What did you do today?

[plunger]

Yes, most are pretty satisfying. And all are high profit. VERY high profit. The ones with tons of honey are damn difficult and time consuming, messy and, in general, irritating. Gotta take the good with the bad.

When you say high profit what do you mean. Do you get paid for removal or is it the value of honey. ?Where do the bees go?I wonder if our bees are different to your bees..I am referring to S African bees.
I have a swarm of bees and they only get angry when I cut the grass with a lawn mower.They were removed by a pro with no real problem.In my mind Ive watched too many horror movies with KILLER BEES

[J Tiers]

When you say high profit what do you mean. Do you get paid for removal or is it the value of honey. ?Where do the bees go?I wonder if our bees are different to your bees..I am referring to S African bees.
I have a swarm of bees and they only get angry when I cut the grass with a lawn mower.They were removed by a pro with no real problem.In my mind Ive watched too many horror movies with KILLER BEES

Dunno about your honeybees, we had a hive of a neighbor get invaded by africanized bees, and they were a nasty lot. They would get in your face, and follow you, chased my wife into the house several times. The neighbor had to move the hives elsewhere, because nearly everyone had trouble with them.

I had no issue with them, because they did not know about hardware cloth..... a piece of that (coarse soldered screenwire) on a stick took care of any that bothered me, one swish and there were parts of bees dropping to the ground. What the other bees did not know was their problem, not mine. At least we rarely had more than one or two hassling us, no swarm of angry bees.

Now, we have a different bee here, very unpleasant indeed.. They are "ground bees", many look like small bumblebees, but some are actually wasps. They live in the ground, not a hollow tree, and if you are mowing, a couple dozen or more will come out to defend the nest. They attack whatever they see moving. The true "bees" can only sting once, but the wasp types have no issue with stinging you 6 times each, or more. And they will.

[plunger]

Sounds like alot of fun them wasps. I was reading an article about asian wasps also now in USA that are decimating the local beehives.

[boslab]

I found a little wild bee aka bumble type completely knackered by my door, felt sorry for the little thing so got a dab of honey out the kitchen (manuca) picked her up and let her recharge, odd little bee, orange ass? Anyhow went to the shop the other day and a bee disappeared above the door, oh **** I thought they’re moving in, correct, there’s a little enclave of bees living in the wall, took a look it’s not many, yet! Was going in the door and a bee landed on my arm, slightly bigger with a distinctive orange ass, wonder if they remember?
Mark

[Cenedd]

Lastly, I crashed an indicator pretty hard. I was focusing on too many things at once without a dry run and I jammed the indicator stalk between the carriage and the headstock. It jammed hard enough to elastically deform the rod such that the gear popped out or something. It still works but the needle is clocked wrong. No a huge deal but frustrating. I like haveing ways that extend past the headstock for just this reason.

Ways beyond the headstock would be nice. My lathe doesn't have them and the nice hard stop/indicator holder I made (was a copy of someone else's work on the forum - forgive me for forgetting who) often didn't fit on the headstock side. I was using it more from the tailstock side and preloading it to measure travel away from it. Trouble is that even with a 25mm travel dial gauge it was difficult to get it in and set before the Tommy bar hit the carriage. I was going to make an extension for the dial gauge but it's M2.5 X 0.45 (course) and of course I don't have that size of tap or die. Checked the prices of those and to my shame, it was cheaper to but a 4" extension already made. Should make it possible to use more easily from the tailstock side for more accurate measurement though. Bits especially important on my lathe (Sieg SC4) as the carriage graduations pay only passing reference to the actual travel!

[challenger]

When you say high profit what do you mean. Do you get paid for removal or is it the value of honey. ?Where do the bees go?I wonder if our bees are different to your bees..I am referring to S African bees.
I have a swarm of bees and they only get angry when I cut the grass with a lawn mower.They were removed by a pro with no real problem.In my mind Ive watched too many horror movies with KILLER BEES

I get $250.00 for the first hour and $125.00 each hour after that. When I leave the condition of the place I remove the bees from looks like I've never been there. I was a building contractor and carpenter and I know bees so it's a one shot proposal for the homeowners. Some feel it's too expensive so they try to spray the bees which results in a much worse situation.
I made a special vacuum so I vacuum the bees directly into a hive. I simply remove the two vacuum plenums and place the hive box in my bee yard. I'd say the average value of the bees I get is about $150.00. Bees are expensive to purchase.
The bees here are mainly Italian bees. Some states have africanized but not in NC.
True African bees have been known to kill a lot of people and chase them for miles.
Every once in a while an Italian hive can be a "mean hive" and they will attack and be extremely aggressive. I've had a few like that and it makes them almost impossible to work. The "mean gene" may be from a drone the queen mated with or it may be the queen. If it's a mean queen she gets smashed and replaced.
BTW, we call ground bees "yellow jackets". They are indeed wasps and will sting repeatedly and are aggressive. They will boil out of the ground and really put on a hurting.

