What's everyone doing today?

[Beekissed]

You are a singular man, Joel! Most men I've known are very threatened by a woman who uses power tools. I can only imagine it is either they feel like I don't need them...or they are afraid I will want them to work alongside me~heaven forbid!

Seriously...men run like a scalded dog when they find out you skin your own deer, change your own oil, build your own stuff, bait your own hook. Do they think I burst from the womb knowing how to do all these things? Single mothers wait a long, long time if they sit around waiting on someone to take care of things around the house and someone has to teach the boys how to do things. So...you pick up that hammer and start slammin' nails...

My mama taught me all the finer points of DIY and I have so much still to learn. She can fix her own furnace, roof, electrical wiring, plumbing, etc. I'll never be the woman she is, I can tell you that!

 

[rebecca100]

Yeah that's too true! I was under the house trying to teach ds to fix pipes. The kids and I built my greenhouse. Poor ds looked scared when I pulled out the skilsaw. But as for talented at that stuff I absolutely am NOT. I want to do the rocket mass heater this year too.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

When I was in home ec, the teacher said that a man who could read a blue print and make a house, could also take a pattern and make a dress, because they were so much alike. Thats all she said, but I read more into it and pondered it for years.
Everytime DH and I are making something and we get stuck, he asks me what I think and I say something like,"Well a seamstress would cut to this measurement and make sure its the same as here and decrease to allow for the incline......" or something like that. Then we try to do it like a seamstress and it usually turns out fine.
I am certain that if I had to, I could make a dwelling to live in, without the help of a man. I guess that is threatening to some though. I must admit that I'm glad to have a man around if I have to screw or hammer upwards. I have a really hard time hammering on the ceiling.

Went to Mass and on the way home I stopped at DH's uncles, where I attempted to catch a swarm of bees yesterday. I think I got them. Yeehaa!! Unfortunately the catch box is 15 ft up in a tree, against a branch and being supported by a rope, in a pulley situation.....gotta push it off the branch and lower the box with the rope.

 

[Beekissed]

Free BEES??? YAY!!! Can't get any better than free bees, then free honey....excellent scrounging skills, I must say. I always wanted to get a swarm of wild bees and collect their queens to breed over domestic, gentler bees and see how hardy my bees could get from that crossing.

So, these bees...do they look like wild stock or domestic?

 

[Wannabefree]

We have a swarm interested in our bag of cans :/ Want them? I have no hive or anything to put them in. I do enjoy them being around, but I have no clue as to how to handle them, or capture them.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

They are not Italians....too dark, but they not as dark as one of my colonies. That one is really dark and slightly aggressive. But this new colony is the size of an Italian but not golden in color. Its like they striped black and rust. I am not the brains of the operation. DH gets that honor, but I am the talent......I'm the one that is calm and won't get mad and start kicking the hives.
The uncle has another colony he wants to get rid of, but its in a protected area, all settled in....under a platform, supporting a toilet in a shed. So I have to decide when I want to tackle that job, what equipment to use and how aggressive I want to bee with them. I can use a vac or I can make a reverse crab trap and smoke them severely, then apply the reverse trap and have an alternative home located right there.....possibly do all that and then drill a small hole and fume them out.
I'll have to order some new equipment, unless DH decides to make some homemade stuff.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'll let y'all handle the bees. I would love to raise bees, but since I'm allergic, that's out. And, if you want to see me panic, see how I react when there's a bee that's around that won't leave me alone-even when I try to ignore it!

 

[Northed]

What am I doing today?

Trying to stay out of everyone's way, and not doing a very good job of it.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

You might be allergic or you might have a doctor that knows nothing about what a normal reaction to a bee sting looks like. Even someone with a hypersensitivity to a sting, isn't necessarily allergic. And if they are, the proper treatment is to go to an allergist and have a partial sting injected once a week or so, and increase until you can take a whole sting, etc....until you are normal. Bee stings are actually benificial.
Doctors are always telling people they are allergic to bees. I don't think I even know a single person alive who is allergic to bees, although I can tell you the names of a dozen people who walk around claiming they are allergic. But you could be one of those few. Epipens are being really misused now a days. My SIL actually admitted to me that she HAD to use an epipen or she would get all red and swollen at the site of the sting....an epipen is to stop a medical emergency, not to treat a normal or even hypersensitive reaction.
Today we hung out in the garden. DH and DD framed up 2 new small beds, while I decided to put up a little fence for some wild blackberries to trail up on....did a bit of de-weeding around there too. Tossed clover seeds all around the garden where we don't have beds...higher nitrogen and happier chickens + less ragweeds + well fed bees.....I hope.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'm allergic-and have the blood tests to prove it. I go to the allergist once a month for the shots. My worst allergy is to honey bees. Last time I got stung by one, I ended up at the ER. I had a reaction in spite of getting the shots.

My reaction was not as bad as it's been in the past. I was getting worse B4 I started to get the shots, and was to the point where my throat was starting to close up on me. Normally, I do carry an epipen. But when I was stung last, I was on my bike, and had forgotten to grab it B4 I left.