This is not your fault (you good people that want to contact me), and periodically I get on the internet and go through those emails and weed out the chaf and try to make sense of it. But what none of you knew was that recently I lost someone very close to me. Just a few months after that I lost my cat YOGA CAT YOWIE, and have been working through the mental upset of that, and then I got sick and have been working through that also. I have not had the energy, nor the mental wherewithal to deal with the internet for the past few months. I still don’t.
I have been getting a lot of messages through the form mail that I (years ago) put on some of my web pages. I want everyone to know that at one point I tried to remove those forms from the pages, but years later WordPress changed something so that I couldn’t do that. So those forms stay on there, endlessly sending me notifications not just from legit. people that want to contact me, but hundreds of emails from scammers that have no legit purpose for existing on the internet. Again, none of it is your fault, I’m not trying to make you disappear if you need to talk to me. Go stomp the scammers for me, I’m too tired.
I know that some of you want to have a copy of the panoramas from World War One. I am absolutely sure that it is not illegal to sell the actual picture, but this belongs to the family and I can’t do that. I am an artist, and I take copyrights very seriously. I own several myself and it’s a subject that I will not back down on. I have not had time to research whether these are in public domain or not, and that is necessary before I transfer ANY copies of them to anyone for any reason. Need or not.
If I was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that these panoramas were in the public domain, with NO copyrights in effect, I would send you all a copy, I would sell copies everywhere. (I might make maybe a little pocket change, buy a loaf of bread or something) have been on the internet looking and searching, and I have only partly gotten any information on any of it. I suggest is that since y’all are on the internet, you could do some searching for it too.
Copyrights are good for the life of the person PLUS 75 years at least and then can be renewed. Holladay has copyrights that I’ve seen in 1919 of ships, which would mean they expire 1994 or thereabouts. BUT, keep in mind, the family can renew those copyrights, and they may still be in effect anyway. I have seen Holladay panoramas on military and government websites, but they are never displayed full resolution. They are always a smaller version of them by a long shot. So . . . . . go find out for me!
The other thing that I had not said, is that I have a free blog, and there is a finite amount of space you are allowed with a free blog. Guess what? I have reached my limit. And the only way to be able to post any more graphics is to delete some of my content, or start a new blog, and right now I don’t have the mental energy to do any of it. My energy has a finite amount of space too (grin) So y’all let me know if you find anything about copyrights on Holladay Photo 1918, 1919 or some such. I need help too. I’m a nice person. I deserve some help. Leave a comment instead of the form mail so that I’ll know it’s from my legit people.
Never fear, I’ll eventually get back to my normal thing here, but I’m resting now . . . . z z z z z z z z z z z z z
Recently the junk got to me. My house is a huge Yard Sale and Collectible zone. So to make it easier to prepare things to sell, like on Ebay I made a special room for it.
There was no more room downstairs to set up a light box for taking pictures, the couch was out, so I set one up in my special room. The room would also hold a table for sorting and packing, shelves for things that needed to be sorted, and other shelves for already sorted things. So, I cleaned out what I could, and started setting up shelves.
Adding shelves
Two up and filled
All the shelves up
I wasn’t finished yet, but getting the boxes off the floor and onto the shelves was cathartic. Then I added the tables
The sorting packing examining cleaning table
This table was opposite the wall that had the light box table.
The light box table, and of course an easy chair
I need more shelves. There’s a lot of stuff in my house. My family inheritance is all kinds of other peoples stuff. You can see because the sorting table quickly became filled with things to sort.
Full sorting table, this is just the toys
And I later dragged six full grass bags full of STUFFED TOYS
stuffed toys, only a very few from the six bags
Now I’m recleaning the same room and putting up some of it so I can walk. But it works GOOD for an Ebay prep room. Wish me luck!
I woke up and remembered the darned raccoon was raiding my bird feeder, and the blackbirds were doing the same. I wanted to know why I kept calling them VARMINTS, so I looked it up for all of us, including me.
FROM dictionary.com noun Chiefly Southern and South Midland U.S. vermin. an objectionable or undesirable animal, usually predatory, as a coyote or bobcat. a despicable, obnoxious, or annoying person. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/varmint
FROM vocabulary.com Varmint is an informal word that means “wild animal” or “critter.” Your uncle Bob might see a mouse and yell loudly, “Get out of my kitchen, you varmint!” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/varmint
The Yoga Cat is trying to get some shut-eye tonite, and people keep waking him up. He’s all camped out on his down comforter. Well, at least he thinks it’s his . . . Possibly he’s paranoid I’ll kick him off it.
Recently, my flat feet started hurting, and I had to use my hubs shoes temporarily. They are big, like clown feet. You gotta pick up your feet when you walk.
Yes it’s the same leg, I just cropped it wierdly Thank goodness I didn’t try to go to the store that way . . .
While I’m on the considerable subject of Copy Rights, Intellectual Rights, Piracy, and such, I wanted to reee-iter-ate something I posted some time ago, Namely the source of my header art, avatar, gravatar and all that. I did not draw this cat. The guy that DID draw this cat is Andrew Zhebrakov of http://www.icojam.com
Several years ago while looking for those cutie Japanese Maneki Neko cats, I came across his cats in icon form at http://www.icojam, and emailed him asking permission to use his cat icons on the web for my sites. He graciously agreed to let me do that. And for years his art has graced whatever thing I did to represent myself on the net.
He designed the cat, and I just incorporated it into my design. He is really very good at what he does. And I really like Maneki Neko cats. I will do an article on their history later. But the point of all this is that it is a good example of what you should do if you want permission to use someone’s artwork on the internet. Sometimes they might refuse, which is within their rights, sometime they might ask for a fee (small or large), and sometimes, like Andrew, they just say go ahead they don’t mind. I was flattered and real happy, because he’s a great artist, and his cat is real happy too.
Now I’m an artist, and could have done my own art for the web, but wasn’t ready to publish on the web, so he did me a great favor.
Up front, I wouldn’t be writing this article in the first place if there was a complete understanding of this subject. And it’s long, and full of redundancies. I didn’t have time to edit it very strenuously because I was busy putting my copyright notice on all my pictures this week. I only write it because it affects each and every person that creates something of worth in this world. I feel sorry and let down about myself in a way, because I wanted my blog to be light-hearted, enjoyable, and totally nice. Look here, this ain’t one of those things. Just beat me, slap me, get it over with. I’ll be back to my usual self soon.
THE QUESTION: Should I copy that article, graphic, Art, photograph, cartoon, video, or whatever I find on the internet? Should I re-post it on another website, or Facebook, or Twitter? Lots of people think if it’s on the internet in the first place, then it’s free for the taking. They “share” photos and artwork that they see there and generally don’t stop to ask to see if it belongs to someone. (It’s true, someone creates what you see on the internet)
Some take the creators stuff because they do not understand what copyright means. They don’t know that what they are doing is stealing. Some do it because they want something for free, or don’t have the money to pay for it, and some because they want to make money from whatever they find on the internet. Some rationalize it by reasoning that everyone else is doing it. Or they’ll be more popular if they re-post it somewhere.
Some accidentally copy things that some other person has posted without its original copyright notice, and so don’t know whether it public domain or not. Public Domain means there is no one that holds a copyright on the creation. Anyone can use it.
The word COPYRIGHT in the United States, is a right that automatically belongs to you from the moment you create whatever thing you create. It specifically relates to works of art, photography, digital creations, websites, videos, movie, written articles and books, and several other things that can be created.
The standard procedure is to attach a copyright notice to whatever you have created to notify people you are the owner. You paint, or print, or watermark copyright, year, your name, or your handle, or your url. It’s basically a label that explains and dates your ownership. You can also digitally sign a creation too. I do. Here are some examples:
The important part is that you have a notice, BUT . . .
Even if you don’t put a copyright notice on the art you STILL own the copyright which includes, the rights to copy, print, duplicate, display, any of your creations. In other words, just because there is no copyright notice on something doesn’t mean it isn’t copyrighted. My copyrights are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, and also The Library of Congress, but even that is not necessary except that is helps if you must prove that you are the creator in court if you must. It’s the offical document. The point is, other people do not have this right because they do not own the copyright to your created works.
Applying for a copyright is not complicated, but can be very involved if you copyright a group of things at one time. One fee for a group, one fee for one creation, same same. It’s cheaper to do a group of things at one time.
You must send two copies of each creation, along with title, dimensions, date copyrighted and finished, any derivative works, and many other things, along with the application, any aliases. Along with your application fee. Then you wait several weeks for it to be processed, and recieve your copyright certificate. Which is good for your life plus I think 75 years or maybe I got that wrong and can’t remember exact. Whatever, it’s a long time. But it can take you a week to do the work to register, the price used to be ten dollars, and now it’s almost 50, so group is the way to go. That can get expensive. But it makes a complete record of your copyright ownership which is great if someone steals things from you. My first one in the 1980’s was done by taking a picture of each piece of art, then making two copys of each to enclose with the application. Nowdays you can scan your art in high definition. It’s much cheaper and easier.
You can give or sell away all your copyright (in writing). You can give or sell parts or different types of rights away, such as the right to let someone print a picture in a magazine, or use it in a book, or advertisement, or movie. You can sell one kind of right and keep all the others for yourself. You can sell one kind of right for a limited time period. But the whole point is that the creator is the only one that has the right ot do any of that, including printing and selling copies of your creation.
Transferring any part or type of your copy rights to a creation is something done with your permission, in writing, so on a so forth. When someone takes your creation and does what they wish with it, that is called a copyright VIOLATION.
If it is proven that the creation belongs to a certain creator, and it is proven that you have stolen (yes, it is stealing) part or all of a creation and used it for whatever you want, then there are certain penalties that can be required from you. You can be fined for taking something that doesn’t belong to you. It’s especially a problem if it is found that you have prevented the creator from making money from their own creation by your actions, or have made money yourself from a creation that belongs to someone else. It can cost you real money.
Except under some very stringent conditions such as so called “fair use”, your copyright belongs EXCLUSIVELY to the creator. Nobody else has the right to copy, reproduce, print, sell, or benefit from your creations. This has been law for many years. And it has not changed.
The whole point of a copyright is that it is a creation just like building a house, and can be stolen. It is considered property under the law. It is property. When you own a copyright you have certain rights under U.S. law. And putting a copyright notice on a creation is a notification to anyone that you are the person that owns those rights. Kind of like posting a no tresspassing sign.
A copyright violator can be fined at least $10,000.00 for certain types of violations. Especially those people who use your art to make money or benefit from using it. Such as printing on T-shirts. Bad news for them
If someone copies the picture, such as with a screen shot, or copy it and remove everything THEY don’t want, then that’s a violation of the creators copyright. When someone who “shares” removes the copyright, or doesn’t ask if it’s okay, or doesn’t attach a click-able link to something they are TAKING, then that is a clear violation in my mind. This leads eventually to the blatant copyright violations such as a web page where someone is showing your art or photography with someone else’s name on it, and making money and “Likes” based on how likeable my art is.
I know people will tell you it’s no big deal. And some of them really believe that.
If I just borrowed your car, or your cell phone and sold it, that’s not a big deal is it?
Or, you left the lawn mower out in your yard and I really need one. (No problem.)
Well, you left it in the bathroom, so you must not want that ring. (Right, I didn’t want it.)
Oops, you left the keys in your car, so now it’s mine. (Yeah, I’ll make the payments for you while you drive it.)
You didn’t get that UPS package I saw on your front porch . . . (Sure I ordered that just for you)
Gee I opened your mailbox and it was full of mail, I’m just curious . . (no comment)
You didn’t have a no trespassing sign on your gate, so I just climbed over the fence (good luck with that)
Darn it, I really like that, and it doesn’t have a copyright notice on it, so it must be a Public Domain picture, right?
I’m not making money from it, so I’m not violating any laws? (don’t think so)
See, people nowdays are learning a special kind of morality. “If everyone else is doing it, then it’s okay”
But it’s not okay, even if they do it. It is the real definition of unscrupulous and thievery, and it upsets and enrages every artist, writer and creator that I’ve ever talked to. Like some say: “din’t yor Momma teach you nuthin’?”
I’m not mad at them, I’m not mad at someone that just doesn’t know everything. Just because you don’t know doesn’t mean I owe you the fruits of my creations and work. It took me my whole life to learn how to create what I can create.
I don’t mean to put off the very people who would never think of stealing a copyrighted piece of art or photography or writing. There are hundreds of you all over the world. I’m writing this article so that people who don’t understand a copyright might get a better idea of how copyright laws work. And for those that DO understand it very well, but continue to violate the law anyway.
Although what prompted this article was the fact that I have had things stolen not once, but many times. I wanted to post my artwork on Deviant Art, and my blog, but started with just photographs to see what got stolen the quickest and where it went when it was stolen. I didn’t have to wait long. Now I’m settin’ back and wondering at the wisdom of ever selling art online. No, ever displaying art online.
