Articles | Page 160 of 264

4 Jun 2015

Hive Management

The beekeeper’s year begins with a late winter hive inspection and ends with “putting the bees to bed” in the autumn. Richard Bonney believes that each beekeeping activity should be performed with an eye toward the overall well-being of the colony, as part of an integrated year-round program of hive management.

Long-term success in beekeeping can only be achieved by understanding the intimate lives, behaviors, and motivations of honey bees — the factors which govern the life of each colony.

In this book, Richard Bonney explains the reasons behind common practices that many beekeepers perform without really knowing why.

He also stresses when to take timely actions that will prevent problems in future seasons.

Hive Management offers concise, up-to-date information on the whole range of beekeeping tasks, including:

— How to prevent, control, and capture swarms.

— What you can tell from an outside inspection of your hives.

— When and how to “take the crop” and harvest honey.

— How to successfully requeen — from handling and marking queens to methods of introducing one into a hive.

— The problem signs to look for when you open up a hive.

For the practicing beekeeper who needs more information, or for the serious novice who wants to start out right, Hive Management offers sensible advice to help keep your honey bees thriving.

21 May 2015

Strength of Materials

Strength of Materials was developed at MIT, to be a textbook.

This distinguished introductory text is popular at engineering schools around the world. It also serves as a refresher and reference for professionals.

In addition to coverage of customary elementary subjects (tension, torsion, bending, etc.), Strength of Materials features advanced material on engineering methods and applications, plus 350 problems and answers. 1949 edition.

I keep this book to help design projects that I am working on, as well as to teach myself engeneering concepts. But beside that normal use, I keep it so that people more trained than me may have it available in the event of a large scale disaster.

I look at reference books like Strength of Materials the same way I look at surgical supplies stored away. I am not the one that will use it, but that does not mean that the person using my stored goods won’t use it to help me.

This is not an easy book to read, but that does not mean that it is not valuable. But, it is an introductory text, so it is not beyond the abilities of any individual that is willing to take the time to think about what they are reading.

14 May 2015

Water Line Installation

Today we are going to test and discuss my water line installation. I rented a trencher to put in a new water line and while I was at work my buddy installed a water hydrant like the one pictured here.

He also put in an underground connection for the tiny house. Additionally Smitty put in a stub so that later we can branch off and run water to a future goat barn.

To ensure we have no leaks before we fill the hole back in Smitty put in a temporary stand pipe and attached an air gauge.

We attached an air line and pressurized the system to 80 psi for about 4 hours. If the pressure stays in the system there are no leaks.

If the pressure drops then you know you have a leak.

To find the leak add three drops of dish soap into a bottle of water. Simply spray the water around the couplings and air the system back up. Leaks will blow bubbles with the solution.

You can then fix your water line installation problem.

We also put the water line to the tiny house in a bucket buried in the ground and added a shutoff. This is useful because if the plumbing in the house needed to be worked on, you can shut it off from the outside so that you don’t have water leaking all in the building.

14 May 2015

Surgical Speed Shooting

Surgical Speed Shooting helps you learn the secrets of shooting a handgun quickly and accurately under the extreme stress of a gunfight.

These cutting-edge techniques for managing recoil in rapid fire, high-speed trigger control and more are used by today’s hostage rescue teams and competitive grandmasters.

Andy Stanford is a well known firearm instructor, and the shooter on the cover is the famous/infamous James Yeager.

I actually come from a town near where Yeager came from and took my very first handgun permit from him before the goatee and tattoos.

All that aside, this book is about how to shoot fast and accurately – and that is something I can get behind no matter who is the person teaching.

7 May 2015

Gear Review: Hot Hands

Hot hands are a reusable heat pack that can be used multiple times.

There is a metal disk inside the pack than when clicked activates an exothermic chemical reaction as the solution inside the package crystallizes and released heat.

After the crystals cool down they can be reactivated by hot water.

Most manufacturers recommend a crock pot, but I have also used a pot of boiling water. I have had success with, but cannot recommend, dropping the hot hand into a cup of water and after completely immersing it, putting it in the microwave.

I like this type of product much more than the iron oxide cloth heat packs that are commonly used. Those style are a single use only and the heat released is intense enough to burn you.

The reusable hot hands get hot, but it is not as intense, so it is much safer.

Besides, you can keep them around and use many times. I have had mine for over 3 years and have not had a single problem.

Now, the pack I got did not have detailed instructions so it took me a while to get the hand of the process.

The main thing to remember is heat it completely to melt not allowing ANY crystals to remain, and to let it cool completely before you try to activate.