggs that I gather everyday. In order to evaluate my queens performance, a hive check is required. I wish that I could stand outside and magically tell how well or poorly the hive was doing but to do so an internal hive check is required. As a newbee this year, I was guilty of going in too many times after installing my packages, but I learned a lot in doing so. An observation hive would have been great, I agree, but I have also heard that OH are far more tedious and problematic and not really recommended for a beginner. I would dare say that very few if any beekeepers on this site or others started out with one.

The way I care for my lobster is to refrigerate it, set grill to medium and then 5 minutes on each side. Butter is optional  :-D

Offline Acebird

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #66 on: January 03, 2011, 11:53:00 am »
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You wouldn't want to pull a center frame first.

It is my experience that you can't anyway.  That center one is glued in so bad you have to break the frame to get it to budge.  I always go for the outside one first.  That is probably something you can learn on your own.
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Offline deknow

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #67 on: January 03, 2011, 12:01:25 pm »
Yes and no. I can evaluate my chickens egg laying performance by how many eggs that I gather everyday.
yes you can....but you not expecting your chickens to forage for their own food and water.....they are livestock who don't eat unless you feed them (at least our chickens are, yours could be completely "free range").  you are essentially giving them the raw materials to "make" eggs for you.  if you do the same with bees, you either have thousands of acres that you have planted, or you are not producing honey (bees fed honey are not producing it, they are storing it...and bees fed sugar are not producing honey).

Quote
In order to evaluate my queens performance, a hive check is required. I wish that I could stand outside and magically tell how well or poorly the hive was doing but to do so an internal hive check is required.
there is a lot you can tell from the outside of the hive.  if there are orientation flights brood is being raised, if the hive is heavy, honey is being stored.  if they are being robbed, they are weak.  if there are tons of drones you might have a supercedure or a swarm on your hands....and if you have tons of drones and no worker orientation flights you might have laying workers.  multiple hives in a single location gives you even more information.

Quote
As a newbee this year, I was guilty of going in too many times after installing my packages, but I learned a lot in doing so. An observation hive would have been great, I agree, but I have also heard that OH are far more tedious and problematic and not really recommended for a beginner. I would dare say that very few if any beekeepers on this site or others started out with one.
did you read my post above????  isn't this exactly what i said?  the reason that observation hives aren't really recommended for beginners is that they are hard to manage, not that the new beekeeper won't learn a lot.

Quote
The way I care for my lobster is to refrigerate it, set grill to medium and then 5 minutes on each side. Butter is optional  :-D
ok, so purchasing bees requires that you "care for them", but purchasing a lobster allows you to boil it alive and eat it.  fire ants don't deserve care because their bites hurt...but honeybee stings also hurt (but fire ants don't produce honey or pollinate our crops).

for many, their need or desire for bees doesn't extend beyond a little local pollination.  i'm not sure why anyone would want or need to impose their own views of "appropriate responsibility" on someone just because they purchased bees to pollinate crops rather than a lobster to eat for dinner.

Offline Acebird

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #68 on: January 03, 2011, 12:16:29 pm »
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for many, their need or desire for bees doesn't extend beyond a little local pollination.  i'm not sure why anyone would want or need to impose their own views of "appropriate responsibility" on someone just because they purchased bees to pollinate crops rather than a lobster to eat for dinner.
 


Instinct.  Something bred into them at birth.  They can’t help themselves.
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Offline T Beek

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #69 on: January 03, 2011, 12:54:24 pm »
Unfortunately, not all "experienced" beekeepers make good mentors, even here on this forum some are better teachers than others.  I can only example my own experience from over 30 years ago working with an outfit that couldn't have cared less about bees.

Once I made the decision to keep them myself, everything I learned from those knuckleheads went out the window. 

This forum and others like it have become my mentors since returning to beekeeping five years ago.  I live in an area where the closest known "experienced" beek is more than an hour away, the closest club is more than 2 hours away.  Needless to say, I get most of my questions answered right here, but then again I started out with "READING" the earliest available posts so many of my questions were answered before I ever typed in a question/opinion, but hey, that's me.

deknow; Not everyone has the luxury of knowing "similar-minded beek" (natural, chemical free, TBH, alternative designs and the list goes on and on....) or any beek mentor to go to with questions.  Isn't that why these forums exist?