The place that took a photograph from my blog did not “share”, and did not ask permission. Even though I have had a well explained copyright notice on every one of my blog pages. But I think this place was in and out and didn’t even read it. “Oh, there’s a picture that will get my site some traffic!” I found my graphic posted on their website with “jewelant” under it, only because it was part of the file name, but no click-able link whatsover. I did not at that time have a copyright notice on all my blog photographs.
What is so angering is that the person didn’t even ask if it was okay. And then proceeded to state that ALL the photos on their website were “PUBLIC DOMAIN” They most emphatically do not have all “PUBLIC DOMAIN” pictures on their websites. When you own the copyright to a creation, that’s tantamount to having someone pick your pocket and lie afterward saying they didn’t do that at all. So, after creating, spending time creating, now what do I get out of this unwilling arrangement?
I’m finding it necessary to post a copyright notice on every picture on the blog. It’s a process that has taken me all of a week to accomplish. It makes the photos look somewhat worse, depending on how you look at it. But necessary so that nobody can say they didn’t see my notice on each and every page. Now it has to be on each and every picture. Okay, I’m at it, I’m doing it. Like I didn’t have a million other things to do this week, but I’m on it.
See, that’s the whole point of a copyright. That the creator be the one to decide who benefits from their work. Well, I’m working alright (grin)
When you re-blog, or share things on the internet, understand, a lot of artists and creators allow that even though strictly speaking it is a violation. But it’s a trade off because it many times equals free advertising or traffic to their blog, website, or online store.This is my thinking, but in order for that to happen there needs to be a click-able link back to the artists blog, website, or store. If not, then I call it what it is, a one-sided bit of stealing.
And then the artist has no no good reason to want to post the art, the article, the video, the photo. There’s no reason to be nice or giving or creative when a bunch of strangers simply think your creative output is for free. When there is no link back then guess what? That’s stepping way too far on someones creative toes. And I’m not speaking just for myself. Thousands, literally thousands of artists feel just the same way.
Artists try to get around it by making sure there is a copyright notice, but people ignore that or worse yet illegally remove the notice.
Artists try to get around it by making all the art so small that it looks bad printed larger. But it’s still useful for someone to grab internet traffic with.
Artists try to get around it by putting lots of non-seeable “exif” information, but that can be removed.
Artists try to get around it by using a service like Digimarc, to make a non-removable mark, but that lowers the quality of the art.
Artists do all kinds of things to try to protect something that is ALREADY protected by copyright laws, but people copy anyway and say it’s not illegal. Calling it something it’s not for convenience.
But even well known and extremely talented artists on the internet have complained their artwork has been pirated, stolen, used, many times online, and they have had to resort to not giving anyone samples or defacing with watermarks, or even simply leaving the internet and deleting what they’ve posted in frustration. They are saddened by how greedy people seem to be, and how all the talent and work they put into what they know is seemingly a useless endeavor. They are not stupid people, or naive. They just know that criminals should not be benefitting for criminal behavior.
SOOOOOOOO . . . If you want to be an up front kind of person, then try this:
Learn how to make a clickable link. It’s not hard, just put the http://www. or https://www. blankety blank blank the name when you comment or post somewhere. Even facebook automatically will make it clickable for you when it’s worded like that. Cut and paste the link from the actual website or blog. Cut and past MINE. Now there’s no excuse any more. Anyone can do it.
(I just typed all that in and WordPress and the WordPress Editor made it so I could make it clickable for whoever clicks it.)
Learn to ask permission or if a certain thing is alright. I don’t even re-blog something without asking if the blogger likes that. I share a picture on Pinterest, but make sure I pin it from the website that has the link to the person that created it. If you think that’s a lot of trouble, think how much trouble it is for me to spend a whole afternoon writing this article. Or a whole week re-doing all the photos you’ve ever posted to an over 80 page blog
My copyright notice means please, do not copy and use my art and photography without my permission or agreement. It is not negotiable. Sure, you can do it, but that means that others can do the same to you with something YOU find valuable that you do not wish to just give away. Look at it like that and possibly you’ll see. How mad would you be if someone suddenly wanted to “share the contents of your phone with the entire world?
It’s wrong to steal peoples stuff, no matter what kind of stuff it is. Well, you can steal from a garbage can, but that doesn’t belong to them any more. (but it would be tacky, as in dumpster diver tacky) Don’t be a thief even if everyone says it’s okay. Don’t steal even if everyone else is doing it and calling it free. And don’t steal just because you want something really bad. That’s called being a greedy thief. And although it might get you “Likes” and followers on your social network, it won’t ever be real, or because you were personally so special.
It’s good to think good about yourself. The way to do that is to do good things, and be the person that you admire.
I recently decided to start posting some of my photography on DeviantArt website. The reason being they were just sitting on a hard drive not making themselves useful at all. Here’s what I’ve posted there so far at DeviantArt at https://jewelant.deviantart.com/prints/ Also on DeviantArt you can have them printed as all kinds of things such as:
Fine Art Prints – Fine Art Canvas Prints – Framed Fine Art Paper Prints – Framed Canvas Prints – Wrapped Canvas Prints – Photographic Prints – Greeting Cards – Mouse Pads – Ceramic Coffee Mugs – Coasters – Fridge Magnets – Postcards – Calendars
Yowie Yoga Cat HiYa!Gee golly that sounded great. I knew my little printer wouldn’t keep up with all that, not to mention the time involved doing it myself. And I’m sure not set up to print on cups, magnets, coasters, and such. I’ll have to explore a different place for T-Shirts. They don’t do that there. NOTE: I have only just started posting my photography, but next month will start posting my ART there too. (possibly, see my post here on maybe why not)
So if you just want to see what all else I post on there, go on over to DeviantArt to MY page, and you can look through all of them https://jewelant.deviantart.com/prints/
There’s been a bit of activity over at Antique Heap Blog, and also on Flickr. I think she’s gone crazy with all the paperback books she’s strewing all over the web. After all she is my alter ego, and one and the same as yours truly.
Wow Anty Heap has a lot of passion!
Anyway, here are the links to the ROMANCE novels, along with all other categories of books and antiques.
ATTENTION! IMPORTANT NEWS!
The Jewelant.com and Antiqueheap.com websites are going to be going to be gone Mid February 2016, as a necessary budget cut. BUT DON’T WORRY! Jewelant and all the stuff that was here will be online at many other places, so Jewelant will not be gone after all. I will be posting all that was there, plus more things at these links later this month and throughout the year. Here are most of my links. And I’ll be posting, as always here on the blogs.
The B-25 was named in honor of General Billy Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation.
The B-25 was a descendant of the earlier XB-21 (North American-39) project of the mid-1930s. Experience gained in developing that aircraft was eventually used by North American in designing the B-25 (called the NA-40 by the company).
The majority of B-25s in American service were used in the Pacific. They fought on Papua New Guinea, in Burma and in the island hopping campaign in the central Pacific.
In Burma, the B-25 was often used to attack Japanese communication links, especially bridges in central Burma. It also helped supply the besieged troops at Imphal in 1944.
In the Pacific, the B-25 proved itself to be a very capable anti-shipping weapon, sinking many ships.
The first B-25s arrived in Egypt just in time to take part in the Battle of El Alamein. From there the aircraft took part in the rest of the campaign in North Africa, the invasion of Sicily and the advance up Italy.
The U.S. Eighth Air Force, based in Britain, concentrated on long-range raids over Germany and occupied Europe. During World War Two the British RAF received nearly 900 Mitchells, using them to replace Douglas Bostons, Lockheed Venturas and Vickers Wellington bombers.
Although the B-25 was originally designed to bomb from medium altitudes in level flight, it was used frequently in the Southwest Pacific theatre on treetop-level strafing and missions with parachute-retarded fragmentation bombs against Japanese airfields in New Guinea and the Philippines
The B-25 first gained fame as the bomber used in the 18 April 1942 Doolittle Raid, in which 16 B-25Bs led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle attacked mainland Japan, four months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) was an early customer for the B-25 via Lend-Lease. The RAF was the only force to use the B-25 on raids against Europe from bases in the United Kingdom, as the USAAF used the Martin B-26 Marauder and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress for this purpose instead.
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) was an important user of the B-25 Mitchell,
The Australians got Mitchells by the spring of 1944.
During World War II, the Mitchell served in fairly large numbers with the Air Force of the Dutch government-in-exile
The U.S. supplied 862 B-25 (of B, D, G, and J types) aircraft to the Soviet Union under lend-lease during the Second World War via the Alaska–Siberia ALSIB ferry route.
Well over 100 B-25Cs and Ds were supplied to the Nationalist Chinese during the Second World War. In addition, a total of 131 B-25Js were supplied to China under Lend-Lease.
During the war, the Força Aérea Brasileira (FAB) received a few B-25s under Lend-Lease.
At least 21 Mitchell IIIs were issued by the Royal Air Force to No 342 Squadron, which was made up primarily of Free French aircrews.
At 9:40 on Saturday, 28 July 1945, a USAAF B-25D crashed in thick fog into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors.
There are more than one hundred surviving North American B-25 Mitchells scattered over the world, mainly in the United States. Most of them are on static display in museums, but about 45 are still airworthy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_North_American_B-25_Mitchells
============== SPECIFICATIONS
Crew: 6 (one pilot, one co-pilot, navigator/bombardier, turret gunner/engineer, radio operator/waist gunner, tail gunner)
Length: 52 ft 11 in (16.13 m)
Wingspan: 67 ft 7 in (20.60 m)
Height: 16 ft 4 in (4.98 m)
Wing area: 610 sq ft (56.7 m²)
Empty weight: 19,480 lb (8,855 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 35,000 lb (15,910 kg)
Powerplant: 2 × Wright R-2600-92 Twin Cyclone 14-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, 1,700 hp (1,267 kW) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 272 mph (237 kn, 438 km/h) at 13,000 ft (3,960 m)
Cruise speed: 230 mph (200 knots, 370 km/h)
Range: 1,350 mi (1,174 nmi, 2,174 km)
Service ceiling: 24,200 ft (7,378 m)
Armament
Guns: 12–18 × .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns and 75 mm (2.95 in) T13E1 cannon
Hardpoints: 2,000 lb (900 kg) ventral shackles to hold one external Mark 13 torpedo[35]
Rockets: racks for eight 5 in (127 mm) high velocity aircraft rockets (HVAR)
Bombs: 3,000 lb (1,360 kg) bombs
========================== List of aircraft of World War II
The List of aircraft of World War II includes all the aircraft used by those countries which were at war during World War II from the period between their joining the conflict and the conflict ending for them. See this article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_of_World_War_II
=========
Note: jewelant.com has this postcard, and if you like it, it is possible to order a print of it to hang on your wall. The original was scanned in high resolution, and would make a fine addition to any military collection. Just email jewelant and inquire.
I had recently started letting my chickens out of their pen to roam the yard. I have a privacy fence, and after blocking the undersides of all the gates, not including hawks, it was a pretty safe place for them to roam if I didn’t let the dog out of his pen.
So I let them out and watched to see where they hung out. For the most part they stayed at the back of the property which is where thiere pen and nests are at. They scratched everywhere, the compost pile was a favorite, as was under the flatbed and trailers in the backyard. I introduced them to the winter garden which had nothing in it they could destroy.
They had a whole lotta chicken fun. And I cut down on the feed bill quite a lot. They got bugs, and grass, and seeds to eat all day long. They got to roll in the dirt, flap their wings, run a good distance too. But when I’d come out to take a head count, (I’ve got six hens), there was always one not with the flock that I would have to search for.
Today I went out to check on them and that renegade chicken was at it again, only this time I couldn’t seem to get her to come when I called, even though five of the hens were eating chopped apples and leftover spaghetti as a treat. I came back out later, I heard what I thought was something from under one of the junk cars in the yard. Worried that maybe a racoon or possum had started living in a trunk, I checked.
Nope . . . no chicken. And I’m worried about her because she isn’t staying where I can find her.
I went around and looked under all the vehicles, the trailers, anywhere one might find a chicken hiding. And low and behold, under the BACK side of a trailer, was this very silent chicken. She wasn’t unhappy, or hurt. She wasn’t laying an egg. What she had done was to scratch out a hole in the dirt under the trailer and hunker her body into it. She didn’t seem to be nesting.
What she was doing was to just plain take a spa dirt bath. She was happily contented to just wiggle around in the cold dirt and bathe in it. I mean she was in total chicken heaven too. Her eyes were glazed with this enjoyment I’ve not seen anywhere so intense.
And she seems to just be that type of personality, a chicken that is a renegade, independent “doesn’t need the flock” kind of gal. But I think I need to mark her with a scarlet “R”.
Here are a bunch of links for those that need more information about the Wildcat, or 81st division. Some are the entire history, and others include not just WWI, but also WWII and present day stuff.
