General Discussion Thread

[Iceea]

Aww yeah
And the advanced class "bomb-diving into a cold lake" if we can.

We don't have a sauna, but we do have a hot tub and my son has been known to get real toasty then jump out and roll in the snow.
This past year of course we didn't have much snow for anything, and the lake is about 100 yds away and usually frozen.

[Pupunen]

and the lake is about 100 yds away and usually frozen.

But that's even better, just make a hole in the ice and you have the perfect swimming pool! (It's a good idea to also put a ladder in the hole, it makes it easier to climb out.)

[Róisín]

Juniper, perhaps you have a swarm? If you don't want the bees to colonise your place, it's worth calling an apiarist, or your local beekeepers' association, to see if anyone wants to take a swarm. They may also simply move on. Bees often leave their old hive in a group, with a queen, then land somewhere convenient while they send out scouts for a few days, searching for a new hive site. They often just hang in a bunch on a tree branch or under a shed roof, with the queen kept warm in the middle, until they settle on a new place and all move there.

If there are places you dont want them to colonise, like your chimney or wall vents, cover the entrances to those until they move on. It can be very hard to get bees out of a wall! One of my young friends down in the Adelaide suburbs had a bee swarm colonise his outdoor toilet. He let them, and now harvests 'dunny honey'. It's very good! And I'm glad you live somewhere the bees are still healthy enough to swarm! Good luck with them.

[Juniper]

Juniper, perhaps you have a swarm? If you don't want the bees to colonise your place, it's worth calling an apiarist, or your local beekeepers' association, to see if anyone wants to take a swarm. They may also simply move on. Bees often leave their old hive in a group, with a queen, then land somewhere convenient while they send out scouts for a few days, searching for a new hive site. They often just hang in a bunch on a tree branch or under a shed roof, with the queen kept warm in the middle, until they settle on a new place and all move there.

If there are places you dont want them to colonise, like your chimney or wall vents, cover the entrances to those until they move on. It can be very hard to get bees out of a wall! One of my young friends down in the Adelaide suburbs had a bee swarm colonise his outdoor toilet. He let them, and now harvests 'dunny honey'. It's very good! And I'm glad you live somewhere the bees are still healthy enough to swarm! Good luck with them.

They ended up moving on to the neighbor's yard, hopefully they stay there so they're still close enough to pollinate the flowers in our garden and what not. We've actually had bees in our wall before. Idk bees just like this area. I suppose as long as they're honeybees and don't end up in the house (again) it's cool. Still not sure where they came from ? Someone somewhere in the neighborhood must have knocked down their nest or disturbed it somehow.

[Róisín]

They may simply be swarming. It's a way bees start new hives. In a good season, bees will breed up until their numbers exceed the spare space in the hive, or the carrying capacity of their environment. When this happens, the workers choose several healthy larvae and begin to feed them royal jelly, so that they develop into sexually mature females (queens). Usually there is only one queen per hive. If the queens mature when weather is too bad for mating flights, they hunt each other through the hive until only one is left. Once the queens become mature, each of them will fly on a mating flight followed by the hive drones (the spare males, of which there are always between a few dozen and a few hundred in a hive.)

The queens fly high, and whichever of the drones is strong enough to keep up with her gets a chance to mate, then dies. The queen flies back to the hive, and assembles between a few hundred and a few thousand bees, then flies off with this swarm. She lands somewhere and the bees cluster around her for warmth and safety, while scouts go out to find, as may be, a hollow tree, a solid rock overhang, or your chimney or wall cavity. This is also the point where the swarm can be captured by an alert apiarist, and used to start a new hive. Once a suitable site is found the whole mass of bees moves there, the queen settles down to laying eggs for some of the workers to raise, and the rest of the workers forage for food, defend the hive etc. And the cycle goes on.

[Basse]

That sounds like swarming to me, has happened twice for us, you have a big swarm of bees that eventually settles down somewhere as one big blob.
Some beekeepers have actually marked their queens to identify it in case she decides to leave the hive and settle down somewhere else.

[urbicande]

Planning for a 4 day long glamping trip is more complex than I recalled

[JoB]

If we ever have an international Minnion meet-up in Finland, we should arrange a "how to use a sauna" class for our foreign guests...

YES! I would so be in, if only I can make it!

[carefully starts to write down The Basic Rules of Sauna]
"#1: A sauna is a place for you to be in."

But that's even better, just make a hole in the ice

"#2: Don't underestimate the heat your body will need to accumulate before you may go back out. You may want to measure beforehand how much ice you'll have to melt through, too."

