Honey Run Apiaries-A Beekeeper’s Blog

I have a fair number of beekeeping photos taken over the past several years but only have posted a small handful of them on the website because it’s generally been a pain to do so because they were static pages. Not easy to change, add to or search. So this past weekend I added a feature that’s been long missing from this site, a Photo Gallery.

It is a fairly basic photo gallery, but integrated fairly well with the site. Currently I only have pictures from this year’s queen rearing class posted, but I\’ll add more periodically now that it\’s fairly easy to do. You can view it here:
http://www.honeyrunapiaries.com/bee_pictures.phtml

I should also note, the queen rearing class pictured was done in conjunction with the Ohio State Beekeepers Association’s queen program. As part of the program, classes on queen rearing were given by 8 of the regional coordinators at various times thought the summer throughout the state. I believe they intend to hold these classes again in 2008 and if you think you may be interesting in attending one of them, contact me and I\’ll make sure you get on the announcement list for the classes.

The warm spell is definately over with highs now in the 20’s and the bees are nicely tucked away in their hives. The front that brought an end to the heat wave came in with a roar with wind gusts I believe near 50 mph. I ended up having to check all my hives and replace telescoping covers which had blown off the hives and landed 20 feet away in some cases. As I was coming home from work I wasn’t dressed appropriately and between the standing water soaking my shoes and gale force winds below freezing, it wasn’t pleasent.

So it made for a good weekend to sit by the fire and do on overdue computer work. We actually installed a Quadra-Fire pellet and corn stove in both the home and at my wife’s business to help cut down on fuel costs (our furnace runs on fuel oil). Of course it helps that we live in an area where corn is plentiful and we can buy it directly from the farmer.
Overall my wife and I both love the stone. It isn’t enough to heat the whole house; mainly because the heat isn’t distributed well because of the floor plan. It has automatic start and can be hooked to a thermostat so it can be left on when you aren’t at home. It can use a direct vent strait out the wall with a 3″ID double wall pipe making installation a breese (and you get to play with power tools!). It has very minimal power requirements to run the blowers and electric start so it can be plugged into any 120v outlet. It generates a bit of smoke when starting, but is virtuly smokeless once started and the exaust is cool enough to put your hand in. It does need daily cleaning (especially if you run corn or a mix of corn and pellets that is required for auto starting), but it typically only takes about a minute and has several pulls built in to clean the various parts. The top and sides get warm, but not too hot to touch. In fact several of our cats love sleeping on it while it is on. Overall it is quite well thought out and we wouldn’t trade it in, however:

I do have a few complaints and suggestions:

1. The corners of the soot drawer (underneath the unit to catch and remove the ashes) are not tight or sealed. This means soot leaks out and forms a small pile at the botton front corners of the unit. I’m not sure why the corners couldn’t be welded or simply sealed with a heat resistant sealant as several parts inside the unit already are. (It just seems cheap and a big oversight in an otherwise nicely designed stove).
2. The unit comes with a can of paint to touch up scraches and a small scraper to break up clinkers and scrape the fire pot. It’s a small thing, but very nice to have included. However, I’m surprised Quadra-Fire stops there and doesn’t also include a 99 cent cheap 1″ paint brush to clean the soot. (I bought one myself).
3. It does come with a thermostat, but it’s a cheap bimetal mechanical model. I would have appreciated a cheap digital thermostat with a stove that costs a couple thousand dollars. I purchased one locally for $20 retail.
4. The 3 speeds is a very nice feature and a big selling point in my opinion. However, I was surprised that the only way to control the speeds is via a switch in the back of the unit. There are no contacts available so that it could be controlled by a remote switch or even a dual stage thermostat that could turn the speed up when the room is colder. Such thermostats are readily available (typically for heat pumps) but could be used with the stove if only the connections were available. The switch that is built in unfortunately is part of a sealed speed control unit with a ‘warrantee void if removed’ seal. So unless one wants to void the warrantee, you cant use a remote switch or multiple-state thermostat.
5. The speed of the feed mechanism is controlled by a plate inside the hopper where the fuel is. It’s located such that it’s nearly on the bottom so the hopper has to be mostly empty to adjust the feed which is inconvenient. We also found that with our two units, the plate had to be adjusted significantly different for the two units to work properly. On the stove at home it needed to be adjusted all the way down or the feed rate was too high (the fire was too high), yet the same model we have at work wouldn’t maintain a fire at all unless the plate was raised to increase the feed rate. It seems to me that the feed rate between units with feed control plates set identically don’t end up with the same feed rate. It would be nice if the rate could be controlled electronically by a simple knob located inside the unit. It would also be good if there was a feed rate ajust for each of the 3 speeds as we have found that a different feed rate is optimal for each speed. (We had originally set the feed rate when on low and it ended up being too fast for the medium speed setting. Now we have it set well for the medium speed, but it tends to be a bit slow (bit still useable) on low).

Tis that time of year again. Every October 1st. That’s the day when our companies (my day job’s) health care plan is renewed or switched if they can find a better rate. The rate aways goes up, often many times the rate of inflation. Several years ago the company decided it could no longer shoulder the increases themselves which were in the 15-26% range for several years. So now the employees pay a portion of the bill. Plus typically co-pay’s and deductibles go up, which effectively is another pay cut (unless no one in a family of 5 gets stick all year, which isn’t likely).

In reality I am pretty lucky.  We still do have insurance and the company does pick up most of it.  Far more than the average.  However, every time I receive a statement from the health company summarizing a claim it reminds me how big a rip-off many health care services are.  I know the health care industry tells us that they need to charge such large fees for services, but when I receive the statement and the insurance company has settled for pennies on the dollar I can’t believe such claims.  They’ve paid such things as $15 allergy shots for $0.75, x-rays for 30% of the billed amount, etc.  Then there the medications where the insurance companies co-pay is actually higher than the cost of the medication if you payed cash.

Of course the people this all really hurts are the uninsured.  They get to pay the full bill with no discounts because they can’t afford the $10,000 for a typical family plan up front.

So I’ve finally gone and joined the crowd. I started a blog. Of course I’m far from the first beekeeper to keep a blog, journal or diary. Some have kept on paper for years, and Allen Dick has kept ‘A Beekeepers Diary’ before blogs became popular.

But in spite of it’s current popularity, this format does seem to fit my purpose pretty well. I often find myself wanting to post less formal articles than I typically post on my website. Those formal ones take quite some effort to write, spellcheck (something I’m bad at), format, reformat, edit, proofread and gather the appropriate pictures to complement the article. But the blog format really lends itself to a much less formal journal or diary style. Hopefully someone will still find the information in these posts just as usefull as my formal website in spite of the blog buzzword. (It’s even on NPR so I guess that makes it ok?)