I had some white breadcrumbs that I put in the blender to take out to them, and went out to the chicken pen to give them to the hens. And I found something out quite by accident about my girls (the chickens).
I bent down to sprinkle some on the ground as I do every day with thiere regular crumbles.
They backed up.
I put some in my hand because they will eat directly from my hand with gusto.
They backed up again, looking upset. “Hey! that’s not food!”. They just did not TRUST those bread crumbs.
I finally got them to eat some by pecking with my finger at it like I always do. The bread crumbs are lighter color than their crumbles. But it taught me something about the discerning eye of a chicken.
And possibly the discerning eye of most people. I know people that act that way about a new idea, a new food, a new thing they didn’t have experience with. I just had to show them that it was good for them.
After I recently got stung to pieces trying to capture a swarm in the wrong manner, all kinds of things went through my pea brain. Kind of like a person that falls off or gets bucked off a horse, I was reluctant to do my normal bee routine. I was having trouble wanting to get back out there and tend to the remaining bees that I did have. Although I know that with my suit and gloves on, the chances of getting stung again were not really very likely. And I always take great pains not to crush anyone.
But I had never in 5 years of owning bees gotten to really enjoying them. I did not enjoy the fact that they really didn’t like my presence, and could act really hateful at the wrong moves. Adding to the fact was that I had changed my bees from Russians, to two different other breeds. One of these breeds was Italians, which did not seem to be very touchy. The other breed was a mutt breed called “survivor bees” who seemed calm, but with no warning would explode into a rage. I had never had any bees that temperamental.
My Russians would always head butt me before actually stinging, so I had some kind of warning. But they were very swarmy, so I changed types last year.
Anyway, after the attack I was leery of bees, not terrified, but reluctant. I knew I needed to tend to them, but I found all and any kind of excuse to put it off. However, I did consider the idea at the last that aside from that reluctance, those survivor bees did seem to be a tad screwy. And since I didn’t actually see them leave the hive in a swarm, I entertained the idea that possibly these were not my bees, but a feral bunch from somewhere else. OR “Africanized bees”?????
The culprits. Bee guarding entrance to hive.
But none of that explained that one hive in the back that was super touchy.
I thought possibly if I requeened all the screwy hives . . . And I also thought about selling all the darned bees, because what good is it having them if you don’t maintain them? I didn’t mind having a few hives (2 or three), but six was a maintenance thing if you didn’t really love it.
Hey, here I am posting umpteen articles on how to take care of bees, and I didn’t even feel comfortable around them enough to want to keep them any more. I opologize profusely. But it is the trooooooooth. I can stand sitting in a chair in front of the hive without fear at all. But I put on that bee suit, and I know the bees will like me up until the point that I remove some frames. Then they just lose it. I keep going, but they are pissed and I do not enjoy them being pissed at me. I guess I just want my animals to like me because I take so much care taking care of them.
Finger sting
It’s not as if I’m terrified, or in fear of my life or anything. I know that it isn’t personal. I know the bees don’t hate me personally, or even all people personally.
My eye . . . swollen up
I think I need a beekeeper shrink . . . But now for my other reaction
I got up the morning after writing the above article. I was not even awake, with bleary eyes, cricked neck, and another thought coming into my not yet awake mind. Here I am spending my hard earned money on beehives, frames, beetle traps, time out of my life, etc. So I resolved to look at this in the opposite way for once.
They cost me over $100 each. x6 = $600
Their hives cost about $150 each. x6 = $900
The beetle traps cost at least half that each. x6 = $300
The extra supers cost a certain amount.
Extra excluders cost a certain amount.
Powdered sugar for shaking, and miscellaneous equipment probably cost at least $100
A SMALL spinner for spinning frames of honey cost $120.
Maintenance averages 2 weeks a year. That equals 5-6 months out of my life. Which is equal to a large vacation.
I worry over the parasites that attack them.
I have to go out in the cold and make sure they don’t freeze to death or starve.
I have to go out in a hot bee suit and sweat over them while they try to kill me.
Bee stings make me itch and dig my skin off for at least a week.
And the bad possiblities . . .
They are in MY backyard.
They are bought and paid for by me.
They are taken care of with time out of my valuable life.
I only ask for PART of their food, which is extra they won’t use.
They live at my discretion.
The beetles would get them if I didn’t do something about it each year.
They could have gone to someone that bangs on their hive.
They could have gone to someone that likes to smash bees.
They could have gone to someone that puts poison in their hives.
They would just act like bees and die a like a bee if I didn’t take care of them.
So, who cares if the bees actually LIKE me?
The perks used to be getting to watch bees and observe their many ups and downs. And HONEY, the main thing that is not replaceable by getting it at the grocery store in the same manner. The honey is storable for very long periods of time, tastes great, make great gifts and can be sold. You can actually stockpile it, put it in your coffee, tea, cook with it, etc.
Well, they are insects. And in their little pea brains I probably should not expect any more than that. And I’m sure I wouldn’t get a heck of a lot of money if I sold them. And that would also mean having some inspector running around my yard telling me what I already knew in the first place, which is that I have a few small hive beetles. Yeek.
So, I’m back to square one. I need to get out there today and fix those hives so they’ll survive some more and see if they have any extra honey after swarming all over the place. Anyone have one of these epiphanies?
This was taken this winter when the pipes froze up in the house. I had to get under there and fix them, and this is how I felt. Anyone else have a day (week) like that?
Mom was always doing art and artsy stuff. When I was very young, one day she started a project that always puzzled me, because she slaved and worried over it so strenuously. And this is how it started.
She got out some wax paper, Elmers Glue, sawdust, a big bowl, some tools, and started mixing the glue with the sawdust. She drew out this chicken on the wax paper and then with the glue/sawdust mixture she proceeded to make a flat but bas-relief chicken on the wax paper.
She fussed, she cussed, she just couldn’t get it right. But when it was finished and dried out, it looked like the chicken in the picture above. Well, it didn’t hold together very well. It broke in all the small places like the feathers. But I remember it so vividly because it seemed so important to her. I didn’t try to figure it out then, but now I know what it all means.
See, when my mother died I inherited all of Grandmas stuff that SHE inherited. And one of the things that I got was this cast iron chicken. I had never seen the actual thing, I just experienced my Mom trying to make a chicken. But now I know that it was her Moms chicken, and it meant a whole lot to her.
So this chicken has a place of great honor in my kitchen now. You just never know the history of things sometimes except by accident. If someone had thrown it out, I might never have known.
It was a very special light bulb moment when I “got it”
Darn it, I neglected to get to the hives early enough this spring, and had two of them swarm in the last week (which I did capture because they stopped low enough on branches I could reach) Those two safely put in boxes, I had intended on doing all the hives today. Today did not wait for me.
The box, the tree, the bees
I have 6 stings, two on my head (the worst ones), and various other parts, and a big headache. I knew when I got up this morning that I really just needed to drink coffee and fool with the blog. Now I’m fooling with the blog after the fact. Two Benadryl tablets and Denvers Sting Stopper are helping a little. (update 1 hour later a lot)
I went out with my coffee to look at the hives, just look. Oops, another one was in the process of making a swarm tornado around their hive. This, I must note, was one of my peaceful hives of bees, very mild natured.
Onward with the story . . .
I thought, to myself, “Dangit, I can’t do anything about it now, I’ll just have to wait for them to light somewhere and then I’ll get them if they’re low enough.” I then went back into the house. I hate worrying about something that I can’t control anyway, and I wanted my coffee. I wasn’t even awake quite yet.
My hub, who is vigilant about these things kept going outside and checking. He finally came back inside and informed me that they had lit in a tree, OVER THE SHED. THE TALL SHED. THE SLIPPERY METAL ROOFED SHED. I went to look and sure enough they were on a tree branch above the roof. I estimated if I stood on the peak of the roof and reached up they would still be two feet over my hand.
NOW the theme song to JAWS starts to play in my head.
This is how high it was
My husband, always good with ideas, starts telling me how to do it. And I’m-a-thinkin’ that I don’t want to do it. But I get ready to do it anyway. I prepare a hive bottom, with all the fixin’s but get a cardboard box to take up to the roof at his suggestion. I am not strong enough to carry a wood box up there. He holds the ladder and I go up with the box and no suit. I repeat, I did this with no suit (stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid)I needed something to pull the branch down so I could shake the bees into the box, so he got me a hoe to do it with. Little by little, step by step I slid myself on my hip to the peak of the roof. Now the JAWS music is getting louder. It is really slippery, but I am trying to position the box and I can’t get a bead on whether it’s right under the bees.
I shakily stand up and put the hoe over the end of the branch. I look at the box. I give it a big, sharp, SHAKE!
All of a sudden the bees fell into part of the box. Only 1/16th of them fell into the box, the rest fell beside the box. Dang, the box was out of position.
And suddenly I was in a tornado of really angry bees and they were attacking all of my UN-suited body! Boom! Just like that I was trying to get off that roof, the slippery roof. I tumbled over and slid almost off the edge, grabbing the top of the ladder, which was not close to me, and tipping it out of alignment with the roof. My husband, who was at the bottom quickly grabbed the ladder and dragged both it and me back into position as I scrambled down it unceremoniously (did I spell that right?) Oh, who cares about spelling, I’m traumatized.
I almost fell down that ladder while being stung multiple times by a tornado of really pissed bees. I mean REALLY.
But I made it down the ladder. He also got stung because they followed me down that ladder and all the way to the house. My forehead, wrist, cheek, legs, ankles, I dunno where all else. The JAWS music has stopped. I done been TACKKED!
Attacked by swarming bees which most people will tell you are not stingy. On the other hand, it’s a toss up who attacked who first. I’m sure my approach was the first blow. So maybe the reality is that I attacked them and they just defended themselves.
So, after my HUB, told me that I should have done it a different way. I should have, and that’s for sure. He did try to tell me when I was climbing up the ladder another way, but I was shaky and not about to stop. The bees are back on the branch, and he is right now trying to tell me how I can do it.
Mah Stunged Eye
Personally, I’m having second thoughts about bees, but that’s in the heat of the moment because I wrote this just 30 minutes after the incident. He’s talking about finishing the job, and I’m telling him I would rather talk about it after breakfast. He’s so positive and up about things. And very brave for staying and grabbing the ladder instead of running off to keep from being himself stung.
(He does love me . . . I THINK) Just hit me, just slap me for goodness sake. I’m way too old for this shit. My head hurts.
One of my readers wrote to me asking advice (I added a few sentences later):
I just read your blog about hive beetle. We had them for the first time last summer. Noticed it when we found a huge pile of bees on the ground. Bees had been in that hive since spring. When we opened up the hive, we discovered a large amount of hive beetles. No other hive was disturbed. We have four hives. I installed another swarm a few weeks ago and they absconded. Was thinking about making the cd case trap. We cleaned out the box, burned the inside, and installed another swarm in the same box. Less than a week later, we had dead bees again all over the ground. No beetles, though. It is strange how this has happened, but will be destroying that box, but first will douse it with 50/50 bleach and water. No other signs of any disease or anything. You mentioned using roach bait, I have some of the powdered bait, would you suggest I sprinkle it on the ground near the back of the hives? Also, what kind of nematodes should I purchase? ~ Gloria
Dead bees after hive beetle infestation
I know the feeling. You do all that work and there they are, a big mess. How are your other hives doing? Are they free of problems? In my case, after all of what I did to get rid of beetles I decided several things:
That I couldn’t tell if the nematodes did anything. And they are really expensive. So I decided not to get them a second year. Maybe the original ones are still alive in the soil and working. Who knows?
The beetle traps with poison in them didn’t catch anything at all. I don’t know why, but other people say the opposite. They catch beetles for them. I caught none.
I forgot to add something. POWDERED SUGAR SHAKE! You put powdered sugar in a flour sifter or something similar, and shake this all over your bees and inner parts. It riles the bees up irritatingly, they attack whatever is in there. And it makes things slippery so that mites and whatever falls into your oil trap. Do this regularly, maybe once a month during fine weather. It’s non toxic, and the bees will eat the leftovers.
OOPS! forgot something else my husband reminded me of. We have our hive up on a deck up off the ground. And several times a year we wrap the legs in rags and soak that in used transmission fluid and kerosene half and half. It keep ants and all kinds of things from crawling up to the hives. Additionally, my deck legs are sitting on concrete blocks for leveling. I douse these with oil too.
Additionally, and this is very important. There must be enough bees in the hive to cover all of the frames, and chase the beetles and harass them.
Bees will corner beetles and keep them in corners and make it difficult for them to breed. They even resort to using propolis to wall them in. But if there is too much space, such as adding a super prematurely, and too little bees to cover the space, the beetles will be able to evade persecution, running in all directions and hiding in the cracks. This gives them ample time to lay eggs and multiply.