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Offline deknow

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #70 on: January 03, 2011, 01:08:03 pm »
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deknow; Not everyone has the luxury of knowing "similar-minded beek" (natural, chemical free, TBH, alternative designs and the list goes on and on....) or any beek mentor to go to with questions.  Isn't that why these forums exist?

of course it is!

deknow

Offline Kathyp

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #71 on: January 03, 2011, 01:24:49 pm »
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i'm not sure why anyone would want or need to impose their own views of "appropriate responsibility" on someone just because they purchased bees to pollinate crops rather than a lobster to eat for dinner

i'm not sure how you came to this.  we all have different ideas about what needs to be done with bees....or not.  my small frustration with this conversation is that if you want only to put bees in your yard and let them care for themselves, thats fine.  if you want to learn, you need to get in and observe. 

if a poster says they want to learn, but they don't want to get into their hive, there is a limit to what anyone can do to help them.

perhaps, if one were to decide exactly what one wanted to do, answering questions (or not) would be considerably easier.

my personal feeling is that if you take something, you care for it. that care might come in different forms.  i'm not going to go beat the crap out of someone because they have a different idea about it. 
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline deknow

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #72 on: January 03, 2011, 01:33:10 pm »
kathy, i agree 100% with your post above.

deknow

Offline VolunteerK9

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #73 on: January 03, 2011, 03:36:07 pm »



did you read my post above????  isn't this exactly what i said?  the reason that observation hives aren't really recommended for beginners is that they are hard to manage, not that the new beekeeper won't learn a lot.





Yes I did and I was agreeing with you on that point., but disagreeing about on OH for beginning beeks which is what you stated.




Instinct.  Something bred into them at birth.  They can’t help themselves.

I'm not imposing anything on anyone-I could care less what he or anyone else does with their hives. And Acebird, I really don't want to start the personal insults..I get enough of that at work..

Offline deknow

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #74 on: January 03, 2011, 03:45:07 pm »
my point with the observation hive is that although you may not get them through the winter, you will learn more in one season with an observation hive than you will in many seasons with one or two hives.  if learning about bees is the goal, an observation hive is a good choice, even if they end up dead.

deknow

Offline Acebird

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #75 on: January 03, 2011, 03:46:40 pm »
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Acebird, I really don't want to start the personal insults..I get enough of that at work..

It is not a personal insult.  It is a fact of life.  People do what they do because of who they are.  I will accept you telling me what my responsibilities are as long as you accept me telling you that you are all wet.
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Offline Acebird

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #76 on: January 03, 2011, 03:52:39 pm »
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my point with the observation hive is that although you may not get them through the winter, you will learn more in one season with an observation hive than you will in many seasons with one or two hives.


And my point is everyone learns at their own pace.  We got gratification with our first dead hive because they pollinated our gardens and gave us 4 quarts of honey AND a heck of a good start on a new hive the following year.  If your sites are too high you could get discusted with failure and quit.  So everything you learned is for not.
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Offline VolunteerK9

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #77 on: January 03, 2011, 04:02:25 pm »
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Acebird, I really don't want to start the personal insults..I get enough of that at work..

It is not a personal insult.  It is a fact of life.  People do what they do because of who they are.  I will accept you telling me what my responsibilities are as long as you accept me telling you that you are all wet.

All wet huh? You really burned me with that one.

Seeing as how you already have all the answers, why do you even need to post questions on a forum then dispute everything that people say and then start with the insults?

Good luck to ya...



Offline Scadsobees

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #78 on: January 03, 2011, 04:47:26 pm »
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Acebird, I really don't want to start the personal insults..I get enough of that at work..

It is not a personal insult.  It is a fact of life.  People do what they do because of who they are.  I will accept you telling me what my responsibilities are as long as you accept me telling you that you are all wet.

All wet huh? You really burned me with that one.

Seeing as how you already have all the answers, why do you even need to post questions on a forum then dispute everything that people say and then start with the insults?

Good luck to ya...


I watch COPS, and you, sir, are definitely not acting like a police officer!!
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Offline Acebird

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Re: I am all ears, give us a rundown please
« Reply #79 on: January 03, 2011, 04:52:42 pm »
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Seeing as how you already have all the answers, why do you even need to post questions on a forum then dispute everything that people say and then start with the insults?

I am very sorry you take my respones as insults.  I am here to see what people think because I don't know everything.  I agree with some ideas and I disagree with other ideas.  It is far fetched to say I dispute everything that people say.  As what has already been stated by someone else, there is no consensus when it comes to beekeeping.  The nearest I can tell is it is 50/50 on almost all topics.  So if I side with the first 50 I am the bad guy on the last 50.  How is that, because I am the new guy?
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