What you doing this weekend?

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

Finally getting round to cleaning my spare bee hive boxes. I've cleaned the supers, the smaller boxes used for honey storage, and found I needed some new dummy boards (blank frames used to close off the ends of the frames in use). At £6.25 each from the suppliers I thought I'd use some spare ply and make my own.

[NeilM]

On nights.

May take the bike and go the long way round.....

[Steve_M]

3 minutes ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

Finally getting round to cleaning my spare bee hive boxes. I've cleaned the supers, the smaller boxes used for honey storage, and found I needed some new dummy boards (blank frames used to close off the ends of the frames in use). At £6.25 each from the suppliers I thought I'd use some spare ply and make my own.

We’ll be creating a wildflower meadow in our field and would be happy to have a beekeeper  plonk some beehives in there. Shame you’re not nearer...

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

1 hour ago, Steve_M said:

We’ll be creating a wildflower meadow in our field and would be happy to have a beekeeper  plonk some beehives in there. Shame you’re not nearer...

Google your local beekeepers association. Someone would probably jump at the chance for a field to put some hives in. You'd just need to make sure it's not near the general public or an area where children might play. 

 

Mine are in our garden with our school the other side of the house so you don't need to be miles from anywhere else.

[Steve_M]

1 hour ago, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

Google your local beekeepers association. Someone would probably jump at the chance for a field to put some hives in. You'd just need to make sure it's not near the general public or an area where children might play. 

 

Mine are in our garden with our school the other side of the house so you don't need to be miles from anywhere else.

Thanks for the advice. We’ll try that when we’re ready.
 

 

It’s a one and half acre field with a (dead end and rarely used) public footpath in the adjacent field. The nearest house is at least 200m away from the field boundary. They’d be more bother to the neighbour’s cows and sheep

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Steve_M

[rennie]

Skype/karaoke with the Norfolk nutters tonight 

[Steve_M]

1 hour ago, rennie said:

Skype/karaoke with the Norfolk nutters tonight 

I’ll probably WhatsApp with one Norfolk nutter this weekend, too (my son lives in Aylsham). 

[geofferz]

21 hours ago, S-Westerly said:

At least your weather is better and you can go and do something without risking being pulled up by plod.

Yeah I was being facetious. Went drinking at a friend's yesterday, going drinking at the beach today, probably drinking at home tomorrow. 

[Steve_M]

Today I will be mostly lime plastering, finishing coats, a wall. But first comes essential journeys...

[husoi]

Started replacing the rear brake pads on the ST

The calliper was in a very poor condition so better remove it and have a proper clean up.

Dismantled and cleaned. Pads were just 0.5mm thick so really close to the metal.

The damn pads are the wrong ones so have to send them back to SBS for a replacement 

Why they make pads that are 5mm longer than others?

conclusion, calliper reassembled back in place but can't finish the job until I get the new pads.

 

Second job.

 

Change oil and filter on the shadow.

Added seafoam to clean up engine.

Castrol and new filter in and runs great.

 

Ready for my wee jabbie tomorrow  

[Steve_M]

Lime plastering done, so continuing making a stepped path down through the garden and staking the trees we planted last week. 
 

I know how to have fun.

[S-Westerly]

Went for a walk although with my wife it's more like a TAB. If you don't manage at least 3 miles an hour you're not trying. Anyway while staggering back to the car saw a new Triumph Rocket. Sounded magnificent but bloody hell it's big.

[James in Brum]

Allotment

[Bender]

2 minutes ago, James in Brum said:

Allotment

So today your  James in burn 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

Should an allotment not have a shed? Preferably made out of old doors of mismatched colours.

[Ian Frog]

Be careful how you say" bunch of old doors" in Brum.

Cheers

Ian

[Steve_M]

Finally found how to access videos on the wildlife camera. Unfortunately won’t load here as it’s a .AVI file. So I’ve put it on YouTube 

 

Badger

[Steve_M]

3 minutes ago, Ian Frog said:

Be careful how you say" bunch of old doors" in Brum.

Cheers

Ian

I recall that Varna Rd was the main place to find old doors. It may have changed as I moved out of Brum some years ago (and I was too young to actually make use of that information).

[NeilM]

Not a lot.

Weekend off. 

Watched Rugby last night and its on all weekend on Sky so I will try to do as little as possible...

Just done x2 60 hrs weeks so knackered. 

 

[dynax]

I really should give Xena a service as she is overdue by 5/600 miles

[NeilM]

28 minutes ago, dynax said:

I really should give Xena a service as she is overdue by 5/600 miles

I should give mine a wash. Can't be arsed..lol

[Six30]

On 19/03/2021 at 11:59, Mississippi Bullfrog said:

Finally getting round to cleaning my spare bee hive boxes. I've cleaned the supers, the smaller boxes used for honey storage, and found I needed some new dummy boards (blank frames used to close off the ends of the frames in use). At £6.25 each from the suppliers I thought I'd use some spare ply and make my own.

I found a bumble bee while walking dog couple of days ago, it was just laying on the floor , half asleep or dying... i scooped it onto a leaf and put it out of the way of getting trod on , i put some more leaves round it and over it thinking it would get a bit of warmth.... apart from treading on it to put it outs its misery is there anything else you can do for them when you see them like this ?

[Bender]

33 minutes ago, Six30 said:

I found a bumble bee while walking dog couple of days ago, it was just laying on the floor , half asleep or dying... i scooped it onto a leaf and put it out of the way of getting trod on , i put some more leaves round it and over it thinking it would get a bit of warmth.... apart from treading on it to put it outs its misery is there anything else you can do for them when you see them like this ?

Sugar water and sunshine would be my guess.

 

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

34 minutes ago, Six30 said:

I found a bumble bee while walking dog couple of days ago, it was just laying on the floor , half asleep or dying... i scooped it onto a leaf and put it out of the way of getting trod on , i put some more leaves round it and over it thinking it would get a bit of warmth.... apart from treading on it to put it outs its misery is there anything else you can do for them when you see them like this ?

As @Bender says - a bit of sugar water and warmth is what they need. It will have been a queen that had come out of hibernation and was looking for a site for a new nest. Honey bees and Bumbles are different in that respect. Honey bees make honey as a winter food supply to keep the colony alive through the winter. Bumble bees do not overwinter as a colony. Towards the end of the summer the queen lays drone eggs (males) and new queen eggs, the mated queens hibernate whilst the drone and workers all die off. So only the queen Bumble survives the winter. The large Bumbles you see in spring as newly awoken queens looking for a nest site. 

[Trooper74]

Childcare and garden sorting today.

Taking the bike out for a long run tomorrow to the coast, Hornsea, and back alone the coast road to Hull then over the bridge and home ... in the rain probably but who cares ....