I am going to raise Bees...

At about the age of 12 I discovered the stories or should I say the adventures of Sherlock Homes.  That came about after one of the kids at school had "No shit Sherlock" to something I had said.  Within a few hours one of my brothers friends had a book of Sherlock Holmes stories.  I ask him about it and he lent me the book.  It was wonderful and that was from a kid that would do almost anything than read a book.

I now have book, video tapes and CDs of adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  In a few of the stories when Sherlock was down and not able to find a good case to work on he would state that he was going to retire to Wales and raise Bees.   I have used that as one of my own sayings for years.  It always got the "are you crazy" glance.

Well now that I am officially retired I have gotten a bee hive.  My wife was at first not to keen on the idea.  She is a master gardener and like the bees for her garden but I thought she thought I was a bit crazy. 8-)

She now is as much or more thrilled about them as I am.  It was not as easy or as hard to get started with bees as I thought.  We went to a local bee keeping association first.  I went to the library and got a how to keep bees book and found plans on making a hive.  Being cheep  frugal, I built my first hive box.  One of the persons I met at the bee meeting was a old guy, a little older than me that, that said he new of a swarm we could get for the box.  FREE!  That fit my price range.  8-)

With my bee box and the gloves, hive tool, veil, smoker and bee brush I met him and he took me to a old house that had a bee swarm in the wall of the house. This old guy in flip flops, shorts and a old shirt went right up to wall and with an electric saw cut a hole in the side of the old house where the bees were.  He smoked them a bit but that was it.  He had me cut a few more boards out ( Me fully covered with long pants with legs taped closed, veil, gloves, long sleeve shirt) Once the bee combs were exposed, he cut brood comb from the nest and put it in my hive box.  With no protection he scooped bees out of the hive with a large red Solo Cup and we dumped them in the hive box.  He said each cup full was about 500 bees. I lost count after 5 cups. He said if he had gotten the queen in the box the rest of the swarm would move into the box. He smoked the nest in the wall to help get them to move to the box.  He then said we could come back at night fall when all the bees were in the box, plug up the door opening, strap the top to the hive and take them to my house.

That was my first adventure with bees.  The swarm size was about the  35000 size and the box made a nice humming sound when we moved it. I was a bit on guard driving home with the bees in the back of the truck.  I also was sharing the cab of the truck with about 4 or 5 bees.  I left them alone and they left me alone. 

The cops often set up a speed trap on the road to our house.  I though it would have been fun for a cop to pull me over and ask whats in the box.

We now have 2 hives.  I can see why Sherlock Holmes wanted to raise bees.  The old crazy bee guy...I really like him!!!

Bees invaded my boat.

Some times of the year bees swarm.   When a hive or bees nest reaches a population that is becoming to small for the population a swarm splits off and looks for another home to nest in.  The warm usually finds a high tree or pole or even a boat mast to collect on and scout bees go out and look for a new nest place.  A boat is as good a place as any to nest in.

It only takes a few days for a swarm to build comb and start a new home.  Removing a bees nest can be big problem.  The bees like a small door that can be easily guarded with a nice space behind it.  They will wall off small cracks and seal the area off to make a nice home.

Getting rid of the bees them self's is less of a problem then cleaning out the nest.  Bees do not like smoke and they become "mellow" and are much less likely to sting when smoked.  Just by smoking the nest a few times in a short time span may get the swarm to move on.  Bees do not like there nest disturbed more than every few weeks by a bee keeper and they will often leave a hive if messed with often.  You can use that to help them want to leave. This I feel is the best way to clear the boat of a  swarm.  A wet dry vac can be used to suck the bees out of an area. Yes it dose kill a lot of or most of the bees.  The queen bee is the one that you need to get rid of.  If you do not get the queen she can rebuild the swarm. 

A note for your information: Between 10 am and 5 pm most of the bees are out of the nest and getting food. At that time you have to deal with the fewest bees. BUT the ones out come back late in the afternoon. If you used a vac to clear the nest  in the day you will get a lot of returning bees that afternoon so be prepared for that. 

Local bee keepers will often help you out. If you can get at the nest easily you can smoke them and scoop them out and dump them in a bee box.  You can get the queen this way.  If you contact a local bee keeper they often will help you or do it for free just to get the swarm. Bee keepers have a few different ways of getting or collecting a swarm that is not destructive to the boat. Ask them.

