The most awesome field manual out there for Beekeeping missions on the continent.
http://teca.fao.org/resource/basic-beekeeping-manual-pam-gregory-and-gay-marris
The most awesome field manual out there for Beekeeping missions on the continent.
http://teca.fao.org/resource/basic-beekeeping-manual-pam-gregory-and-gay-marris
Another Spring upon us. The winter was inconsistent with periods of cold and warm, thus most of my fruit trees didn’t get enough chill hours to bloom.
In the front yard, I got a Celeste fig planted near Biff Polywog, our sea dragon.
The front yard swale now has 2 Jujube trees (Honey Jar and Li?), 2 Pomegranates (a Wonderful and an Eversweet?), some family purple Irises, and soon another Fig from Dad’s place I call a Center White as it is a white fig with closed eye.
So I really don’t *need* a honey house. Really just a shed to store beekeeping stuff and other projects I have. Plus, I really want a workshop to be honest.
After a few months of on and off excavation, the pad has been poured.
The excavation in the limestone was around $1800, the form $200, the concrete $1700, and the pumping $500. Not cheap, but I wanted a strong foundation.
I don’t use rebar in concrete, as it is overused in construction in places it does more harm than good, like foundations. Once rebar goes into a foundation, it can take a 500 year lifespan foundation and damn it to only last 65 years. This is the problem with reinforced steel, it tempts engineers to save a few bucks by cutting corners on concrete volumes. Roman foundations didn’t have rebar, and their bridges are still in use today. The modern solution is adding fiberglass threads in the concrete, which I did. Plus, I made my foundation 2x as thick as normal. This structure will outlast my house by hundreds of years, hopefully.
Spring is a busy time for beekeepers, especially if you have a garden as well. I may not be a great gardener, but I do keep a garden, and this year I’m trying to expand and use less water too.
I’ve got a few volunteer plants coming up that I want to keep. One is a pecan tree next to my rain barrels, I’m going to have to transplant this one farther from the house.
I’ve put in grapevines again, 2 Flame Seedless and one Concord.
Flame seedless grapevine. Note at base, I planted a watermellon seed right beside the deep pipe irrigation.
While I’m not a big fan of concord, it was just $8 at home depot, and it was the last one that seemed alive.
I’ve put in drip irrigation but converted the emitters to go into deep pipe irrigation.
A fellow beek from Poland read my swarm trapping book and built a trap. It caught bees, but under it.
I was out in a field north of Houston and saw Indian Blanket blooming on Dec 8.
So I’ve been wanting to put out some T-shirts that help promote beekeepers in our society. You know – cool shirts beeks would love to where. The problem is, I’m just an engineer and my aesthetic aptitude scores show I’m in the bottom 2% of the nation. I mean hey, you’ve seen the shirts I wear in the videos. Nuff said.
So I want to try to tap into my audience. I’m looking for any artist out there who’s got really cool ideas for a Beekeeping shirt.