[plunger]

I get $250.00 for the first hour and $125.00 each hour after that. When I leave the condition of the place I remove the bees from looks like I've never been there. I was a building contractor and carpenter and I know bees so it's a one shot proposal for the homeowners. Some feel it's too expensive so they try to spray the bees which results in a much worse situation.
I made a special vacuum so I vacuum the bees directly into a hive. I simply remove the two vacuum plenums and place the hive box in my bee yard. I'd say the average value of the bees I get is about $150.00. Bees are expensive to purchase.
The bees here are mainly Italian bees. Some states have africanized but not in NC.
True African bees have been known to kill a lot of people and chase them for miles.
Every once in a while an Italian hive can be a "mean hive" and they will attack and be extremely aggressive. I've had a few like that and it makes them almost impossible to work. The "mean gene" may be from a drone the queen mated with or it may be the queen. If it's a mean queen she gets smashed and replaced.
BTW, we call ground bees "yellow jackets". They are indeed wasps and will sting repeatedly and are aggressive. They will boil out of the ground and really put on a hurting.

Very interesting. Here in S Africa the bees are removed for free by volunteers who do it for the love of bees. I would not be suprized if they sell the rescued bees .What they did at my house is dress in protective suits and smoked them out. They brought a wooden box and placed the waxy cone or whatever its called into the wooden box .I think they tried to put the queen in there ,I just dont know. They came back a week or two later and took everything away. I have another one now but they seem chilled. I even sent some of my plumbers up the tree last week to trim the branches and they left him alone.They have made a hive in the hollow of the tree.

When they removed the first bees I remember standing not further than 12 meters away and had no protective stuff.I never got stung even once. But i got what felt like peed or poohed on by the swarming bees.The guy who removed them even had his twelve year old son helping him. There is no way I would remove a hive for any amount of money. I was standing near my pool in case I had to jump in for safety.

[challenger]

Very interesting. Here in S Africa the bees are removed for free by volunteers who do it for the love of bees. I would not be suprized if they sell the rescued bees .What they did at my house is dress in protective suits and smoked them out. They brought a wooden box and placed the waxy cone or whatever its called into the wooden box .I think they tried to put the queen in there ,I just dont know. They came back a week or two later and took everything away. I have another one now but they seem chilled. I even sent some of my plumbers up the tree last week to trim the branches and they left him alone.They have made a hive in the hollow of the tree.

When they removed the first bees I remember standing not further than 12 meters away and had no protective stuff.I never got stung even once. But i got what felt like peed or poohed on by the swarming bees.The guy who removed them even had his twelve year old son helping him. There is no way I would remove a hive for any amount of money. I was standing near my pool in case I had to jump in for safety.

It's not easy work. Dragging a thousand pounds of equipment up and down stairs. Dealing with honey dripping everywhere is my least favorite part of the job. It also very hot work wearing a suit and working like a maniac. I came away drenching wet these last few jobs. Up and down stairs or ladders, vacuuming pissed off bees and then cleaning up and putting everything back together perfectly isn't for everyone.

[challenger]

Today I made a poor man's adjustable parallel. 😁

[Mcgyver]

Yes, most are pretty satisfying. And all are high profit. VERY high profit. The ones with tons of honey are damn difficult and time consuming, messy and, in general, irritating. Gotta take the good with the bad.

I've enjoyed these accounts and photos....keep them coming. You certainly earn your daily crust!

[Bob Engelhardt]

It's not easy work. ... It also very hot work wearing a suit ... vacuuming pissed off bees ...

I mentioned before about YouTube videos of a guy removing hives without any protection. Here's a recent one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJOR4f_rP88

At 6:40 he pulls out a vine that's growing in the hive and hundreds of bees come with it, but don't attack him. What's different about what he's doing and what you do? I mean that you have to wear a suit and have pissed off bees.

[Cenedd]

I mean that you have to wear a suit and have pissed off bees.

Challenger prefers not to leave it to luck?!

[challenger]

I mentioned before about YouTube videos of a guy removing hives without any protection. Here's a recent one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJOR4f_rP88

At 6:40 he pulls out a vine that's growing in the hive and hundreds of bees come with it, but don't attack him. What's different about what he's doing and what you do? I mean that you have to wear a suit and have pissed off bees.

I have not seen the video BUT I would much rather not wear a suit. The suit makes it much hotter and reduces viability. I usually wait until I get stung before I put it on and I've done a few where I didn't end up wearing it. Yesterday I took two stings to my eye and it ended up swelling almost closed. My fault. The bees seemed to be doing fine and all of a sudden two shoot out of the comb and that was that. One on the upper eye lid and one on the cheek just below.
Do

I don't use smoke for removals.

Fwiw, I watched the video and I can't explain how he doesn't get stung.

[Arcane]

Today I took my cross slide off my 9" S.B. and did some cleaning and and lubing to it and to the saddle slides then I took my 4" mill vise apart and cleaned and lubed it too. I also drilled some 1/2" holes in a 4" x 6" x 8" wood block so I can store some files and the rod I use to push a rag through my lathe's spindle before I put a collet in it.

Yesterday I made a couple of "anvils" for a friend so he can get part of the side-to-bottom curve of a BB Chevy oil pan smoothed out, one for outside and one for inside.

[mattthemuppet]

made a bushing pusher and receiver to remove the rear bushings from the front lower control arms on my Subaru. They tear easily and I'm about to put in new shocks, so figured I'd get this done at the same time


old bushing, you can just make out the tearing


new one in place. Took a bit of fiddling but got it in the right orientation eventually.


pusher ended up worse for the wear, but got the job done