Once the bees are out of the nest you will want to clean out as much of the comb they have built as you can.  It can be a sticky honey mess.  If you got the swarm to leave just by smoking you will find that bees from that swarm will come back and remove much of the honey they had to leave and move it to there new home.
They do a great job, but after a few days you will want to clean up what is left. If you do not clean the area out, you can have a bad smell develop, a BIG ant problem bust to list two. Other bees will find it and they could build a new nest because of the left over smell of the first nest.  This often happens within 6 mo. so be on the watch for it.

Installing Nav Instruments

Trying to figure out where to put a Navigation Instrument where it is the most useful can be a brain bender.  If it is going in a instrument panel makes it easy.  But if it is a free standing or bracket mount unit the install can a challenge to find the right place.  Where you can run the wiring, how long the wiring is, the size of the unit and where it is placed so you can read it and it is out of the way and protected all need to be considered.  Then add in the thought of drilling holes in your boat.  My wife goes nuts when it comes to drilling holes in her boat no matter what they are for.

If the unit needs to be connected to other instruments, you have to take that linkage wiring may be also involved.  Our two sailboats are over 20 years old and other than a compass they came with no other interments.  We have put things like depth finders, wind instruments, GPS on them and each time we have it has been a challenge on where to put the stuff.

What is nice about the new combo units are that they have multiple instruments built in to the same unit. My newest GPS Combo has the GPS, the chart plotter, a fish-finder/ depth finder, a compass, and it gives your speed underway, a guess on when you will get to where you are going, and a bunch more stuff I do not use.   All in one nice little box.  The box is water proof (so the directions say ) and more or less is readable in bright sunlight. 

I mounted the bracket for the unit on a board that sits in the cockpit where it is easily seen and used. The board has Velcro strips on it so it will not slide around when sailing, and when we do not need it, it can go into the cabin with the instrument still on it.  The wiring harness is the biggest limiting factor.  The Velcro let me mount it so no holes had to be put in the boat.  8-)  I also have Velcro in the cabin where it is stored so it can not does not slide around when stored. 

I think the biggest problem is seeing the display in bright sun. A home made shadow box is what I came up with for that.  The wiring harness is the only other.  The other option would have been to install it fixed mount, but I did not want it so it was exposed all the time. 

GPS Plotters and Trackers

We have a very old GPS tracker unit on our bigger boat and it works quite well. You lay out your course on a real paper chart, enter way points in to the GPS and the GPS shows a highway you follow to each way point. For most trips it works quite well.  But you do have to put the way points in manually.  Simple and dumb.  8-)

On our recent trip sailing with my wife's brother, I got to see and use his new GPS Plotter.  I admit it was more than dirt simple. No need for paper charts and looking up and plotting the course ahead of time.  We still had real charts and they are great and we used them for a quick coastal overview.  But all we did with his GPS unit was turn it on and it displayed the area we were in and where we were located.  We just had to mark with a way point where we wanted to go on the monitor, and it set the course for us.  The displayed chart showed us water depth, and you just way pointed through to keep us in deep water.  It also gave us our speed over the water, what compass reading we should follow and a estimation on when we would get there.

I knew the new GPS units did all these things, but I really did not figure I had to have them.  After all I have real paper charts. 8-)  They are old like me!!!  And there is something neat on useing a chat to set your course.

After a week using this "New" thing I found I liked it.   It did make navigation very easy.  And the display of the chart on the monitor over the area you were in was nice. You could zoom in and out for better detail or wider aria if you want.  You could save the plot to use it again another time.

But Dang!!   I still like paper charts and we have a BIG BOX of them.  I guess I could wall paper one of our bathrooms with some of the old charts we never use.  Better then pitching them I guess.

OK, when I got home I did check out the new GPS Plotters.   There are some very reasonably priced ones as well as high end ones like the one we used on the trip.  We do not really do much sailing where we need a GPS but I admit I like the one we used. I am going to surprise my wife with a GPS plotter.  I am going to get a small one that we can use on my 21' boat and can use it on her 37'  if we want to and need it.

With my boat and the trips we take in it all we need is a depth sounder and a compass, but going high tech will not hurt.  *-)    Lets see: a chart, a compass, an anchor, a depth sounder, a little beer and rum and now a GPS Plotter.  That makes for a happy OLD Pirate.  Arg!!

