Congrats.  Looks good.

Did you put top bars in there or just put a lid on top?

I've really been enjoying some shorter science related podcasts lately.

Scientific American 60 Second Science
Brain Stuff from how stuff works
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is interesting, but not my favorite of the science podcasts.

Stuff You Missed in History Class is also a good one.  They recently switched hosts and haven't settled into a rhythm quite yet.  But it's interesting.

Any reason that instead of making a standard pier that you can't make a floating pier?  A lot less work and no matter what happens to the water level (unless you empty the pond) you will always be the same height above the water.

Ugh, due to the rain, I'm not getting the stones delivered for the shed base.  They have to drive the dump truck across about 150' of grass and he's afraid he will get stuck.

But hopefully the guy that's coming to check out my camper will make it this afternoon.  We have another person coming tomorrow.  Hopefully at least 1 of them will want to buy it.

Bob, good job on losing that weight.  I'm down 25 since the beginning of the year with 15 more to go.

The stones didn't come yesterday, they are now scheduled to be delivered on Friday.

One of the garden beds that I put in 4 years ago finally fell apart.  Just goes to show that using plain pine from a big box store lasts pretty long.  The other 2 original beds are still fine, although one of the corners has come apart.

As I've said in other posts, I'm waiting for my bees to be delivered.

I put my broccoli and cabbage into the garden and planted peas this weekend.  I heard the Spring peepers chirping away.

I've been putting off work on getting a shed for quite some time.  I built the box to level the area and contain the stone.  I just haven't gotten around to getting the stone delivered.  It is coming today.  Next step is getting the shed ordered.  I would like to build it, but obviously I'm a procrastinator, so I'm buying one already built.

So, how's the test for Africanized bees work?  I would assume it's a genetic test.

Up here in MD, we don't have them.  Part of our registration is telling where we are getting new bees from.  They want to know if your bees came from a place that has Africanized bees.

Cilantro reseeds great for me.  Same with ground cherry.  I grew some of them a couple of years ago and the following year I had thousands of ground cherry plants coming up in that bed.

Yeah, that corner of the fence to the left will have a tub of some sort with the water.  I haven't placed that yet, I'll put it in place right before I get the bees.

The next closest water source is the neighbor's in ground pool.  There's also a pond across the street that's about 1/4 mile away, but the pool is much closer.

I thought I'd start a thread showing my beekeeping adventures.  I've wanted to get bees for a couple of years.  It finally took Jack what's his name and 13 skills to get me off my butt to get them.

I ordered my equipment.  I went with an inspection jacket with veil.  I also picked up a smoker, and a couple of hive tools.  I plan on not using gloves, but I'll take a pair of work gloves out with me just in case.  I also have duct tape in my bucket.


I live on a hill, so I first had to level out the area.  Initially I went with 2 of the big cinder blocks, but they weren't quite big enough to give the proper support.  So I added that back cinder block.  Next hives, I'll just use 3 standard sized cinder blocks.  They are level side to side and slightly leaning forward to allow any water that gets in to drain out.


I painted up the hives.  I found a local builder that makes these hives. A couple of the features I really like about these is that they are all screwed together.  I like screws in place of hives.  They also put a metal "frame perch" in there to protect the wood.  They are the same price as the mail order places and I can just swing by to pick them up.  I do have to pay sales tax, but I know who I'm dealing with and they have been very helpful on my quest to get bees.


I put them in place on the cinder blocks.  Obviously these are just outside my garden area.  I plan on surrounding them with some flowering bushes, but haven't decided on which yet.  I want flowers early so the bees can forage nearby early in the year.  I also want them to act as a wind break in the winter and to sort of hide the bees from sight of the road.


Only problem is the bees aren't being delivered on Saturday like I thought.  There's a delay in the packaging.  Any of you down in Georgia, feel free to step in at the various bees suppliers and give them a hand to get my bees to me.

I'll update the thread as I make changes.  I also have some of it documented on my blog.

I read BCarpenter's blog.  He started maple syrup last year.  I was shocked to see how much sap it takes to make a little syrup.

When I was using my Sansa for podcasts, I used GPodder on my Linux laptop.

I've since upgraded my MP3 player to a Samsung Galaxy Player 5.  This is basically a Galaxy phone without the phone's radio.  So on that Android device I LOVE BeyondPod.  It works great.

Yeah, well, I'm not doing gloves.  I've found over the years that anything I do wearing gloves is done clumsily.  I think I'd kill many bees with them on.

That said, I'll likely get a pair to have on hand just in case I need them.

I went with the hive maintenance jacket that I linked to in the original post. I received it yesterday and while I haven't used it yet, I'm pretty impressed with it.  The other catalogs have something similar for about twice the price.  I'm not sure what the difference is, but this seems well built.

Zipper off veil, velcro covering all zipper pulls to keep bees from getting in.  The only thing that I can see is that based on the sizing, I think the arms could be slightly longer, but only an inch or so.

I'll report on it more in 2 weeks when I use it to install my packages.  They come in on April 6.