Author Topic: Dumbest thing you ever bought for beekeeping? (Read 11490 times)

kebee · « **Reply #20 on:** January 20, 2015, 06:54:57 pm »

Oh now I see you actually bought it to listen in on your neighbors, shame on you.

Ken

riverbee · « **Reply #21 on:** January 20, 2015, 07:06:42 pm »

................

iddee · « **Reply #22 on:** January 20, 2015, 07:09:58 pm »

I've seen nights in motel rooms it would have come in real handy.

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #23 on:** January 20, 2015, 07:21:41 pm »

GLOCK · « **Reply #24 on:** January 20, 2015, 08:01:48 pm »

It did not work well at all.

Yankee11 · « **Reply #25 on:** January 23, 2015, 08:04:18 pm »

Sometimes I wonder if the dumbest thing I have ever bought was my first 2 hives.

What was I thinking, 45 hives later..

BTW, thanks for link but I think I'll pass. I just steel my wife's stethoscope from her nursing bag when I want to go check mine in winter. Shhhh.

Jen · « **Reply #26 on:** January 24, 2015, 12:10:50 am »

Sooooo Yankee, do you have a number in mind where you will quit adding hives to your collection?

Yankee11 · « **Reply #27 on:** January 24, 2015, 12:48:26 am »

I purchased those cattle ear tags numbered 1 through 75.

For this year.

Perry · « **Reply #28 on:** January 24, 2015, 06:24:31 am »

Quote from: Yankee11 on January 24, 2015, 12:48:26 am

I purchased those cattle ear tags numbered 1 through 75.

For this year.

I'm curious, what sort of numbers do you see yourself settling at?

Yankee11 · « **Reply #29 on:** January 24, 2015, 08:08:51 pm »

I honestly don't know right now.

I just turned 50 and am working full time. My goal is to retire by 59 and do this full time. Sooner if possible.

I am probably gonna hit a limit here soon as to how many I can run and still work full time. There is such a learning curve with this, you can't just walk out and be good at it overnight. So I can't wait until im 59 then start. I look at it as being in training right now.

It does appear that there is some money to be made though. Especially if you can make your own equipment and raise your own queens and nucs. I have come a long way in 4 years and it just seems to keep getting bigger and bigger.

So for this year I may try to get to 75 and see what that feels like.

What about you Perry?

mamapoppybee · « **Reply #30 on:** January 25, 2015, 11:09:49 am »

Have not yet bought any thing dumb but the dumbest thing i have done is leave a bottle rose oil in the widow sill with the window open. dident think any thing about it till the hubby came home trying to get in the house have to duck a but load of bees to get in.

lets just say Luce had some splaining to do.

brooksbeefarm · « **Reply #31 on:** January 25, 2015, 12:23:54 pm »

Now that i'm older and wiser

, i can look back at the time i bought a mosquito net from a army surplus store and a pair of brown cotton gloves thinking i would be protected from stings as i became a beekeeper.

Worked great on my Midnight bees, but when i started playing with the German Black bees they instantly became obsolete.

Over the years i have learned not to do certain things because of the pain involved. I think it's called the learning curve.

Jack

ledifni · « **Reply #32 on:** January 29, 2015, 07:49:41 pm »

I don't know that this counts as a dumb thing to buy, but it's sure dumb now. I bought a pair of nice, thick, expensive, soft goatskin gloves. Oh man, they were nice. I was inspecting my hives in comfort and the peaceful security of knowing it would take a Godzilla bee to get a sting in on my hands. After a few inspections they got a little smeared with honey and stained with propolis and other hive junk, but still. Amazing gloves.

Like all my other beekeeping equipment, I kept them in a box in my garage. No sense letting my beekeeping equipment clutter up the house, right?

Only, there are rats in my garage. And as I discovered a month or so ago -- rats love the taste of honey-smeared goatskin.

:'(

Perry · « **Reply #33 on:** January 29, 2015, 08:07:33 pm »

You're going into your second year right?
You won't need those stinkin gloves anyway!

Curtchann · « **Reply #34 on:** January 29, 2015, 08:14:31 pm »

ledifni- are the rats still hanging out? They are smart little critters. I have a feed mill behind my house and we had a few move in on us. They love pecans as they stole a whole 5 gallon bucket. Needless to say, after a good cleaning of the garage and moving everything to the center I found where they came into the house underneath the steps. I put out poison, put glue traps down where they entered the house. Little buggers pulled insulation out of the walls and laid it across the glue trap. I set snap traps and it took a month to catch them. When setting any type of trap for them, always wear latex gloves to keep the human scent down.

Slowmodem · « **Reply #35 on:** January 31, 2015, 03:59:58 am »

Quote from: Curtchann on January 29, 2015, 08:14:31 pm

ledifni- are the rats still hanging out? They are smart little critters. I have a feed mill behind my house and we had a few move in on us. They love pecans as they stole a whole 5 gallon bucket. Needless to say, after a good cleaning of the garage and moving everything to the center I found where they came into the house underneath the steps. I put out poison, put glue traps down where they entered the house. Little buggers pulled insulation out of the walls and laid it across the glue trap. I set snap traps and it took a month to catch them. When setting any type of trap for them, always wear latex gloves to keep the human scent down.

One thing I've found is that you can stop up holes where they enter with steel wool. They can chew on that, but they won't for long. It's always worked well for me. They can chew through just about anything else.

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #36 on:** February 01, 2015, 02:21:08 pm »

if you are squeemish dont read this!

When i was a kid, I got a quarter per rat killed at several different farms. I would find the rafters they used and push a double edged razor into that board.. as they ran across them, they were opened like they had a zipper. Show up the next day and pick them up off the floor where they fell.
Baiting with sardines and a razor blade on either side also worked very well.
The later inventions to catch rats involved less climbing and less dealing with sharp objects..
A smooth metal rod stuck in a bearing housing so it would spin freely, mounted to a steel barrel, with the same can of sardines mounted above the dowel.. rats and mice would try to climb out on the dowel, and fall into the barrel when it spun. Fill the barrel with Argon or CO2, and go back in a bit to take out the prize..

I also used to raise ferrets. Put a ferret into a rat hole, and the rats would soon be BOILING out of those holes. A good old fashioned aluminum scoop shovel is then employed to Bap the rats as they emerged.. Sometimes, you got a ferret, so you had to make sure you had spares....

Curtchann · « **Reply #37 on:** February 01, 2015, 04:24:13 pm »

I've seen several variations of the dowel over a barrel, water tank, etc. One of my closest friends had an old chicken coop that they kept rabbits in. All the rabbits were in cages suspended from the wall. There were so many rats living under there that at night we would sneak up , whip the door open and spray the lower half with a semi-auto 12 gauge and see what we got. Normally we could get 15 to 20 an evening. Little buggers were horrible. They finally got burned out and the area was bull dozed to put up a new free stall barn for the milk cows.

iddee · « **Reply #38 on:** February 01, 2015, 05:27:24 pm »

A 5 foot black snake and 8 or 10 kids with broomsticks is a lot more fun than a ferret. The snake never got hit, but a lot of kids did.

crazy8days · « **Reply #39 on:** February 01, 2015, 07:39:01 pm »

Fogged my bees with mineral oil to control mites.