The die-off of America’s honeybee colonies, which are disappearing in droves because of parasites, pesticides, poor nutrition and disease, leave beekeepers scrambling to salvage the vital insects.
The task of solving the honeybee problem, experts say, isn’t isolated to beekeepers. A few changes to home patios and gardens can lend honeybees a much-needed assist.
Last year, a third of the nation’s honeybee colonies died, which is low considering the bigger decreases of the last decade. This doesn’t necessarily mean fewer bees. Beekeepers can salvage a dead colony, but it comes with labor and production costs.
If you haven’t figured it out yet I love designing cosmetics/skins. And I saw medieval beekeepers and I had to do a few quick designs for Pyro.
Also I’m currently undecided on whether the bees would be restricted to pyrovision or not.
(Keep reading for cleaner and more detailed notes as I know my hand writing can get a bit messy)
The fuel canister on Pyro’s back should be replaced by a large beehive roughly the same size as their base canister. The two types of shapes for this replacement can be seen in the 3rd image.
The nozzle of the flamethrower here has the iconic black and yellow stripes of the fuzzy friends. The tank of the weapon has been replaced by another beehive this design is semi locked in as it has to be a smaller variety of hives for the flamethrower.
In the bottom right of the 1st and 2nd image those are a few alternative designs for bee smokers that would replace the incendiary grenades. Originally I was thinking of bee plushies, but bee smokers felt more fitting.
Currently I can’t think of any unique abilities this would have. There is a possibility of the gun weapon slot (secondary if I recall) potentially also being one of the bee smokers. Where you could throw the smoker and upon colliding with another object or person a smoke cloud erupts designed to impair/lower enemy vision. Another alternative could be a honey bomb which would just be a reskin of the gas passer. These are all maybes though as I would need to do more research/planning.
This is more a side note, but I’ve been thinking about also doing a plague doctor Medic concept and then a scuba diver set for Pyro (like the old bulky fishbowl looking ones). For the scuba diver concept the flamethrower would blow bubbles at the enemies and slow them down. The secondary would be a net and the melee would either be a hook, anchor or something else sea themed. I don’t know when I’d be able to draw them though sadly.
Got called out to check on some bees in someone’s wall the other day.
It was a super small colony and had only been in there maybe a week and a half. Taking them out took only about 20 minutes, but the hard part was finding them. I probably spent an hour just probing around for the actual space they were in because the opening on the exterior lit up that entire corner of the house on IR. Their electrical bill should go down a bit with that gap sealed up now!
I made the mistake of putting their old new comb out pretty close to the hive I put them in, and the next morning they found it and started moving back over to it. I quickly shook them off of it and let the chickens tear it up so they wouldn’t be tempted again. I was hoping to let them take the nectar back but I guess they have plenty of summer left to find more.
Absolutely amazing seeing a hive that uniform and that long. This is about as big as that big old hive I took out of a down town church some years back to give it a different perspective. And ALL THAT HONEY!
I think this might be my earliest swarm to date, because my first is usually around the middle of April.
I moved them in to a bigger box and they’ve already pretty much filled it up. I put their 2nd deep super on top just a moment ago so they can continue expanding. The new box already had most of the frames built out so they should be able to get right to it. Look at all those babies!!!
Who is this noisy little friend??? I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of bee around before! They look kind of like a squash bee mixed with a leaf cutter bee, but they burrow underground??? They’re also all in the same little clump out in the woods with none outside of maybe a 3x3m area, but each with their own little hole in the ground. If you know what this might be, feel free to tag it/reply!
Sound up for the video! They make a very cute little bz bz bz bz bz bz.
Dirt Cheap Beekeeping episode 1: What I’m gonna tell you.
First of all, beekeeping as a business or professional organization will always be “for profit” in this wonderful world of ours, so buying directly from companies that make bee equipment is generally a pretty bad deal. It will almost always be super expensive. Making your own equipment is typically much easier on the wallet. Only problem is that it will take time on your part. Then again, it’s good practice for when you are actually KEEPING the bees.