I think, if your other hives were not overcome with beetles they had a big enough population to defend and corral the beetles that they did get. It’s possible that your failed hive was the opposite, and even that beetles were not the original problem, but what weakened them enough to make them overcome with the beetles. So check for any other problems.
NOTE: My hives only had a few beetles one summer. I left for a week long vacation, after putting extra supers on all the hives hoping to prevent a swarming. When I came home the beetles had taken over all the hives. CAUSE: I gave them room to escape by putting the supers on too soon.
I also think that the powdered sugar shake, combined with the Freeman Beetle trap, and sucking the beetles up regularly with a low powered vacuum can keep the population down to manageable levels.
The Freeman oil Beetle Trap is different from other oil traps, in that it doesn’t have ledges at the bottom for varmints to hide and lay eggs in. Which leads me to my other article about sealing cracks in the hive. See my article on how I sealed the cracks permanently HERE
Bee deck 2010 before beetle invasion
Leg of Bee Deck where you wrap the legs
Probably using a combination of controls is what helped my beetle thing. But I think the sweeper was best. I never completely got rid of every single beetle, as they came back the next spring. (They overwinter in the hive, and hatch normally in the dirt outside the hive if not actively reproducing inside the hive) So the bees keep them warm for the winter. How convenient. What I did was to cut the population down to less destructive levels.
The way I used the sweeper was that whenever I opened the top lid of the hive to check or mess with the bees, I flipped it over quickly and vacuumed any beetles running around as quick as I could, dodging bees all the while (it WILL suck up bees too). Then I switched to the inside top of the hive and chased any beetles I saw running on the top board and/or up over the sides of the outside of the hive.
I made this a regular thing every two days while the beetles were thick, and then every week, and then every two weeks. Until I only saw a few. It really cut down the beetles, all of which are breeders that you want to kill. Now I only regularly see 4 to 5 beetles when I open the top cover.
Make no mistake, these four could become many upon many if left unchecked by controls.
I’m working on some kind of front of the hive entrance trap, because when beetles come back, they just fly to the front entrance of the hive and crawl right in! I’ve actually watched them DO this, and once inside they make a mess. And that mess is what makes your bees leave. They just give up in disgust because their honey is rotten, their babies are eaten, the maggots are everywhere, and stinky slime is all over the place. It’s a science fiction, but NOT fiction horror movie made for bees.
Also, although I’m no expert, from reading what you said, I wouldn’t sprinkle the roach bait on the ground, because bees can be scavengers in the spring, and they might pick it up and bring it back to the hive. I didn’t use powdered roach bait. They (other people) recommend the roach bait that comes in a syringe in a past form, and you put it in a CD case when you use it. Like I said, it didn’t work or catch anything where I was at. The CD case makes sure the bees can’t get it on their feetsies. Also, with the CD case, you can see if any beetles end up in the CD case. In mine nothing was caught.
We used a big RubberMaid tub to soak the nasty parts in overnite, and then used a power washer to heavily spray the bleach solution completely off all hive parts. Bees are sensitive to smells. And then air dried in the sun for a week before storing the parts for winter. Then the next year I got new bees. So my parts had time to air out and get rid of any bleach or smell.
LAST NOTES JUST IN CASE:
I would make sure you have oil traps on the bottom (I recommend the Freeman Beetle Trap) they catch LOTS of beetles and mites.
I would make sure you don’t have some additional problem like mites, or disease on top of having beetles. It’s possible to have multiple problems at the same time.
And bees can go out and get poisoned, come back to the hive and die from it. We can’t do much about that.
Sometimes, when a hive is weak, the other hives will rob it out. But not likely if the honey is crapped out and nasty.
You can get an idea of mite populations if you take a piece of sticky shelf paper and put it sticky side up under your ventilated screened hive bottom (you got one?) to catch dead mites. Then you count the mites that stick to it. Don’t put it where the bees can get to it, or they’ll stick to it too (grin) OR you could just reley on your oil trap to catch the dropped mites.
I ordered my nematodes from here:
Note: They are tiny in a zip lock and a wet gel to keep them alive and a cold pack. And they are sensitive to overheating, drying, AND poison. (Another reason not to sprinkle poison around the hives) You have to keep the ground moist or they will dry out and die. We put ours in non-chlorinated water (chlorine is bad for them), and sprayed them on the ground under and around the hive.
Southeastern Insectaries, Inc.
606 Ball Street, PO Box 1546, Perry, GA 31069
Office 478-988-8412 Fax 478-988-9413 Toll Free 1-8777-967-6777
Email addresses:
sei@windstream.net
southeasterninsectaries@gmail.com
I was mistaken when I thought to save money on shavings by using newspaper for baby chick bedding. And I promise it wasn’t a problem when I only had to change papers once a day. But as baby chicks grow, so do the poopy spots, so I changed to pine shavings. But not before I had to remove the cemented on poop galoshes that walking in poop created on the bottoms of the baby chicks feet!
Chicklets snuggling in my coat and learning to be tame.
I should have taken a picture of what it looked like (poop snow-shoes, galoshes, chicks-turned-ducks with poop webs). It had dried rock hard under that heat lamp and you couldn’t have gotten it off without taking skin along with it. So I put them, all six, in a cardboard box to the downstairs bathroom and proceeded to soak it loose.
I first thought to soak it off with soapy water, but that didn’t go too good. It was too dried, thick, and hard, so I ran enough really warm water in the bottom of the bathtub and let them walk around in it for 15 minutes or so. I’d check each chick and pull off whatever came off easily and put them back to stand in the water for another few minutes.
I had to do all of this on my knees, and they were sore by the time I got finished with all of it. But when I was finished I had baby chicks with clean feet and wet belly feathers. I put wads of toilet paper into the bottom of the box, layered that with wet chicks, and topped it off with more wads of toilet paper and closed the box. They were grateful as heck too.
I took them back upstairs to dry under their very own heat lamp and 15 minutes later they were good as new. Just thought someone might be interested in what it takes to do it.
Eggs, eggs, eggs, on my mind . . . (I must have eggs on my mind)
I had chickens, ducks, geese, guinea fowl many years ago. I went through the whole learning process with fowl homesteading. I lost a few, got too many, learned how to fix them when sick. I learned what to do with predators, owls, rats, stray (and not so stray) dogs, possums, etc. I learned the hazards of buying them at swap meets and how to treat the leg mite you get that way. How to treat chicken colds. And how to mercifully put them to rest when they needed to be. I knew what breeds I liked, and which might be problematic. (no nervous Polish chickens or Leghorns for me)
After years of doing many other things I kept looking at chicks in the feed store. They had a chick corral with 5-6 stock tubs full of all kinds, even Banty chicks. Three years passed, each year I looked at chicks.
Baby Chicklet
Although I knew my husband did not relish cleaning a chicken house, I kept asking if it was okay if I made sure I did all the chicken chores. No chicken was going to come between me and my husband. But this year, with grocery costs, and the fact that I knew chickens would eat all the leftovers that the dog wouldn’t eat, like salad trimmings and make eggs out of them, I asked again (while at the feed store).
He said yes this year, and I bought six pullet chicks (female chicks). They happened to be a breed that is easily sexed at birth by color, the Red Comet. When grown they look kind of like a Rhode Island Red chicken, but instead are red or gold and white feathered. The breed I really like are a dual purpose breed called Buff Orpingtons, but they weren’t available at the feed store.
Home made chick brooder from plastic tub
He helped me find a container to keep them in, a Rubbermaid tub. I put it in a room with a closed door to keep the cats out.
I clamped the red heat lamp to it, installed a thermometer close to where it was hottest, put newspapers in the bottom,
filled the feeder, and the waterer, and put the Chicklets in it.
Here they are snuggling in my coat . . .
Chicklets snuggling in my coat and learning to be tame.
It’s been a week, and they are so far doing fine. However I did find that half of them were much younger. You can see by how long the wing feather are on the younger half. Here are pictures of the difference.
The younger baby chick wing feathers, still pin feathers.
Baby chick older wing feathers same day
The difference in the way they act is that the younger ones sleep more, and want to snuggle more under your hand. The younger ones are also not as strong.
It’s going to be several months before I have eggs. They do have to grow up and be old enough to lay them, which gives us time to make the chicken house and pen. While looking online for more chicken information, I happened upon my old chick supplier Murray MacMurray Hatchery, (or McMurray) and found out they have a new thing. They now sell older birds, and you can buy almost laying age pullets singly for WOW, $17.95 or so. They are expensive, but you don’t have to wait months for eggs. I may get some few more chickens from them that way.
You can also get fertilized eggs from them, and put them in your own incubator. But I didn’t live in an area that I could have a rooster, and didn’t have an incubator.
Although I live in one of the not so arctic areas of the US, but THIS winter had a few extreme cold snaps, and I improvised a wind break for the beehives. I was mostly worried about the wind, as these are first year hives.
Beehive wind and rain protection. The hive setup
The winds were deeply chilling, and I got out my old sheets, couch covers, and bundled up to go and cover them before night came. It was vurrrry windy (30 MPH), and I took sheets of solid foam insulation to cover the sides on the bottoms because I have ventilated bottom boards.
Beehive number ONE (the Italians) with wind and rain protection
Then I covered the entire hive, including the front entrance clear to the ground floor with couch covers and sheets. My aim was not to completely seal the hive, but to break the wind.
Beehive number 3 with winter protection from wind and rain
When days come that it isn’t really badly cold, I just lift the front to expose the entrance so the bees can get out and do their “business”, whatever that might be.
NOTE: the things on the top of the hives are scavenged from an old hot tub cover, and are foam covered with Naugahide upolstery material. They are waterproof, and can be used for shade if needed, or rain and snow. I’ve had them for several years and they also come in handy to set things on top of when I’m tending hives any time of the year. You just don’t put your smoker up there.
Last year when we had our huge beetle infestation my husband, overwhelmed at the mess, said he was “tired of squishing beetles” and invented me a BEETLE SWEEPER! This year with my new bees, I have been using it every few weeks in my beehives, clear up to when the bees are left alone in the fall for the winter. It works really good.
Brand and power of sweeper
He took a small, low powered sweeper, and cut the end off of a transmission fluid funnel like this one:
Transmission fluid funnel used to make nozzle
He then inserted it into the tip of the hose and secured it with electrical tape wound really tightly.
Nozzle with cut off end taped inside of it
And this is the result:
Finished small hive beetle sweeper
I just lift the top lid of the bee hive and lay it down quickly so that the beetles that might be in the lid do not scatter or fly off. And you have to be VERY careful to avoid the bees because it will suck them up too. And you can’t release the bees without releasing the beetles, so they are gone. But you’ll get the hang of it after sucking up a few bees. You will learn to gauge just how close you can come without commiting a bad thing.
Me using the hive beetle sweeper on my own hives
I have found that if I do this on a regular basis, after a while lifting the lid and examining shows only a few beetles. I think it’s having a good effect on the population. Keep in mind, I also have bottom oil traps too.
There are various ways to do this, and everyone has their favorite type of fuel for a smoker, but this is how I do it. The man that sold me my first hive used the fuel that was handy to him, which was pine needles. So I simply adopted what he used, because I can get them most anywhere for free. Other people use other things, which I will eventually research for everyone. You can even buy smoker fuel online if you need to.
I get my pine needles from under some pine trees outside of a factory in my town. They have a row of them outside their gates, and I take several bags and fill them up, which lasts me for a couple of years. (only gather the dry needles) There may even be someone you know that has pine needles in their yard that they want to get rid of or throw away every year!
Lighting a bee smoker
I bought the biggest stainless steel smoker that I could afford. This gives lots of room for fuel, and you don’t have to refill it in the middle of opening a bunch of hives. I go out into the yard, preferably on a non grassy or cement spot to light it. I take with me a bag of pine needles, the smoker, a hive tool, an old pancake turner, a bic lighter, and a pair of scissors.
Then I take note of which way the wind is blowing so that I don’t choke myself to death when it fires off! Make a note, the wind sometimes does not cooperate. Most of the time it changes back and forth, and I end up getting smoked myself. This is why I understand the importance of not oversmoking my bees. They don’t love it either, and it can burn them if it’s too close.
I open the top of the smoker, make sure it’s empty. Then I take a handful of pine needles, and twist them up like a rope, fold in half, then twist again, leaving some ends to stick out for the first lighting. Note: it’s important to get the first handful of needles lit pretty good before shoving them down into the bottom of the smoker. If not, and it goes out, you’ll have to drag everything out and start over again. About half flames is about right.
Now I take the partly lit pine needles and shove them down into the bottom of the smoker with your hive tool, quickly puffing the smoker to get them to flame up. It’s okay if flames come out of the top of the smoker, just don’t put your face over the whole thing while you’re doing it. (grin)
Once you have this smoking pretty good, repeat the process as many times as it takes to fill it to the top, but remembering to use your hive tool or pancake turner to pack it in, and puff, puff, puff all the while you’re doing it.
