Coffee 3-9-2013

Good Morning all,

What a great day yesterday was! And today should be just like it. We hit 65* with clear, blue skies; not quite the neon blue of 9/11 but close to it. I don't think I'll ever see a blue sky without remembering the neon blue of 9/11. Any hoo, I spent yesterday - you guessed it - working with the bees. I dug 4 post holes for the stands of the new Top Bar Hives and then DK put the stands together. I'll try to post some pictures later this week. He designed them so that the hives sit on a "saddle" that can be raised and lowered to maintain the level of the hive if it shifts for some reason. That's super important with a TBH. If it's not level, the bees build comb to gravity and it gets all tangled up. All that's left to do with the hive is paint them and move the bees in. I'll move the bees in next week after my Bee class in Richmond. That's an easy class, we all get "Bs".

Then the weather was so nice, I decided to go in the hive and find and mark Casper, the queen, so I could find her more easily. I found the queen; put a drop of yellow paint on her back and all is well. She was just where I expected her to be, too. I impressed myself as well as my friend, Frank, whom I'm mentoring. Impressing Frank was easy as this will be his first year with a hive and yesterday was his first time in a hive. The little things like the fact that I don't wear gloves when I work with the bees (most beekeepers don't) still impresses him. I'm happy to say that I can call myself a beekeeper and not a bee killer since my hive is apparently going to make it through the winter intact and should be producing a bountiful amount of "Rolling Valley Wildflower Honey" in the fall.

All is well in my little spot of paradise, at least for the moment. I hope all is well with you'll, too. Take care, Lisa

Good morning all, hope everyone remembered their clocks, just a question Lisa, is their a limit to the type of paint used or the color? There is a rather large beer farm (if that's the proper term) near me & I meant to ask last time I was there but as usual I forgot.

samhill wrote: There is a rather large beer farm (if that's the proper term) near me & I meant to ask last time I was there but as usual I forgot.

Uh-oh...i can see tourism is about to pick up in your area Sam....what with rumors of a beer farm being there and all!

HA, I guess I can't claim that someone else snuck in & did that but the e is right next to the r & I commonly double dribble on this thing so I'm gonna leave it like that. Hey I already sprung ahead but my coffeepot didn't & I definitely need more. Besides that maybe you need bees for the hops & stuff, haven't you ever had honey beer?

titleist1 wrote:

samhill wrote: There is a rather large beer farm (if that's the proper term) near me & I meant to ask last time I was there but as usual I forgot.

Uh-oh...i can see tourism is about to pick up in your area Sam....what with rumors of a beer farm being there and all!

You do have a beer farm near you sam,,, is it still operating ? http://beersurfing.com/bars/pymatuning-dam-brewery

Never even knew it was there theo, my guess would be that it's still there as bars do pretty well & there aren't too many. They may have a bit of trouble in the winter but the summers & hunting season are booming.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pymatuning-Dam- ... 43b689ccb6

Well, it may or may not surprise you all but, ole McGiever is a Beekeeper too.

Began when I was 10 or 11 as 4H a project and never lost the facination with the creatures.

Long stoy short, I took and passed my certification to becme a Master Beekeeper back ln 1985.

If you get me talking about bees, I can really fill your ears.

Then you may well know the people from Linesville as well, they hit many of the informational circuits & I believe he's the Pres. of the Pa. state beekeepers, or at least was. Most people don't seem to realize just how important the hobby & business is, no bees then very little food. I just love talking to them & watching what they do.

A beer farm .... sounds like a place I need to go see!


We got pounded Friday night by yet another nor'easter. Snowed for almost 36 hours non stop, the bulk of it hitting overnight. Ended up with 20" after all was said & done. I got out there at 07:30 & fired up the snowblower - that thing proved itself this storm. Never missed a beat. If it can handle this wet, heavy crap, then there isn't much that will stop it. Best free item I've ever owned!

After looking at the forecast I decided not to shovel the barn roof this time. Had to do the metal shed though. It was starting to collapse when I got there!

The reason I was out there @ 7;30 instead of waiting until the snow stopped was the wifey said last night that something was "rubbing" on the Focus. Oh boy ... here we go .... So I used the snowblower around the Focus and cleared out an area behind it, set up ramps, & backed up on them. Then threw a section of carpet I keep for days like this down under the car to lay on while my legs got buried in snow. Thought she had run something over, as there were 3 sets of "tire" tracks in the snow ... ... but it ended up being this MAMMOTH heat shield Ford put all around the converter. All the bolts holding the 3' x 2' shield in place had rotted away to oblivion, so the shield was resting partially on the cat, and partially on the ground. Hacked at it for a while with my air grinder ... which has no balls whatsoever, so I grabbed the 12A die grinder. That took care of it. I just cut around the thing so it wouldn't rub, and let it rest on top of the cat. Stupid thing. Notice how you never have problems on a NICE day ...

So spent all day Friday plowing & shoveling out the neighborhood. One of my neighbors was in VT, so I did his house and his mom's, then did my next door neighbor's. Finished everything by 15:45. Never been so tired in my life. Then after that was done, threw all 4 soaking wet layers in the dryer, ate supper, then mounted and balanced a set of tires for another neighbor. Busy day! Slept real good that night.

Yesterday my cousin & I checked out a few gun shops. Yep - no ammo, and few firearms available. One guy said he can't get anything. Crazy ...

After that I went back over the neighbor's place to fix his snowblower. Thing would fire up & idle for about 3 minutes, then die. We screwed around with the float, which seemed to have a spot in it's travel that was hanging up. Never really figured out why that was happening, but I raised the fuel level up 4x over what it was, and it ran great after that. Looked as though someone tried that before, but went the wrong direction with the float height.

Yesterday WAS beautiful though! Did all that work on the snowblower in a tee shirt!! Hit 57° up here - I think if there was no snow on the ground it definitely would've hit 65° no problem. Sky up here was exactly as blue as 9/11 was. Usually it's a smoggy blueish white ... but yesterday it was PURE blue. Been since 9/11 I've seen that up this way.

Looks like today is going to be another beauty. Time to get out there.

samhill wrote:Good morning all, hope everyone remembered their clocks, just a question Lisa, is their a limit to the type of paint used or the color? There is a rather large beer farm (if that's the proper term) near me & I meant to ask last time I was there but as usual I forgot.

No limit on the color or type of paint used. Allow though there is some evidence that the bees can tell the difference between colors, they don't really care. They locate the hive by a GPS type imprint. You move it a couple of feet and they get confused regardless of the color. The bottom line is bee hive woodenware is expensive and painting it extends its life span. I paint my hives in pastels so that they blend in in my suburban neighborhood. I don't spend a lot on the paint, something on the Home Depot "oops" shelf works for me. Take care, Lisa

Good afternoon. The coffee was good, but the cold beer and smell of the pork in the smoker is tough to beat. We didn't get a flake of snow this time...and I am glad.

Last storm was just rain...
But it has been so wet here this winter...
Groundwater is very high...
The last rain pushed it up even more...
Up through the concrete floor of my neighbors finished basement...
Many sump pumps running...
Helped them rip all the carpet up before the mold sets in...
More rain in the forecast...