A period of discovery of multiple time-saving technologies and a honey bee update

The theme for this past weekend could be described as "efficiency," but I find that word irritating in this context, so, instead, I'm going to describe it as a "period-of-discovery-of-multiple-time-saving-technologies weekend."  Though excessively long and also somewhat irritating, this description more effectively captures the level of "out-of-the-box" thinking and willingness to try something new that was required to achieve the initially proposed "efficiency." 

The normal 30 lbs post driver on the left and the super heavy driver on the right. 

One area in which we realized technological advancement was in our fencing endeavors.  Our estimated time-line for installing the approximately 500 ten-foot t-posts for the bison fencing became a lot shorter this past weekend after Jess and I were able to test the modified t-post drivers I had fabricated earlier.  I based the drivers on a design I found in a document released by the US Forest Service Technology & Development Program which can be found here.  The document, entitled "Manual Post Drivers for 8- to 10-Foot-Long Metal Posts," details the findings from tests conducted by the the Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) on several types of commercially available t-post drivers and a few improvised models.  My drivers were based on the MTDC PD–2 driver developed by MTDC.  Of the two t-post drivers I constructed, one of them is essentially the same as the MTDC PD–2.  It's about 80 inches long and 30 pounds and drove the t-posts at the same rate as most other drivers: a few inches at a time.  The other driver is identical with the exception that it weighs somewhere between 50 and 100 pounds and drives the t-posts about a foot deeper into the ground with each strike.  This extra weight was obtained by using solid 1 3/8" steel bar for portions of the extension handles instead of hollow steel tubing.  With this contraption I can drive a post in three strikes.

To get started I lay the driver on the ground and insert a t-post into it. 

I then move the bottom end of the t-post to the desired location and raise the t-post and driver together so they are standing fully upright.  

The t-post and driver together in the fully upright position.

The drive raised for the first strike.  My wife and I like to wear earplugs when driving t-posts. 

After the strike with the driver.  You can see a real difference when you compare it to the before photo.  At this point I would check the post with a level, make any necessary adjustments, and then give it the last few strikes. 

I should warn anyone reading this blog post or any other blog post I've written that I do not advise trying any of the things I've written about and if you do try them, you do so at your own risk.  Many of the things I've attempted over the years have been downright stupid, so don't think that if Dan survived doing it, it will work for me.  Concerning this particular post, I want to point out that using an 80" long t-post driver that weighs more than 50 pounds to drive a 10 foot long piece of steel into the ground next to you is not necessarily safe and would probably automatically injure many people out there.  I am a large person (taller that 6 feet) who exercises almost daily.  As such I have a longer reach and greater proprioception than many, so just keep this in mind.  Anyway, enough of the over-caffeinated disclaimer.

The significance of our t-post driver testing is that we've learned that we now have a measurement of the time it takes to drive a t-post and that measured time is far shorter than we had anticipated.  Previously, we had been using our experiences driving 6 foot t-posts with those crappy small drivers you can buy commercially to drive our fencing estimate.  We had thought that driving each post would be an exhausting, time-consuming chore, but we were wrong.  Driving the posts will likely be the least time-consuming part of the entire fencing process.

The road drag turned upside-down.  I took the time to weld on a whole bunch of little metal teeth on the central bar. 

The road drag in the proper position with the tow chain attached. 

The final element that makes it work is the weight you add on top.  In our test I just piled on a bunch of half-rotted pieces of wood I found nearby.  They fell off occasionally, but worked well enough to test the concept.  The next time I use the road drag, though, I plan to tie on some heavy logs that fit better. 

The road starting to look usable after a few passes with the road drag.  I have some before pictures that I'll post the next time I find them. 

To accommodate difficult areas where there is not enough room to circle back with the road drag in tow, I made the drag symmetrical with tow-chain attachments on all corners. 

To change directions all I do is unhook the chain, turn the truck around, and reattach the chain. 