You can pack pretty tight, and the better you puff and pack it, the longer it will stay lit while you are working the hives. Just remember if you aren’t using it a lot while working, to puff some air occasionally.
The last thing you do before closing the top is use your scissors to cut all the stray “stick-outs”, the edges of the pine needles that inhibit you from closing the lid. Once the edges of the pine needles are not sticking out, you can shut the lid and go work your hive!
NOTE: It’s impossible not to get some smoke in your face while doing this, unless you use a fan, which I had not though of until just this moment. Hey, PROBLEM SOLVED!
I began keeping honey bees in my backyard several years ago when I read that they were dissappearing. The disorder, or dissappearance has been named Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. I knew very little about it in the beginning.
My reasoning was that if this turned out to be an epidemic of some kind, then maybe I might be one of the only ones in the U.S. with bees left in the future. Not to mention my curiosity about bees and a love for honey itself. I also draw bee cartoons.
I started with one hive I bought from a beekeeper, and then had six. I lost them to beetles, now have three. They are doing really well, and I even got honey off of them their first year, which I was not expecting. I took two frames from each of the three hives, and got several quarts of honey.
Boy, my honey tastes better than anything. It has a delicate, slightly fruity taste, and is not super strong. This is what is called “Wildflower Honey”, which is simply honey that comes from many sources of flowers. I must be situated in just the right place, because my bees are finding and making a really true gourmet honey, (I think) I won’t even use it to cook with, as the heat spoils the taste. Them girls can sure make some honey!
Honey bees can gather the nectar in more than 300 flower types in the United States.
A honey bee must tap 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey.
The average worker honey bee makes 1 1/2 teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
A honey bee visits between 50-100 flowers during one collection trip.
To make one pound of honey, honey bees must gather 10 pounds of nectar.
Honey has a tendency to granulate due to its natural properties. Granulation does not affect the taste or purity of honey.
Granulated honey can be restored to liquid form by carefully placing the jar in a pan of very warm water. (not too hot, cause that can ruin the taste and the vitamins and enzymes)
Store your honey in a dry cupboard. Do not refrigerate honey. Cold temperatures hasten granulation.
Honey does not benefit from pasteurization because it is naturally low in bacteria and other microbes.
Honey contains no fat, no cholesterol, no gluten and no sulfates or sulfites.
Honey is primarily composed of carbohydrates.
Honey is a natural sugar and is easier to digest. Honey is 100% pure and natural. It is made entirely by honeybees from flower nectars.
For all inquiries regarding the use of honey in medical conditions such as diabetes, weight control, etc., please consult your physician.
Honey was found in the tomb of King Tut (fl. c.1350 , king of ancient Egypt, of the XVIII dynasty) and was still edible since honey never spoils.
Due to the high level of fructose, honey is 25% sweeter than table sugar.
Honey is created by honey bees who mix plant nectar, with their own bee enzymes and then evaporate excess water.
Honey has different flavors and colors, depending on the location and kinds of flowers the bees visit.
To the ancients, honey was a source of health, a sign of purity and a symbol of strength and virility.
Nectar can contain 80 percent water, which the bees fan with their wings to evaporate most of.
Honey is antiseptic, antibiotic, and acidic
Natural honey will form into granular sugars
Honey can be used as a preservative
Honey can be used as a sugar substitute
Honey can be used as a facial beauty mask
Honey is used by some people for allergies. But supposedly only honey from your local sources
NOTE – I understand from hearing from other sources that honey should not be fed to children under the age of 12 months. I’ll research this further.
HONEY BEES ARE NOT NATIVE TO THE UNITED STATES
They were imported by Europeans in the early 1600’s to America. But they are native to many other parts of the world, including the Middle East. For over 150 million years they have been making honey all over the world.
HONEY BEES ARE VEGETARIAN
They eat honey, pollen, nectar, and royal jelly. Wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets are carnivorous, and eat other insects. They also are a lot more touchy and stingy.
BEE VENOM is acidic. Wasp, hornets and the like have alkaline venom. It still hurts no matter . . .
HONEY BEES AREN’T MEAN
They protect their food, queen, babies, and home from predators. Foraging and swarming bees aren’t apt to sting unless you bother or step on them. If you make them angry they will normally only chase you about 50 feet. Bees on or in a hive will guard and protect the hive and their family, and they post guard bees for this purpose. The hive contains their young and the queen, and also all the food they have stored over the summer to feed them in winter. Without any of those they would not survive. I think I’d protect that!
HONEY BEES DIE AFTER STINGING PEOPLE – BUT . . .
When they sting and die they give off a smell that alerts other bees that an enemy is around. They are much more likely to attack and sting if they smell this. Don’t squish bees, they take it personally.
HONEY BEES LIVE FOR 60 DAYS Except queens, who live much longer I remember someone saying about three times as long as the workers. Although I have heard the queen can live for up to three years, I cannot confirm that as of today. Let me know if you know the answer to that.
HONEY BEES HAVE ONE QUEEN (unless another is born)
There can be only one. If any more are born they have a big fight to the death or one leaves. She can lay over 1500 eggs a day. Worker bees create new queens by feeding the larvae Royal Jelly, which they produce from special bee glands.
WORKER HONEY BEES ARE FEMALE
Male bees don’t do much work at all, except to date the queen for a short while. In fact they get tossed out of the hive before winter so they won’t eat all the food. But spring more hatch out.
MALE HONEY BEES HAVE NO STINGERS
Yep, that’s right. You can pick them up with your bare hands and they won’t sting you. If you can dodge the guard bees while you’re doing it. They are called DRONES.
HONEY BEES HAVE TWO STOMACHS (One of them is for nectar and honey)
HONEY BEES HAVE FIVE EYES
They can see ultraviolet light, and red is seen as dark brown or black. The eyes also have tiny hairs that can detect wind speed and direction. Some of those eyes are in the top of their heads.
HONEY BEES HAVE FOUR WINGS
Their wings beat over 11,000 times a minute. And they can fly 15 miles an hour. But if you are being chased you will swear it’s 90 miles an hour.
HONEY BEES HAVE THREE PAIRS OF LEGS
Their legs are used to walk, grasp, clean their antenna (or doorstep, or other bees), carry pollen or propolis (resins from plants they use to close crack in their hives)
A HONEY BEES ANTENNAS
A Honey Bees antenna have sensors that detect odors. In 2003 some bees were trained by researchers to associate the smell of explosives with food, therefore being able to detect bombs.
HONEY BEES BREATH THROUGH THIER ABDOMENS (stomachs)
This is also why they are so easily poisoned by pesticides. And why dusty stuff irritates them. I even feel sheepish using my smoker on them, and do it sparingly. Sometimes I don’t have to use one. Sometimes it’s not advisable to use one. But whenever I omit to bring it to the hives, I always end up going back to get it. Such as when I accidentally squish a bee or two. They hate that. Well, it is murder, even if accidental.
HONEY BEES PRODUCE WAX FROM THEIR BODIES
They exude (push it out) of their abdomens (belly) in flakes. Then they take the flakes and form them into hexagon shaped cells with their little jaws and legs. It takes approximately 450,000 of those flakes to make one pound of wax. I’ve never actually seen them make wax, but I’ve seen pictures.
HONEY BEES ARE AWAKE IN THE WINTER
They huddle together around the queen to keep her warm eating honey for energy. They need about 70 pounds of honey to survive the winter, and if they run out of honey, they freeze and die. This is why sometimes beekeepers feed them in the winter if they don’t have enough honey.
HONEY BEES POLLINATE THE FOOD WE EAT
They make help make food for us when they gather pollen and nectar and go from flower to flower. This places pollen from one plant to another, and fertilizes the plants. Plants can then make fruit and seeds.
World War One and THE 81ST WILDCAT DIVISION (And information of the 316th)
The United States Army’s 81st Division was first comprised of men that were drafted from Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina on September 5, 1917. Theire first title was the “Stonewall Division” in honor of Confederate General T J. Jackson. Later they were renamed the “Wildcat Division.” The wildcat shoulder patch was adopted, and was the first insignia worn by troops in the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). I am still editing this post, and will include links to patches and history when I get the time.
photo of 316th Wildcats patch
The division was organized near Columbia South Carolina at Camp Jackson.
It was one of the first national army divisions to be organized. In May 1918 the 81st Division was sent to Camp Sevier, near Greenville, South Carolina, and in July 1918 it was sent to New York to be shipped overseas. August 1918 the 81st Division went to England then to France to fight the Germans.
The division was sent to the American 1st Army on October 19, 1918, and November entered the front lines. After the war the 81st Division remained in France for more than five months. The men were shipped back to the United States in early June 1919 and discharged from service.
REACTIVATON OF THE 81ST DIVISION
The 81st Division was reactivated on June 15th 1942. It was overseas July 3rd, 1944, and after 166 days of combat inactivated on January 30th, 1946 in Japan. Campaigns were in the Western Pacific, & South Philippines.
156th Field Artillery Brigade:
316th Field Artillery Regiment (155mm)
(These are the guys in the pictures above)
317th Field Artillery Regiment (75mm)
318th Field Artillery Regiment (75mm)
306th Trench Mortar Battery
Divisional Troops:
316th Machine Gun Battalion
306th Engineer Regiment
306th Field Signal Battalion
306th Train Headquarters and MP
306th Ammunition Train
306th Supply Train
306th Engineer Train
306th Sanitary Train (Ambulance Companies &
Field Hospitals 321, 322, 323, 324)
Insignia of the Wildcat Division – The cat is in different colors, according to the brigade
BLACK – Headquarters, Machine Gun Battalion, and Engineers
WHITE – One Hundred and Sixty-first Infantry Brigade
LIGHT BLUE – One Hundred and Sixty-second Infantry Brigade
RED – One Hundred and Fifty-sixth Field Artillery Brigade and Ammunition Train
BUFF – Field Signal Battalion, orange; Sanitary Train, green, and Supply Train
Commanders of the 81st Division during World War One
Brig. Gen. Charles H. Barth August 28th, 1917
Maj. Gen. Charles J. Bailey October 8th, 1917
Brig. Gen. Charles H. Barth November 24th, 1917
Brig. Gen. G.W. McIver December 28th, 1917
Maj. Gen. Charles J. Bailey March 11th, 1918
Brig. Gen. G.W. McIver May 19th, 1918
Brig. Gen. Munroe McFarland May 24th, 1918
Maj. Gen. Charles J. Bailey May 30th, 1918
Brig. Gen. G.W. McIver June 9th, 1918
Maj. Gen. Charles J. Bailey July 3rd, 1918
Commanders of the 81st Division during World War Two
Maj. Gen. Gustave H. Franke (June-August 1942)
Maj. Gen. Paul J. Mueller (August 1942 to inactivation)
World War One photo 316th F.A. A.E.F Jun 10th, 1919 Size: 8″ x 47″
“F.A.” stands for Field Artillery, and “A.E.F.” stands for American Expeditionary Forces. Photo by Halliday Photo On the photograph it is listed as “Photo #3917” These photos were taken at Newport News, Virginia on June 10th 1919, which was at the end of World War One when the soldiers were ready to be discharged from the Army.
All my research identifies these men as the “Fighting Wildcats” of the US Army’s 81st Division. First named the “Stonewall” Division, later nicknamed the “Wildcat Division”. Their slogan was “Wildcats Never Quit”. And their shoulder patch was a wildcat.
photo of 316th Wildcats patch
World War One – Bat. “D” 316 F.A. (Field Artillery) A.E.F (American Expeditionary Forces)
This photograph says at the bottom Battery (or Battalion) “D” The 316th Field Artillery, The American Expeditionary Forces. Photo taken by Halliday Photo at Newport News, Virginia. On the photograph it is listed as “Photo # 3927″ Size: 8″ x 26”
Antique panorama of World War One 316th Field Artillery
SEE ALSO: HISTORY OF THE US 81st Division (Wildcat Division) Which I will post after this one.
You can see a larger version of both of these photos on http://www.jewelantique.com/PhotographicPage1.html
If an individual decided they were going to plant Irish potatos in a large quantity, and they wanted to keep them at their home in storage, and did not have the facilities to do so this is how to do it. You can nevertheless also store sweet potatos, carrots, or any root crop in this same type of bin. But you should put a partition between the two types of potatoes. I do not recommend storing them touching each other, because it can cause them to spot.
WHERE TO PUT A POTATO STORAGE AREA & PROTECTING FROM VARMINTS
You can make an area right under your home where you can store potatos. My father had one such area all during the time that I was growing up. Beforehand install a piece of 1/2 inch mesh steel screen such as rabbit wire the size of the bottom of the enclosure you plan to build. Install it flat on the ground, being careful not to leave any open areas. This enables the ground temperature to maintain constant for the potatos, but it prevents hungry varmints from tunneling under and into your store. Cover this with a 1-2 inch thick straw layer. This is to pad the potatos and keep the ground moisture off their bottoms.
