Working on Beehives and frugality

The next adventure on my sustainability path is beekeeping. For any and all who know me, that might seem a bit of an interesting change. I don't like getting stung. But I can only recall one sting from a honey bee, and I was about 4 years old then. The numerous other stings I've received have been from yellow jackets, wasps, ground hornets, and bumble-bees. Those stings have all happened when I stumbled into, mowed over, or otherwise disturbed their nests.

I have been reading everything I can about beekeeping. At first it seemed prohibitively expensive, but as I read more, I found something called a Kenyan Top Bar Hive. It seems that this type of hive can be built for very little, and is easy to assemble. So, I found some plans, and modified them to what I want to build, and used Google's Sketchup program to model it. Here is the link to the model. You can look at a sketch of the model, but if you want to view the entire thing, you will need Google's Sketchup program installed. It is free, and really cool.

Anyway, I've started construction of 2 hives. I had some old 2x4s in the shed, and milled them into 98 top bars. I will be using some of these to make into following boards and the rest will be used on the hives themselves. The top bars are what the bees attach the comb to.

I went to Home Depot today to get some of the other hardware and lumber and supplies that I need for the hives. I picked up wood screws, some bolts and nuts (for the legs) and linseed oil, and 2-12" extension clamps (to help glue up the boards). After I got all that, I went looking for lumber. That is when I got disgusted. Home Depot really does charge a lot of $$$ for warped boards, bent, skewed and twisted. I started going through all of them and the more I looked the more disgusted I became. These hives were supposed to be able to be built inexpensively! So, I started to walk around to the other side of the racks. Down by the large saws that Home Depot has, there was a cart with lots of 1x6's that were 10 feet long. There was a sign on the cart that said to buy the wood; it had 2 feet of the end of each board water damaged. Kinda like the truck that had been hauling it didn't put a tarp on the last 2 feet, and it got really wet and just sat. Anyway, I found an associate and found out that they were selling these things for $0.51 a board! I immediately found 14 of the best looking ones and loaded up my cart. Total cost for more wood than I will need to build 4 hives - $7.14. A huge coup for me. Besides, the bees won't care if the wood is a little damaged. And I'm planning on using linseed oil mixed with beeswax on the outside of them anyway. They will get weathered and water damaged eventually anyway. So Wow! Neat and cool! It really can be advantageous to look around, and not just settle on the first thing you see. And if I have boards left over, I can still use most of them anyway on nicer projects.
I love those frugal deals.
When I got home I told Mary of what I had found, she asked if I wanted to go back and get the rest of it. I didn't go back, because I don't have a place to store that much lumber here at the house. I can't keep it dry either. So I didn't go back for more. I reckon that some other people need a chance to share the bounty of that great deal.

I will get to work building the beehive bodies later this week. And the total cost of the wood so far - about $13 - counting the 2x4s I had already milled into top bars. Not bad.

Buddhist story

An email story that has been going around -

There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend, who was always there for her. She said that if she could only see the world, she would marry her boyfriend. One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. She could see everything, including her boyfriend. Her boyfriend asked her, “Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?”

The girl was shocked when she saw that her boyfriend was blind, and refused to marry him. Her boyfriend walked away in tears, and later wrote a letter to her saying - “Just take care of my eyes dear.” People often change when their status and that of others who care for them change. Only a few remember who was there for us during terrible times.

We will never know how much others sacrifice for us,
while we hanker on how much we sacrifice for others. - Stonepeace

Toilet Repair.

The downstairs toilet leaked. Mary had turned the water off to it, and I had to figure out why it was leaking. So, I checked it out, and found that the flapper needed replacement. So off to the hardware store. Back after the trip to get the toilet working again. Replaced flapper, and fiddled with chain length and finally got it working so that it wouldn't stay "open" after the flush. I have kids, and they usually don't hang around after they flush to "jiggle the handle" if the toilet tank doesn't fill. So I got it working, and now it isn't leaking. About 15 minutes of fiddle time, and 45 trip time. Lucky me. One small victory in the battle of home ownership.

Table Saw

Yesterday morning I purchased a table saw. I am planning on building things around the house, and using one of these will make these tasks much easier. I spent about 3 hours putting it together, making sure that it was all set up correctly and such, then I got to actually turn it on!

I spent another 2 hours making pusher stick, pusher block, rail fence extension, and feather boards.

I'll be sawing things now!

This morning I went out to pick raspberries before it got too hot. I came back with 3 large quart containers full, and put them directly into the freezer. They will keep there for a good long time. Berries for lots of things to come. And I never got out of the neighborhood today. I'll go out again later this week and try to pick some blackberries at the college.

Mary returns from Colorado and niece and nephew watching. She had fun, but I think it may have worn her out. And to think, some women wait until their 40's to even start families. Wow.
Love you Mary, and I'm sure that Beck is happy that you did this for her.

Restful Weekend.

I had one of those.

I didn't do much of anything that was scheduled, planned or otherwise anticipated. Down time. Free to do whatever struck my fancy.

So, I baked a couple of logs. Yep, that's right, baked them. It was a small piece of oak branch, and an inch thick slab sawn off of a bigger log. After they were baked in a 300 degree F. oven for about an hour, I took them out to cool. I then drilled holes in them to attach them so that the slab would be on the bottom, and the oak stick/log would be upright. After all of that (and 3 deck screws to make sure it stayed together) I rescued my poor dieing dendrobium orchid. It was a victim of over watering. I left it in the pot for too long and the bark was breaking down and suffocating it. Anyway, I tied a patch of sphagnum moss to the oak log, then set about tying the orchid to the log, careful to not kill what few roots were left.
This I do for fun!

Anyway, the orchid should do much better now that it won't rot. (I treated all of the trimmed root ends with an anti-fungal/bacterial - cinnamon.) I will have to make sure that the orchid gets watered often, and check to make sure it is growing well. Hopefully it will live. If not, I'll have to try again!

That was Saturday's big project. Ok, little project. The community college had fireworks Saturday night, and that was a good show, since we live only 10 walking minutes from there. Mary and I went with a neighbor and had a fine time. Oddly, neither twin wanted to go... Hmmm. Are they growing up?

Sunday was spent reading and generally goofing off. I did get a few loads of laundry done, and some beans planted and gardens watered, but aside from that... just a relaxing July 1st!

Next week: Work at paying job for 2 days, Tuesday evening send Mary to Colorado to take care of her sister's kids while her sister goes to Africa on business, no work on Wednesday, work 2 more days, then have another weekend. Life is good!