So long as they have stores where you're going, you haven't forgotten anything

Ah, the ever-true advice for people getting ready to travel ... "take along half of that stuff, and twice the money!"

[Pupunen]

"#2: Don't underestimate the heat your body will need to accumulate before you may go back out. You may want to measure beforehand how much ice you'll have to melt through, too."

It may be wiser to make the hole before going into the sauna, as it can take some time if the ice is thick. Just make sure that you don't accidentally drop any of the tools you use in the water. My cousins and I are going to have a fun time this summer trying to locate a big, heavy iron bar that suffered this fate in February.

[JoB]

Just make sure that you don't accidentally drop any of the tools you use in the water. My cousins and I are going to have a fun time this summer trying to locate a big, heavy iron bar that suffered this fate in February.

"#3: Use consumables instead of tools for the job, if possible. The napalm from your cleanser cosplay qualifies - as does dynamite."

[urbicande]

Ah, the ever-true advice for people getting ready to travel ... "take along half of that stuff, and twice the money!"

Heh.  This is a regional burn, so the money won't do much good.  And I'm bringing along a few important things for our camp.  The PA system is probably the most important

[Juniper]

They may simply be swarming. It's a way bees start new hives. In a good season, bees will breed up until their numbers exceed the spare space in the hive, or the carrying capacity of their environment. When this happens, the workers choose several healthy larvae and begin to feed them royal jelly, so that they develop into sexually mature females (queens). Usually there is only one queen per hive. If the queens mature when weather is too bad for mating flights, they hunt each other through the hive until only one is left. Once the queens become mature, each of them will fly on a mating flight followed by the hive drones (the spare males, of which there are always between a few dozen and a few hundred in a hive.)

The queens fly high, and whichever of the drones is strong enough to keep up with her gets a chance to mate, then dies. The queen flies back to the hive, and assembles between a few hundred and a few thousand bees, then flies off with this swarm. She lands somewhere and the bees cluster around her for warmth and safety, while scouts go out to find, as may be, a hollow tree, a solid rock overhang, or your chimney or wall cavity. This is also the point where the swarm can be captured by an alert apiarist, and used to start a new hive. Once a suitable site is found the whole mass of bees moves there, the queen settles down to laying eggs for some of the workers to raise, and the rest of the workers forage for food, defend the hive etc. And the cycle goes on.

The more I find out about bees the cooler I think they are. They're actually incredibly intelligent, years ago I saw a documentary that mentioned something about how bees can be conditioned to tell time by human analogue clocks. Impressive little buggers

[Róisín]

Yeah, I really love bees. I've had hives at several places I've lived, and my gran had bees on the farm when I was a kid. They make a garden feel homely. I don't own any at present, but a nearby apiarist pastures a hive or two in my garden when other areas are short of flowers, in return for a share of the honey. I really should rejoin the Beekeepers Association and get another hive of my own, because I want to make more mead this year. I gave my last hive to a friend with an orchard at a time when I was moving and life was chaotic, then they seemed so happy among his fruit trees that I hadn't heart to move them again.

[Noodles]

Yeah, I really love bees. I've had hives at several places I've lived, and my gran had bees on the farm when I was a kid. They make a garden feel homely. I don't own any at present, but a nearby apiarist pastures a hive or two in my garden when other areas are short of flowers, in return for a share of the honey. I really should rejoin the Beekeepers Association and get another hive of my own, because I want to make more mead this year. I gave my last hive to a friend with an orchard at a time when I was moving and life was chaotic, then they seemed so happy among his fruit trees that I hadn't heart to move them again.

If I ever live somewhere with enough garden, I'd love to have a honeybee hive. Right now, my family has mason bees, which are solitary and not aggressive and even better at pollinating fruit trees than other bees, though no honey (they're also native here)

[Róisín]

We used to have mason bees where I lived in France, but haven't seen them where I live now in South Australia. We have blue-banded bees, which are wonderful buzz pollinators, leaf-cutter bees, domino bees (so called because they are black with six white spots), and maybe a dozen different kinds of the tiny dark native bees, and we have flower wasps. There are also both feral and domestic Apis mellifera, the common honeybee. My garden is very floriferous, all year, because my European fruit trees flower in Spring, and I have a lot of bulbs and native plants for the rest of the year. When flowering weeds such as dandelion turn up I just harvest the leaves and leave the flowers for the bees,then at the end of summer I do a big harvest of dandelion flowers to make wine and cordial.