NOTE: ALL ROOT CROPS LIKE TO BE STORED IN THE DARK. IN THE PITCH DARK. COMPLETELY DARK. ENTIRELY DARK. EXCEEDINGLY DARK. YOU KNOW, REALLY DARK.
Partition and seal off an area underneath the house (This can be in the crawlspace under your home.) underneath a room that is heated would be best to keep the potatos from freezing. The easiest way would be to take a 3/4 sheet of plywood, measure the distance from your floor joists to the ground, cut the 3/4 sheet of plywood to fill this area from the floor to the ground. You can attach this to your floor joists, depending upon how large an area of storage you wish to have.
SIZE OF POTATO STORAGE AREA
Floor joists are normally spaced at 16 inches center, so you would use at least two joists spacing which would give you 32 inches width. If your plywood is eight feet long, you now have a storage area that is 8 feet by 32 inches. Determine the thickness of your floor joists. Normally ten or twelve inches by one and a half inches. Cut a slot in another piece of 3/4 plywood that will accomodate each of the floor joists in exact measurements. This will be your back wall.
Do basically the same thing for the front wall of your enclosure, but cut a 16 inch door opening in the front wall, saving the piece you cut out to be used as an exact fitting door. Hing it, and put a hasp on it so that it will not come open, and always be kept closed. For best results in maintaining a constant ground temperature, line the inside with one inch styrofoam. And on the coldest nights, the heat from your floor and the ground temperature will not allow them to freeze.
WHEN THE FREEZE COMES
If you feel that for some reason you’re going turn the heat off at your home and leave for an extended period of time, put a 75-100 watt bulb (depending on the area you have to heat), drop light, in the bin and close it securely.
INSTALLING YOUR POTATOES IN YOUR BIN
Just as soon as you dig your potatos do not wash them. Wipe the dirt off of them with a clean cloth (because you’re going to wash them before you peel them and eat them anyway), gently put the potatos inside this area, stack them neatly up to approximately 18 inches to 2 feet high, as you desire. Remember, once you have stored the potatos, if you turn ONE OVER IT WILL ROT within 30 days. NOTE: This is why I so hate watching the check out person handle my bag of potatos. So have your opening that you retrieve your potatoes from in such a way that as you take the potatos out you can keep removing slats, so that by the time you get to the bottom you have not caused any of your potatos to roll or change position.
ADDITIONAL NOTES ON SUMMER STORAGE
If you intend on storing your potatos during the summer months, you MUST allow the summer air to circulate over the top of the potatos. This can be accomplished by putting an additional door at the top back.
NOTE ON DAMPNESS
If your home is built in a low area and you have standing water or dampness problems under your home, then this is not a suitable place to store root vegetables. If you have a mild dampness problem, install several sheets of six mil plastic underneath the wire underlay before you start construction. If you intend to store a large quantity of potatos this way to last throughout the year, you should elevate the potatos off the ground approximately four inches by cutting wood slats 1 by 2 inches, leaving a 1 inch space between each one of them for air circulation and to allow air to pass under them.
OTHER VEGETABLES THAT CAN BE STORED THERE
You can store other vegetables of a like nature such as turnips, beets, carrots, etc. As long as you follow the basic rule of partitioning off each in their own area, and keeping to other rule of not turning them or disturbing them during storage. If you must turn them over, then take them out and eat them. If you turn the top vegetable over it will rot and cause the others to start rotting. (This is why I cringe whever the checkout bagger throws my potatos around) Of course, I probably will eat them before they rot anyway . . .
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If you would like to see more articles like this, and have a special interest, then I can add more like this. Some of the articles that I have access to expert ” how-to-do its” are right in my neighborhood and family. They know a lot about a lot of things, and are masters of invention and endless funds of information. Just ask them . . . they’ll tell you!
A community potato house, portable saw mills, preserving fence posts, and sawdust insulation.
OR How my Grandpa built his potato house and stored potatos for the whole community.
During the late 1930’s or early 1940’s Tennessee, my Grandpa operated two portable sawmills. During and after the Depression the demands of lumber and building materials were high because the war, the railroads, and the housing that was needed, and barn building. He operated two different saw mills. One he kept set up at his home place, and one was taken to different wooded areas an operated when large amounts of lumber were to be cut. They were called “portable saw mills”.
Each base foot frame (there were four of them) weighed in excess of 100 pounds each. The arbor and flywheel weighed between 400 and 500 pounds. After he had built his barn from the lumber that he had cut, he started cutting 10″ by 10″ timbers, 16 foot long.
He soaked the timbers in heated oil vats that were troughs made of wood. I don’t recall what type of oil was used. As the timbers soaked in the oil for a period of time, they were then brought out and set afire. Whenever the oil and the heat were sufficient enough to blacken the wood and “seal” it, wet burlap was then thrown on them to put the fire out.
These became ground timbers (to be used in contact with the earth) because they would not rot.
Being the methodic, headstrong person this man was, he continued repeating this process until he had eight such logs. Every one of the neighbors and visitors kept inquiring:
“You keep blacking these timbers and stacking them in a square, what are you plannin’ on doin’? ” But Grandpa did not immediately repley . . .
Grandpa started building his uprights, ten foot long. As he had put the uprights for the door and the corners of the building he was building. He had been saving from his sawmill, cedar, cypress, and oak sawdust in burlap bags, and storing them in his barn for several years previously to dry. As he continued putting the “lap siding” on this building he would mix the three kinds of sawdust together with the inside and the inside and the outside of the lap planks being 1 inch thick, and the interior wall filled and packed full of this mixture of sawdust. He continued this process until he had, from the ground up, a building sixteen feet by sixteen feet, with 12 inch thick walls.
Everyone kept telling him that his building didn’t make any sense. What kind of crazy notion did he have?
He would just look at them and grin, and then go on about his business. He did that a lot.
After he had completed the outer walls, filled with sawdust, he put his ceiling joists in and began filling THAT with sawdust. Then he went inside the building and started running two by fours from the ground to the ceiling every four foot against the walls, and four foot out from the walls. Then he started cutting oak slats approximately 1 by 2 inches. He nailed those between the two by fours putting two by fours every three feet making a ladder in all directions.
In the center of this building he put a coal stove and ran the stack out the ceiling. The door (that he made) had heavy iron hinges, and was also made with 2 by tens making it ten inches thick, and filled that with sawdust. He then took the 1 by 2 inch planks and laid them over the 2 by fours.
He went into his field that he had planted that spring with sweet potatos, and dug out several wagon loads of sweet potatos. He brought them from the field to this house, and started laying them out on the slats. He had enough potatoes to fill only one small section of this building.
Grandpa told all of the farmers in the area:
“If you do not wish your potatos to ruin this winter when it freezes, you don’t have to bury them or keep them in a cellar to spoil. I have built a potato house. If you wish to pay me to store your potatos in a dry, clean area I will charge you fifty cents a month for each bin that you use. OR, I will store your potatos right beside mine, and for each four bushels of potatos that I store for you, I will store one for me. The potatos that I recieve from you are mine. If you run out of potatos before winter is up, then you can buy back the bushel that you traded me for storage.”
All winter he kept this potato house a constant temperature with just a few lumps of coal because it was so well insulated. In the summertime all he had to do was open a couple of draft doors at the bottom to let fresh air in, and the thick door in the front being only a screen door in the summer as an entrance door. And in the middle of the summer when it was 80-90 degrees outside, the inside of this house would still be cool. The entire community stored their potatos in this house for over 30 years, being able to go to this potato house and get potatos all the way up until the new crop of potatos came in next year.
Grandpa Jones did not allow anybody to go into the potato house and sort potatos after they had been put into the potato house. If they picked up a potato, they were instructed that was the potato they had to take with them. The reason for this is, once a sweet potato has been put into a bin, the liquids in it will settle to the bottom side of the potato. If you pick this potato up after several months and turn it over, within a period of approximately 30 days it will start to rot.
When you put your potatos in his potato house, those were the rules. And if you got potatos out of his potato house, HE WATCHED YOU, to make sure that you did not cause your own potatos to spoil.
NOTE – In the top of the potato house he had a place at the top of the ladders that you could hang your bunching onions, the ones that were dried and hung over a nail. Irish potatos had a separate place in the potato house. Because of the coolness at which they had to be stored, they were put on the bottom level. Irish potatos are best kept, unmoved, same as sweet potatos, on dry straw, on the ground in this house because of the absolute constant temperature.
SEE ALSO – HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN POTATO BIN AND STORING ROOT VEGETABLES
ABOUT TAGLINES
This page has just lists of what used to be called TAGLINES. When we got on the computer in the old days, 1980’s, we did it without pictures most of the time. The internet wasn’t something that was easily got, and when you got it, you had to type a bunch of code to access it. Even then there were no fancy graphics. Actually NO graphics that weren’t made out of numbers and letters, which is a whole nunther subject, like smileys.
But we did have BULLETIN BOARDS. The modern equivalent of that is called a Dicussion Group. Chat wasn’t called chat, but you could directly chat through your keyboard to the Systems Operator, (and he could see what you typed too), who owned the computer that ran the bulletin board. Heck he might be right across town, or several towns over.
You signed up with one or several of these places that you could dial into, which were normally local so that long distance charges didn’t make you poor. They always had great titles and names. Then, choosing a category, or group, or subject, you discussed that subject with other people. You could use your own name or not, depending on your level of comfort. And the discussions were hot and heavy.
There was what was called a Moderator, who was kind of a referee so that people didn’t get too hateful. But there were even categories that were used exclusively for ranting and raving and being hateful too. Flaming, as it was called, was frowned upon for the most part in most groups though. They still have Moderators, but somehow it wasn’t the same.
Now when you left each message, you could put what was called a TAGLINE at the end of it. Normally these were cute sayings (as they are now), or heavy thoughts or maybe an advertisement. Philosophy was popular, and so were things that people said in movies and tv, such as Star Trek, The Borg, etc . . .
I kept all of those taglines that I saved. (Probably others did too) So here I am re posting them. Be sure not to think that they might resemble my belief system. Some do and some don’t. I’d hate to start a ancient flame war. There were thousands, and I do have thousands, but they weren’t ALL good.
Feel free to copy these and take them with you. Taglines are for sharing. They always were.
THE TAGLINES
Dime: a dollar with all the taxes taken out
Don’t be sexist. Broads hate that
Don’t drive yourself crazy…let me do it for you…
Don’t hate yourself in the morning – sleep till noon
Don’t worry, I’m fluent in weirdo
My other computer is an F-14’s targeting system
Drop your carrier…We have you surrounded!
Enough research will tend to support any theory!
Ensign Pilsbury? He’s Bread, Jim. (star trek)
ERROR! Windows found! Formatting Drive C:!
Everyone is entitled to my opinion
Excess is never enough
Experiencing tagline difficulties, Please Stand By
Facts are stubborn things
Famous Last Words: “I disarmed the trap.”
Fat heads, lean brains
Feet smell, nose runs? You’re built upside down
Fiction: It can’t hold a scandal to biography
First Shalt thou pull out the Holy Pin!
From a mind… far far away . . .
Fund (give cash) amentalism (without brains)
Gastrointestinal Distress by A. Moeba
Go speed racer. Go speed racer
Handwritten on a condom machine; “This gum tastes funny.”
hAS ANYONE SEEN MY cAPSLOCK KEY?
He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals
Help! I’m a prisoner in a tagline factory!
Here I run, to steal the secret of the Sun
HOLY BATSHIT, FATMAN! I mean…” – Robin
Home Safety Tip #1. Don’t iron whilst naked
Veni Vidi Wiwi
“Cry ‘Shamrock,’ and let’s sip the grog of yore
How do you know when you’ve run out of invisible ink?
How to hack a Computer: Step 1: Take axe and…
I am a Baudaholic
I am not an animal! I am … well not an animal.
I can resist everything except temptation
I do not pretend to know what the ignorant are sure of
I don’t know what apathy means, nor do I care …
I finally got it all together buy forgot where I put it
I remember when we upgraded from 60 baud modems to 75 baud
I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul
I want to live with a synonym girl…
I will NOT reply to this topic … I will NOT reply to…
I wish Noah had swatted those two flies…
I wish to register a complaint!
I wonder why you park in a driveway and drive on parkway?
I’d give my left arm to be ambidextrous
I’ll dangle my participle anywhere I want to!
I’m in my own little world but everybody knows me there
I’m in shape … round’s a shape isn’t it?
I’m more humble than you are!
I’ve been seduced by the Chocolate Side of the Force
If I were here more often I wouldn’t be gone so much
If it tastes good, it’s trying to kill you
If people listened to themselves they would shut up
If there were no golf balls how would we measure hail?
If two wrongs don’t make a right, try three
If you can’t bite, don’t show your teeth
Incorrigible punster — do not incorrige!