Another major time-saving technology that we tested out was a "road drag."  No, this does not involve hitch hiking in women's clothing.  Rather, it is a road repairing technology that dates back to the early 1900's.  A good description about it's history can be found here, but, basically, it was a wooden contraption that looked not unlike a very heavy ladder laid on the ground and dragged sideways.  This "road drag" was dragged by horses along dirt roads and had the effect of smoothing over all of the massive potholes and deep ruts that could make automotive travel nearly impossible.  It was a big deal at the time and allowed people and companies to more easily use auto-mobiles. 

Since early spring, Jess and I have experienced conditions not unlike those encountered by the horseless carriage drivers of the early 1900's.  Aside from our multiple episodes (see previous posts) of sinking the truck in mud down to both axils, we also made the critical mistake of using the poorly maintained dirt road on our property for travel during the extremely wet periods of early spring.  The cumulative results of all this spring driving was an impassable road full of massive ruts and potholes that could no longer properly drain after it rained.  

Until last weekend, Jess and I had been making slow, back breaking repairs to the road using shovels and a wheel barrel.  When the road was wetter and softer, the truck's tires had created deep ruts and pushed some of the road into the shallow drainage ditches on either side of the road, which meant that: 1) draining water would not be able to escape through the ditches, and 2) the water would begin draining through small rivers in the tire ruts.  This, in turn, then washed away more of the road and made the ruts deeper.  Our repair efforts thus far had involved scooping the sopping wet sand and gravel out of the ditches and back into the ruts so future rains would at least stop making the situation worse.  Weeks of intermittent work had allowed us to dig out most of the original trenches, but much of the road was still very uneven and full of ruts and potholes.

Enter the road drag.  Referring back to the original 1900's design and some home-made versions people have posted on the Internet, I spent a few hours at home welding together a small road drag from pieces of tube steel.  Not knowing how well it would actually work, I mostly kept Jess in the dark saying only that I had something that might help repair the road that I wanted to test out.  The road drag's level of effectiveness, however, exceeded even my expectations.  Both Jess and myself were overjoyed as we towed the road drag behind the truck at idle speed and watched it slowly passed over all the potholes, ridges, and ruts and start to smooth them over.  For most people it would have seemed like the most boring thing in the world, but, for us, it was seeing hours of future work disappear.

Finally, though this doesn't really fit into the previously mentioned theme, I do have an update on the honeybees.  In my previous posts you my recall the other week I installed five new bee packages.  Four were placed at the ranch and the other went into a hive in my backyard.  In my previous update, I was able to confirm that at least two of those bee packages (one in the backyard and one in the ranch) had arrived with dead queens.  This past weekend I checked the hives at the ranch again and found mixed results.  The first hive I checked was the one that had a dead queen.  The population was not very high and they hadn't touched the gallon of sugar water I had left for them previously.  There was also a hive beetle running around.  In situations where you install multiple bee packages on the same day in close proximity to each other, it is not uncommon for the bees from different packages to end up concentrating together in some of the hives and leaving other hives relatively empty.  The second hive I checked was the exact opposite from the first hive.  Their population was huge (probably mostly from the bees that had originally been installed in the hive I had just checked)  The queen had started laying eggs, there were larvae in various stages of development, and the hive had completely consumed the gallon of sugar I had left for them previously.  The third hive I checked was an unusual case.  The population was healthy, but not huge.  They had eaten most of their sugar water and there was even capped brood cells.  But, there were also a large number of capped emergency queen cells.  Emergency queen cells happen in the event that a queen is killed unexpectedly.  When this happens the worker bees will take eggs that the queen laid before she died and change their environment so they develop into new queens.  The last hive was in a nearly identical condition as the second hive with lots of bees, eggs, and larvae. 

A flower I haven't identified yet. 

Long story short, faced with two failing queenless hives, two strong hives, and one hive on the mend, I decided to use a small amount of resources from the stronger hives to try to salvage the failing ones.  To the queenless hive on the ranch I transferred a comb full of recently laid eggs from one of the stronger hives.  Hopefully they will be able to convert some of the eggs into emergency queen cells and raise a new queen.  For the queenless hive in my backyard, I removed one the the top bars with an emergency queen cell from the recovering hive, brought it back home with me, and immediately added it to the backyard hive.  I have no idea if either of these efforts will bear fruit, but they're impact on the other hives should be minimal and they are worth a try.