leverhead
Well-Known Member
Happy Birthday young man!
Chillards FTT 2013 Grow Blog
- Thread starter chillardbee
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Southern Planter
Well-Known Member
Is that one of them boneless cats?
chillardbee
Well-Known Member
That cat can't stand to not be on my lap if I'm sitting down at the puter or on the couch. She's a good lap warmer though. She is a tortipoint and will be 16 years old on November 16th.
Thanks ya'all for the HB's.
Thanks ya'all for the HB's.
DonH
Well-Known Member
Happy Birthday, Will! Churchwardens look awesome. Still don't have one yet.
springheal
Well-Known Member
Many happy returns for the other day.
DGBAMA
Well-Known Member
Happy birthday. My 40 was March this year. The "warden" looks nice.
grgfinney
Well-Known Member
Happy birthday Chillard 40 isnt not old, got you by 3
workhorse_01
Well-Known Member
Happy Birthday (Late). Now it all begins! In Jan. I'll have you by 4.
Mad Oshea
Taking a break
13 to Ya.
chillardbee
Well-Known Member
Well, I still haven't harvested the rest of the baccy. Getting the bees fed and bedded down for winter was priority. This weekend I'll get the supers out of the honeyroom and get set up for what will likely be the largest one time harvest. That means all the virginia, burley, perique, and one sucker equalling well over 500 stalks.
bonehead
Well-Known Member
i hope you have a lot of stored up energy and a few people to help you out. i am just emptying the buckets from my bucket grown plants and layering the dirt with ground up leafs from my yard to compost for next years bucket grown plants. i am kind of sad the season is over. it got down to 27 f last night so winter is definately coming. good luck
Mad Oshea
Taking a break
500 (good job) After Your harvest, Ya gona spin comb?
chillardbee
Well-Known Member
Got the honey spun awhile back, I did about 3,700 pounds, which is not bad considering I also doubled my hives.
I just moved out half of the honey boxes today and bought 2 12' 2x4s and turned my honey room into a curing shed. This time I will keep the humidity around 40-50 % with a temp around 70f so as not to cause rot but yet allow the leaf to yellow and cure better, at least, thats the plan. I set up the remaining honey boxes to support the 2x4s parallel to each other and just short of 4' apart so they will hold my 2x2 4' sticks that I'll suspend the stalks from. it's hard to explain how i'm going to suspend them but in short there will be 2 plants ant the end of each string and then draped over the 2x2, a total of 4 plants per string. The weight won't be an issue since half the leaf was already primed and the remaing is only 3-4 feet of stalk to get cut. I'm hoping to drape 10 strings per stick (40 stalks) every 10-12 inches along the 2x4s.
I'm starting the harvest tomorrow and I'm not sure how far I'll get but it seems to me that since I'm only hanging the stalk that it should go faster. I am kind of on a race against time too since we've been having a north easterly wind which fortunatley hasn't brough the cold artic air with it but it certianly won't be long before we get into the heavy cold rains of November.
Once the baccy is hanging and I get the last few chores with the bees done I'll be able to sigh a sigh of relief and concentrate on building my baccy shredder that I've already started on.
I'll keep an update tomorrow, until then, good nite.
I just moved out half of the honey boxes today and bought 2 12' 2x4s and turned my honey room into a curing shed. This time I will keep the humidity around 40-50 % with a temp around 70f so as not to cause rot but yet allow the leaf to yellow and cure better, at least, thats the plan. I set up the remaining honey boxes to support the 2x4s parallel to each other and just short of 4' apart so they will hold my 2x2 4' sticks that I'll suspend the stalks from. it's hard to explain how i'm going to suspend them but in short there will be 2 plants ant the end of each string and then draped over the 2x2, a total of 4 plants per string. The weight won't be an issue since half the leaf was already primed and the remaing is only 3-4 feet of stalk to get cut. I'm hoping to drape 10 strings per stick (40 stalks) every 10-12 inches along the 2x4s.
I'm starting the harvest tomorrow and I'm not sure how far I'll get but it seems to me that since I'm only hanging the stalk that it should go faster. I am kind of on a race against time too since we've been having a north easterly wind which fortunatley hasn't brough the cold artic air with it but it certianly won't be long before we get into the heavy cold rains of November.
Once the baccy is hanging and I get the last few chores with the bees done I'll be able to sigh a sigh of relief and concentrate on building my baccy shredder that I've already started on.
I'll keep an update tomorrow, until then, good nite.
workhorse_01
Well-Known Member
Good job! You're gonna need the winter to rest. LOL
Very impressive! I actually harvested a grand total of about 180 pounds. I got into beekeeping about 15 years ago just so I'd have bees to pollinate my garden and orchard. I find the honey a pain in the ass, but at least I sell all that I harvest. I do keep a few gallons for mead though..
I like breeding queens too but man, harvesting honey sucks!!!! Oh, and did I mention I'm getting really tired of the "new pest of the month" thing? Small Hive Beetle is the latest pain in the butt.
workhorse_01
Well-Known Member
Doesn't that plastic strip kill the beetles? It's been 10 or 12 years since I had Italian hives.
Very impressive! I actually harvested a grand total of about 180 pounds. I got into beekeeping about 15 years ago just so I'd have bees to pollinate my garden and orchard. I find the honey a pain in the ass, but at least I sell all that I harvest. I do keep a few gallons for mead though..
Small hive beetles are the new kid on the block. They will literally kill your hive within about 1 week of infestation. Standard control is to use a ventilated bottom board with an oil reservoir for the beetles to fall in to. There is also a Beetle Blaster that works well. It is a small piece of plastic inserted between the frames. I do not know if there is a "chemical" that will kill or control them. By plastic strip you are probably referring to Apistan? If so, that's for Varroa Mites.
Southern Planter
Well-Known Member
Who's importing these critters, Monsanto or Walmart?
We could learn a thing or two from the folks down under.
We could learn a thing or two from the folks down under.
chillardbee
Well-Known Member
I've seen a few beetle around here a long time ago but the climate and soil is not favourful for them so they're not a problem. the strips they use for treatmenr of the shb is the check mite, very nasty organo-phosphate chemical. I've used the apivar strips for the last 2 years but next year I'll use the apistan strips, I haven't used apistan since 2003. For the most part, i had been using oxalic acid, formic acid, and essential oils for treatment of the mite but they don't work well enough anymore and since i've started using the strips again, I've had better bees and less losses.
Yeah, extracting can be a pain especially when there other things I could be doing but I have a 20 frame radial motorized extractor that feeds into a 40 gallon water jacketed sump with heater and a uncapping plane to uncap with. the set up allows me on a good day to extract 1500 pounds a day.
Yeah, extracting can be a pain especially when there other things I could be doing but I have a 20 frame radial motorized extractor that feeds into a 40 gallon water jacketed sump with heater and a uncapping plane to uncap with. the set up allows me on a good day to extract 1500 pounds a day.
chillardbee
Well-Known Member
Well, I got the perique cut and hanging; Done. I got all the main part of virginia cut and I'm hanging that now. I can see that this might be a 2-3 day process. Also, when squating in the baccy patch, make sure there ain't any stumps of old plants under you that might violate you.
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