Is this a Kodak moment or a Maalox moment?
It is a prehistoric practice to put “y” everywhere
It is bad luck to be superstitious
It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver
It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose
It works better if you plug it in *AND THEN* turn it on
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards
It’s Admiral Hungry!” “He’s FED, Jim! (Star Trek)
It’s Ensign dog…. He’s shed
It’s Ensign Pillsbury … he’s BREAD
It’s Ensign Zeppelin..He’s LED
It’s not over until the FAT table sings
It’s okay to call someone stupid; just don’t prove it
It’s only a hobby … only a hobby … only a hobby…
Aunt Em: Hate Kansas. Hate you. Took dog -Dorothy
Darned Unitarians burned a question mark on my lawn!
i haVE A bBS cALleD aMoEBA’s pROtAZOa bAR AND i nEEd TaG LinES AbOUt AmOEbA’s!
The race is over. The rats won
Let’s see your tagline hunting permit
Life is lived forwards but understood backwards
May we kiss those we please and please those we kiss
My opinion is uncluttered by facts!
Never argue with a woman when she’s tired … or rested
Never invest in anything that eats or needs painting
Never let a computer know you’re in a hurry
Never sharpen your boomerang
Never squat with your spurs on
Next time you wave use all your fingers
No generalization is wholly true, not even this one
No matter where you go, there you are
No MY CAPS LOCK KEY ISN’T MALFUNCTIONING, I’M SCREAMING!
No one can think clearly with clenched fists
No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn’t work anyway.
Not everything more difficult is more meritorious
Notice: All incoming fire has the right of way
Now bring us……..A SHRUBERRY!
Now go aweh or Ah shall taunt yeu a second tahm-e!
I finally got the third hive installed yesterday, but not without a wierd problem. I had everything in place to put the last bee package into the last hive, and brushed the bees off of the queen cage. Normally, you pull out the cork in the candy end, and there is still the candy plugging the end of the queen cage. Then you insert this cage between a couple of frames and during the course of a few days the queen eats herself out and goes into the hive.
Problem is, I took the cork out, and there WAS no candy in it. The queen crawled out, and FLEW!! My-O-My was I upset. I partially covered the top of the hive in case she wasn’t in there and wanted to come back, and made a frantic phone call to the people I ordered the bees from. Worry, worry, worry.
My bee hive setup.
They told me that they had run out of regular queen cages, and this one was called a “California cage”. No candy in this one. The way I was supposed to put the queen in was to take the cork out and immediately put my thumb over the opening to prevent her from escaping. Then I was to push the cage into the front of the hive and let her crawl into the hive. Gee, I would have never figured that one out.
Anyways . . . he said that I should observe for three days, and listen to see if they were keeping a low hum instead of an upset hum. If not he’s see about getting me another queen. Okay, now I know what to do here. That did help, and I calmed down.
I almost forgot. In my upset over drippy feeders, feeders that drown my bees, hard bee candy they needed water to process, etc, etc… I came up with another idea. I took some large square cake pans and 1-2 in thick foam padding, and a razor blade and cut it to fit the inside of the pan, leaving 1/2 inch in all sides for a trough. Then I took and cut v shaped grooves almost through the foam. That left foam for them to stand on, and even if they got in the syrup they could easily pull themselves out of it. It seems to be working pretty good.
FOAM FEEDER – The foam looks like you could eat it too.
Then I set the pans on top of an inner cover that has a center hole, and the bees come up and get the syrup! I have to fill it every two days or so though. I’m going to fix some kind of float so that I can fill the pan deeper with syrup, and have the foam float to the top, and back down again as the bees consume the syrup.
First new hive, Italian bees, all stragglers vacating the box after dumping.
WHY I PICKED THE BEE BREEDS I DID
I said previously that all my bees didn’t make it because of the beetles, and that I’d be ordering bees to start fresh with this winter, and I did, but in a totally unexpected way. THIS time I decided I was going to try some new kinds of bees instead of my normal Russians. I always loved Russians, but then I’d never had any other kind. And although I didn’t worry about Varroa Mites, they were not immune to beetles, and they were very, very SWARMY. Sometimes even though I did the early checks, giving more room, checkerboarding techniques, etc, they might even swarm several times per hive. Sometimes they would swarm late in the season. And when they got too many beetles they were out of there!
So I explored some of the others, researching and running all over the internet getting opinions. I thought hmmmm. . . CARNIOLANS. But couldn’t find anyone close to get pure forms of. Then I thought VSH resistant types. But ultimately, I ordered some Italians from Georgia Bee, because I was just plain curious.
Georgia Bees (Italians) on the front porch of their castle!
Then I found another breed that wasn’t even a breed. They were from Wolf Creek Apiary, and were called survivor bees, a combination of feral, Russian, Carniolan, Italian. In other words tough like a mutt dog! In addition, they were purported to never have been raised with pesticides, and also were raised on small cell foundation. They said they were gentle, productive, bug resistant, etc. I was really attracted to that. And here is the reason why:
I do not have an isolated bee yard, and in fact my Russians weren’t originally pure bred. And I have not requeened by ordering a queen yet, so they basically breed with whatever is running around out there anyway. I just end up with mutt bees in the end, because my queens breed wherever they want. I may do the requeening, but without killing any of the original queens, as for instance if I just do a split. But I figured I’d just get some tried and tested mutts from somewhere that at least knew the traits their bees had.
GEORGIA BEES
April 14th I when to the post office, got my bees, and went home to install the Italians from Georgia Bees. Golden in color, and very gentle. Not so much after they took posession of the hive, but that is normal for any bee I think. But definitely not stingy. NOTE: For some reason the queen didn’t have any “attendants” in her cage with her. Possibly an oversight, but she didn’t have any girlfriends inside with her to take care of her. Just all the strange bees in the whole cage outside HER cage.
From Wolf Creek. So gentle I installed without gloves or suit or smoke.
WOLF CREEK APIARY
April 20th we went to meet Ruth Seaborn and her husband of Wolf Creek Apiary from up around Nashville, and met her in the parking lot in Memphis. They were delivering a large batch of bees to some beekeepers around Arkansas, and she said I could save shipping if I just met her and she’d bring my one little package of their bees. We called it an outing, and took off for a day of getting bees!
They had brought many many cages of bees for a bee club also, and one woman came just to pick up some queens she had ordered. I asked a lot of questions, and Ruth is the greatest. You can tell they care a lot for the bees they raise. Her husband calls them “his girls”. (so do I) She also brought some of the essential oils I ordered which were Peppermint, and Lemongrass oils, which can make the bees attracted to the food, and I guess much else. I figured I could use them for anything, not just bees.
I was so impressed with how healthy the bees looked that I remembered that I wished I had ordered two boxes instead of one, and she said I could order another one right then and THERE. Very nice, I sure did so, because I didn’t want to wait until next year. Now that is handy. Normally by this time of year (April), nobody HAS any bees to order.
SPRING HIVE BEETLE OBSERVATION
Hey, I had my FREEMAN BEETLE TRAP, the oil pan one under the first hive I installed in April. We had, last year, sprayed nematodes, sterilized all equipment, and I was hoping that they all died from not having a hive to overwinter in. Well, I think they lived somewhere around that I missed, because I find it hard to believe that 15 beetles came with a box of bees. But my Freeman Beetle trap caught that many and I killed just two. One in the hive lid, and the other scampering on the deck by the bee hive. I BELIEVE THESE BEETLES HATCHED AND CAME OUT OF THE SOIL OF MY YARD, not the bees I ordered, but I can’t proove it. If that’s true, then the nematodes either didn’t kill them all last year, or they overwintered somewhere else. I couldn’t afford to nematode my whole yard.
THE FREEMAN BEETLE TRAP FROM LAST YEAR
I can say that this a really GREAT beetle catcher/killer. It differs from the regular under the hive oil pan trap, in that the screened bottom goes all the way to the edge, and there are no ledges for the beetles to hang out on. The bees can then just herd and push them off through the screen as they enter the trap. But I advise continuing to check the lid of the hive and crushing or vacuuming those so that they don’t reproduce.
I’ll keep you all posted on what happens with them.
Yowie hangs out here in the bathtub. If he can’t get me to give him a bath,then he diddles in the water while I take one myself.
UPDATE: Yoga Cat Yowie has found his picture stolen and posted on another website that did not ask him if it was okay to do without any link back to him and his stories. Therefore Yoga Cat Yowie found it necessary to have his photographer make sure his photos were labeled with the copyright notice that tells people it actually is. Those would be the people that don’t read the notice on the actual page.
In addition, Yoga Cat Yowie believes this picture to be hotlinked to. Which is considered to be tacky and not permissible unless permission is obtained. AND in addition to all that Yoga Cat Yowie only found this out by sheer accident searching on the wide wide web. He is sad and totally can’t believe people are that greedy. Personally, his photographer isn’t too surprised.
I’ll post more on this subject, but right now that’s just the bare minimum. Just to let you know, the website that did this was one I came upon quite accidentally, and I have sent them a take down notice. They make a huge deal about all their photos being “public domain”, and I know mine are NOT public domain. I own the copyright to each and every one of them.
This website is one of those duplicates that have no real subject matter, are full of pictures of furniture, and decorating, and everyone else’s photos so that they can generate loads of traffic on the backs of other peoples work. If this keeps on I’ll probably out them on my blog, but right now I’m just waiting for them to fess up and take my picture of Yowie off their web page of “CATS IN BATHTUBS” And they have several other websites and each one has the same page as this one.
Right now, I’ll see if they’re hotlinked since I changed the picture, it should show up on their website as the new one.
Well, it finally happened. I lost the last hive I had. It was weak anyways, and ultimately didn’t make a queen in time to make babies and store enough honey. But to add insult to injury, the robber bees that ended up dealing the last blow were probably from a previous hive of mine that had swarmed. Big, healthy bees that came back to get the last honey.
HOWEVER, all is not totally lost, because I’ve read that hive beetles can’t survive outside the hive in the winter. That they need the warmth of a huddle of bees to keep them warm. So, anyone know anything about this last bastion? If it’s true, then possibly my bees didn’t die in vain. Possibly when I get my new order of Russians, they will be able to start new without any outside varmints to eat them alive . . . We will see.
Endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida was first discovered in the United States in 1996 and has now spread to many U.S. states including, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Virginia and Hawaii. The small hive beetle has become established in the state of Texas as well. The movement of migratory beekeepers from Florida may have transported the beetle to other states. Recent findings also indicate transport of the beetles in packages.
Internationally, the Small Hive Beetle has spread to Australia being first identified at Richmond, NSW in 2002. Subsequently it has affected many areas of Queensland and New South Wales.[1] It is speculated that a combination of importing queens from other countries and beekeepers moving their hives has caused the spread.
In Canada, the Small hive beetle has been detected in Manitoba (2002 and 2006), Alberta (2006), Québec (2008, 2009), and Ontario (2010). In the Prairie Provinces, measures were taken to control the pest and Small hive beetle failed to establish a population. It is still to be determined whether Small hive beetle has been able to establish a resident population in Ontario or Québec.[2]
Waaaalllll . . . I’ve been out of contact for a bit. Still have my last hive but it’s got very few bees. I got my Freeman Beetle trap, and in these few months have changed it out several times, recycling the oil after straining out the bits. The hive collected hundreds of beetles that flew back to lay eggs.
Small hive beetles initially trapped by the Freeman trap
This is what it looked like once a week for several times. These were NOT beetles that were in the hive, but those that entered after I sanitized it and reduced its size.
Small hive beetles strained from oil for a head count
I now open the hive periodically and dust with powdered sugar to roust the bees into chasing beetles, which consequently drop off into the oil trying to get away from them.
And, after feeding the bees on the front of the hive, which instigated robbing from (I don’t know where they came from, since I only have one hive), I put a spacer on the top, and fed them from zip lock bags with holes in them. This, and reducing the front entrance down to two bees width, solved the robbing, and, I suspect being able to defend against more beetles!
BIG NOTE HERE, and the main reason I am reposting is that I found out, through feeding squeezed out wax remains, and from examining the oil dead beetles something very interesting. LOOK HERE
The SMALLER of the three dead beetles is a BABY
When I compared what was in the oil, I found that many of the beetles were smaller, lighter, and would be impossible to even see if you were looking for a regular sized hive beetle. The same goes for the larvae. The larvae vary in size just as much, and can hide in cracks you could stick a razor blade into. So y’all keep an eye out and bring your magnifier to the hives, because you wouldn’t even see these babies! I know I didn’t, and it made me regret that I left two of the original frames in the last hive.
ON A GOOD NOTE I think my remaining bees have made about three queen cells. But the remaining bees would only fill one honey super, period. I don’t think they will survive the winter if not fed religiously. I definitely am going to have to order a couple of packages of bees in a month or so for next years starting over . . . Just call my last hive an experiment, because that’s what it’s been.