Firstly, you’ll need somewhere to out the bees once you get them. I always try to start out small swarms of bees in nucleus hives, but if you want to keep them for longer or have them make lots and lots of honey, you’ll need to have larger hives. For the nucleus hive plans I have above, you’ll need a 2x4ft piece of wood. I use plywood because it’s cheap, as about 5$ per whole hive, but it needs to be painted if you plan on keeping it outside. Plywood will fall apart and rot if not treated. To make a larger hive, simply take the dimensions of the top, bottom, front, and back, and increase their width according to how many frames you want them to fit. Each extra frame will add 1-1/16 inch to the total width. I’d advise adding 5 to start. More experienced builders may make “long langstroth” hives that have more than 10 frames in one box.
Once you have hives made, you have several options for obtaining bees. The first and most widely known method is to buy “package” bees from an established beekeeper. Now depending on both the bees and the beekeeper, this could be very expensive, so for most people it is not an option. The second option, and my personal favorite, is to locate and capture swarms! A swarm is just a big ball of bees that lands on a tree or bush or fence or really anywhere. Bees “swarm” when they grow too big for their old hive. Half of the population leaves to go find another home, and that’s why bees swarm. To capture a swarm, you can set a “baited” hive very close to them (preferably touching them) and hope they move in. You can also put a pillowcase around them and shake them in to it if you don’t want to carry around a hive. You then just pour the bees in to the desired location. Another more effective method of capturing swarms is by setting “bait hives” or “swarm traps” outside. These are just normal hives that have been “baited” with lemongrass oil or other swarm attractant such as Swarm Commander. Both of these things smell like honeybee “nasonov” pheromone, which is what bees use to tell where their home is. Though when using bait hives, you’ll need to keep a close eye on them so that once bees move in, you can get the box and move it to your bee yard to be kept before they get used to the old location. Another method to obtaining honeybees is to perform “cut-outs” on trees or houses depending on how comfortable you are doing that. It’s a lot more effort, but usually comes with more bees, pre-built comb, and lots of honey/brood. While using any of these methods to get bees, it is always a good idea to make sure that you find the queen bee. No matter how many you miss or how much you stir up the bees, if you catch the queen, they’ll all come back exactly where you want them. You can use a queen clip that is pre-built and purchased, or you can use an old Mason jar with holes poked in the lid like I do. You just need to make sure that the queen stays out of direct sunlight and in a place where bees can easily get to. You also usually want to make sure that you capture some normal workers along with the queen, so that they can feed her and take care of her. If you caught a queen from a swarm, place her gently in the capture device in the bottom of the hive, and then set the hive as close to the rest of the bees as you can so they can smell her and move in.
The rest is just keeping them normally! Once you have bees, all you need to do is take care of them and make sure they stay safe and happy~
I’ll go in to more detail on all of this in the near future. I’ll also break it down in to individual steps so that you don’t need to deal with a wall of text like this again. I’ll tag everything in this series with #DirtCheapBeekeeping #DCB and #DIY so that you can find them easily.
I’ll level with you here, I completely forgot about this. XD
If you want to get in to beekeeping but don’t want to drop 200-500$ on bee hive kits and bees, this will definitely be a great post for you! It’s a bit run-on and poorly organized, but it has lots of great info for getting started.
Go to your local library or bookstore and find a couple books on beekeeping. It may sound silly in the modern day to go *read books* but they’re honestly chock full of super useful info that you oftentimes can’t easily find online. Worth a try tbh.
As usual, my ask box here is always open for questions, comments, concerns, and whatnot as you see fit. Don’t be shy! There are absolutely no stupid questions, though I must warn you that depending on the question you may get a stupid answer.
Have you ever seen bees being kept inside the house? It looks like there’s a “tunnel” for them to get in & out thru the window.
via The People Against Modern Farmhouse
I love these SO MUCH and want to build myself one at some point. Observation hives are so cool. (Though you really need to keep them in a dark room or keep a cover over them when you’re not watching them to avoid stressing them out too much.)