Broke wrist at start of cruse.

My wife's brother invited us to go sailing on his boat with him this year. H sail's up to Maine ech summer. My wife jumped at the invitation and we planed our trip.  The day we were to head out was a bad stormy day and Wendy wanted to check how our boats were tied up just in case a bad storm hit our house when we we gone.  I went down to the dock and slipped on the stairs that go down to the dock.  I did a twisting fall and came down on my butt on one of the steps and I tried breaking the fall with my right arm.  I new I had broken my tail bone ( I have done that before ) and my right wrist hurt like a &#@!.   I checked out my wrist and I figured nothing major was broken.  As a old X-Ray tech I have seen lots of broken forearms and wrists so I felt sure nothing major was broken.

I thought I might have a chip fracture of the styloid process of the ulna and if so a splint not a cast was  ball that was needed.  I was NOT going to the ER just for that.

We headed out.  An extra pillow on the seat took care of the tailbone and the wrist was sore and only hurt when I rotated it.  The wrist got more sore as the day went on. The next morning it was nicely swollen...fat knuckles and very tender over the lateral side of the wrist.  I ace wrapped it and took some aspirin.

We got up to Maine and got to the boat.  I quickly found I was not much help as a crew man with the wrist.  I also found the a life jacket was great to sit on.  Like a ring pillow, the neck hole let you sit with out putting pressure on the tailbone.  After 4 days the swelling had gone done, but turning the hand hurt.

The worst thing was using the head.   Getting pants up and down one handed with the boat healing and bouncing was a feat.  One day when we had ruff seas with rolling waves...I now know what a ketchup  bottle feels like when it is pounded on.  8-)

Still, all in all, the trip was fun.  Both body parts now are not giving me much discomfort.  The wrist has a notable larger styloid process then I had but everything works right if I do not over do it.  Some twisting movements still makes it hurt.

Thanks Rumery's Boatyard 8-)

We just got back from a sailing trip with my wife's brother up in Maine.  We drove up to Maine from Florida and met him at Rumery's Boat Yard in Biddeford, Maine.  Walter had called the boatyard and ask if they had a mooring for a night and if there be a problem with picking us up there.  To his surprise and pleasure they said that it was no problem, that he could tie up to the dock for the the night and meet us the next day and at no charge.

We got there late afternoon.  The boatyard had provided a key to the locked gated yard so we could get in and out of the yard.  We had a great meal at a local restaurant on the waterfront, and then went back to the boat for the night.  We left the next morning after filling the fuel tanks at the boat yard.

We all wanted to give a big big thanks to the Rumery Boatyard and it's staff.

 

Anchoring with a centennial weight

On a sailing trip with a friend I got to see the use of a centennial when anchoring.  At one anchorage on our trip a sudden short storm blew over us and two boats near us drug there anchors. One boat even had two anchors out.  It is an old low tech technique that really helps keep your anchor set.

A centennial is a weigh that is attached at your anchor line after you set the anchor.  It is attached and dropped in the water so it slides down the anchor line and causes the anchor line at the boat to drop to the bottom.  A separate line is attached to the centennial so you can bring it up when pulling up the hook.  This retrieval line needs to be just long enough to lower the centennial weight down to the bottom.

What this weight dose is helps the keep the pull of the anchor line on the anchor along the bottom and the anchor stays dug in.   It is almost like having a all chain anchor road.

To make a centennial is easy. You need a weight of some kind, a shackle or two and a length of line for the retrieval line.  The one I made is crude but it works great.  I sail on a river and bottom is soft muck.  Even when I can not put out as much scope as I want the centennial keeps the anchor dug in.  8-)

I made this one for my 21'er using a few old diving weights, a web strap, and two shackles.  I tie the retrieval line to the shackle on the web strap. the other shackle goes over the anchor line and attaches to the first shackle and that lets the weight slide down the set anchor line to the bottom.  The retrieval line is then tied off so the weight stays at that point on the anchor line.  That way the weight lets the anchor line stay on the bottom and helps keep the anchor dug in.

To leave, you pull up the centennial, remove it from the anchor line and pull in the anchor as normal.

I made one with more weight for our 40' boat, but this one work great for my 21' er.