ANOTHER NOTE They say that small hive beetle can’t survive a cold winter without the bees to keep them warm, as they live within the bee cluster. So if my last hive dies, maybe the beetles will die too?
Got my beetle trap. Unadvised and as I did the frames, I used a glue gun to track down any cracks in the construction to prevent the beetles from hiding from the bees. I only found the normal amount, just along the sides and bottom. Did not do this on the grooves for the sliding tray by the way, so that the tray will slide in and out as designed. It is hot, hot, hot, here in West Tennessee. My nematodes also arrived, and I am watering the ground beneath my hive patio before I put them on the ground. Hope they lived through the shipping in this hot weather. I looked at them under high magnification and can just make out masses of them in the gel packs. But I can’t tell if they are moving . . . They are very tiny and hairlike.
Leave a comment at the bottom of the page. I like that the mostest.
SMALL HIVE BEETLE EMERGENCY INFORMATION !!!!
This information needs to get out there to the bee community as soon as possible. I am posting this in the midst of doing my own control measures right now.
I am a hobbyist beekeeper, have been keeping hives since about 2008. I started with one hive and in four years they multiplied to six. I did have hive beetles here and there, but did the hive bottom and top traps which kept them (I thought) in control.
This year I had to go on vacation and before leaving I did the normal honey thing and put an extra empty super just below the uncapped filled one because I didn’t have time to do anything else before leaving town. I did this on all the hives, even the ones that were splits from the spring. I was worried about swarming and them running out of room to store honey. I assumed the uncapped would be capped when I got back in a week, and I could just take it off the hives.
Soo . . . I got back, checked the hives, and several of them had very little bees coming and going. One hive swarmed (JULY), and this alarmed me also. Several days later one of the strongest hives had HERDS of bees on the front hanging off of it. I thought maybe they might just be that way because in the heat, (we’ve had a drought and over 100 degree temps), they were just hot.
My husband said they were also going to swarm, so I got into my suit early in the morning and started opening hives. I found that every hive was overcome and slimed with beetles, larvae, and I only had one queened hive left out of five.
One hive had ten forlorned bees in it, some beetles, ants, cockroaches, and the beginning of moths.
The second had 50 or so bees in it, and lots of beetles.
The third was FULL of larvae, beetles, and a handfull of bees.
The fourth had no bees and was full of larvae and beetles
And the fifth and remaining hive had bees on the front, beetles and larvae inside, and was slimed just like the rest. However, it had a queen and the bees were pretty strong.
THE NASTY CLEAN UP (EQUIPMENT AND PROCESS)
I started with the most infested, and when I pulled out the beetle oil trap that was underneath, I swear there was a layer of beetle larvae two inches thick, which I poured into hot soapy water to kill them. I also knocked any stray beetles into this and put the lid on each time in between checking to see if anyone crawling out needed to be smashed. It was midmorning, and the temps were in the 100 plus degrees. Hot, hot, hot, work.
I also used a modified vacuum cleaner which my husband made up to suck up all the beetles that tried to get away. This works VERY well by the way. The nozzle was made about 1/2 inch in diameter with an adaptor. Shoo the bees away with your hand before aiming, not the nozzle (grin) The vacuum works GOOD.
RESCUING THE LAST HIVE
I then got a fresh hive body, fresh frames, and one fresh super with fresh frames in it, set it next to that hive of the hive that had a queen left and lots of bees. I brushed as many bees into this hive, trying not to brush beetles into it (an almost losing battle), and with a large and small empty totes ready with hot soapy water in them. I scraped the ruined comb and as much of the larvae and beetles into the smaller one, and then put the frames into the larger one and covered it with lids as I worked.
I cleaned out beneath the infested hive and then put it also into the tote when I got all the bees moved into the new one. The I moved the whole mess away from the area and placed the new clean hive with bees back in the original place.
PUTTING IT ALL BACK IN PLACE
I cleaned the old hive bottom beetle trap, replaced it with fresh oil. That night I researched like a mad person about what causes what again. I found a bunch of new information on the life cycle of these nasty beetles, and it gave me a start on how to go about what I needed to do to start over again.
GO TO THIS LINK PLEASE. I am telling you Mr. Freeman and his beetle trap website http://www.freemanbeetletrap.com/menu_page has one answer that make a bunch of sense, and that IS. Bees can herd beetles and contain them to a point they can’t get on the honey and lay eggs so much. His trap has no ledges for beetles to hide on or in, and this helps the bees to get at them, knocking them into the oil of the trap. I have a beetle trap, but it has ledges on it. I ordered one today for my remaining hive. He called me back and spoke with me extensively, and was really great in answering all my questions about his trap and any other beetle information.
He also says dusting with powdered sugar enrages the bees so that they chase beetles into the oil. Good point, and I did that also. And yes, they did get mad at me for it. (Dummies)
MY INFORMATION AND NEW DISCOVERIES
As we power washed the dirty frames and equipment, and attempted to kill the larvae and beetles, we discovered several things.
Bee hive frames getting ready for powerwash because of beetle contamination
THEY ARE DASTARDLY HARD TO KILL.
Some say use water and drown them. I use HOT SOAPY WATER and drown them (it shocks them). Some say use 50/50 bleach solution. Yep, it works, but not totally in that concentration. Some larvae still survived for some reason, so I used full strength on em. I earlier tried several spray cleaners, and chemicals from my kitchen and bathroom cabinet and they just annoyed them. The larvae I swear can SNORKLE!
MR FREEMAN IS MORE THAN RIGHT ABOUT CRACKS AND CREVICES THE BEETLES HIDE IN
THE GROOVE ALONG THE BOTTOM AND TOP OF THE FRAMES
As we cleaned the frames, we found larvae down inside the grooves of where the plastic foundation seated, both bottom and top. Some were not big mature larvae either, and would be easy to miss on first glance. There were bunches of them all along those grooves, and you might think you had a frame cleaned and then see them crawl out 2 minutes later. They use these cracks to breed and hide from the bees when they are chased.
Hive beetle garage
BOTH OPENING CRACKS WHERE THE FOUNDATION MEETS EITHER SIDE. The bees had frantically tried to propolis (seal) all such cracks, and it was heavy here.
NAIL HOLES, AND PARTS WHERE JOINTS MEET These are tiny, but each one has a place that a few beetles hide, and so do the larvae.
Yet another dirty corner where they reproduce
MY RECOMMENDATION (which may not be expedient for commercial beekeepers at all) Just examine ALL cracks there, in your hive body, and especially in the lid. I have eliminated ALL inner covers, because they are just places for the beetles to hide from the bees. But I am not an expert on this and it is only my personal decision born of paranoia.
I went to Walmart and got a large hot glue gun, long hot glue sticks (ten packages). We cleaned most of the nasties, propolis, extra wax, and bugs off the frames. Put a large piece of cardboard on the kitchen table and a spotlight. Then proceeded to hot glue every darned crack in the equipment and frames.
Set up to close cracks against hive beetles
This takes a lot of time, but when you are through, you are eliminating places for any varmint to hide. We filled all around the plastic frame foundation, both ends, top and bottom, nail holes, etc . . . In the case of those plastic frames, filled all the casting holes on each end.
Bee hive frame corner after closing cracks with hot glue
NOTE ABOUT PLASTIC FRAMES:
They don’t have cracks around the foundation part of the frame, but when I took them out of a beetle infested hive, each casting hole held not just several, but at least 15 beetles were hiding from the light. I killed them with a five in one tool, sharp end wallowing it back and forth until they were crushed. But those are the holes that take the most hot glue to fill and sometimes you got to go over it several times to find all of the missed spots.
My husband and I are still in the process of doing this, and if I had know this before I put the hive back together, I’d have not put the frames in unglued and fixed. Too late, they are building new comb on them right now and I am reluctant to disturb them, lest the queen get killed in the process.
He is now taking the foundation OUT of the frames to clean them, then I scrape them and rinse. The crack where it rests, top and bottom harbor larvae and beetles to the max. My husband is a gem of a man, and is doing the hardest work to clean up this mess.
PRESENT CONCLUSION
I’m telling you, I’m so mad at these bugs. They eat baby bees and eggs, and you end up with no queen in the hive. Which is why I now have only one queened hive out of five. I have extreme sympathy for the commercial beekeepers that did not see this coming. I thing someone needs to manufacture or invent some new equipment that has less crevices and cracks during this invasion. I am resolved that I will not give up beekeeping.
Last bee hive standing after 5 hives overcome by hive beetles
My last bee hive has no drawn foundation, but it has a queen, plenty of healthy bees, and all they have to do is fight off the beetles and store enough honey for winter. Poor things.
ADDITIONAL NOTES, PARASITIC NEMATODES
I have also ordered 10,000 predatory nematodes, which are hive beetle larvae predators that negate needing poison, to apply
beneath the ground around my hive area. I have been told they kill the larvae in a horrible way, which suits me to peeces.
Bee hive frames clean of hive beetle contamination
I am pressed for time and right now can’t post all the links, but search on small hive beetle, traps, solutions, information, etc. But I will tonite try to post this in as many places as possible. There are SO many bee websites, blogs, and places online.
Bee hive brood boxes and supers that had been used before hive beetle contamination
We are inventing things and brainstorming existing traps and additional ideas as I speak, so take heart. I think it’s the backyard beekeepers that have more time to do so. We aren’t all scientists, but combining all the information everyone has helps to get solutions. Good luck to all of you beekeepers out there and I’ll keep in touch if I or my hub invent something more that helps with the beetles.
UPDATE: I have ordered my Freeman Beetle Trap, done dusted the bees with powdered sugar, been feeding them, and they seem to be in pretty decent shape. Also ordered some nematodes, and am considering putting some of those CD case traps baited with roach bait under and around the ground way under the hive area. The CD cases have openings that are way too small for a bee to enter, and I’ve heard they work good too. (no poison IN the hive in other words)
UPDATE 2014: See my other posts on what I did later on.
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VARMINTS, WHY DO I SAY THAT?
Things we live around
JewelAnt Blog 
TO ALL THE GOOD PEOPLE THAT HAVEN’T HEARD FROM ME LATELY
This is not your fault (you good people that want to contact me), and periodically I get on the internet and go through those emails and weed out the chaf and try to make sense of it. But what none of you knew was that recently I lost someone very close to me. Just a few months after that I lost my cat YOGA CAT YOWIE, and have been working through the mental upset of that, and then I got sick and have been working through that also. I have not had the energy, nor the mental wherewithal to deal with the internet for the past few months. I still don’t.
I have been getting a lot of messages through the form mail that I (years ago) put on some of my web pages. I want everyone to know that at one point I tried to remove those forms from the pages, but years later WordPress changed something so that I couldn’t do that. So those forms stay on there, endlessly sending me notifications not just from legit. people that want to contact me, but hundreds of emails from scammers that have no legit purpose for existing on the internet. Again, none of it is your fault, I’m not trying to make you disappear if you need to talk to me. Go stomp the scammers for me, I’m too tired.
I know that some of you want to have a copy of the panoramas from World War One. I am absolutely sure that it is not illegal to sell the actual picture, but this belongs to the family and I can’t do that. I am an artist, and I take copyrights very seriously. I own several myself and it’s a subject that I will not back down on. I have not had time to research whether these are in public domain or not, and that is necessary before I transfer ANY copies of them to anyone for any reason. Need or not.
If I was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that these panoramas were in the public domain, with NO copyrights in effect, I would send you all a copy, I would sell copies everywhere. (I might make maybe a little pocket change, buy a loaf of bread or something) have been on the internet looking and searching, and I have only partly gotten any information on any of it. I suggest is that since y’all are on the internet, you could do some searching for it too.
Copyrights are good for the life of the person PLUS 75 years at least and then can be renewed. Holladay has copyrights that I’ve seen in 1919 of ships, which would mean they expire 1994 or thereabouts. BUT, keep in mind, the family can renew those copyrights, and they may still be in effect anyway. I have seen Holladay panoramas on military and government websites, but they are never displayed full resolution. They are always a smaller version of them by a long shot. So . . . . . go find out for me!
The other thing that I had not said, is that I have a free blog, and there is a finite amount of space you are allowed with a free blog. Guess what? I have reached my limit. And the only way to be able to post any more graphics is to delete some of my content, or start a new blog, and right now I don’t have the mental energy to do any of it. My energy has a finite amount of space too (grin) So y’all let me know if you find anything about copyrights on Holladay Photo 1918, 1919 or some such. I need help too. I’m a nice person. I deserve some help. Leave a comment instead of the form mail so that I’ll know it’s from my legit people.
Never fear, I’ll eventually get back to my normal thing here, but I’m resting now . . . . z z z z z z z z z z z z z
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on 2023/03/25 at 9:25 PM Leave a CommentTags: 316th, comments, militaria, Military, World War One