Low tech bike shift lever via No Tech Magazine.
Low-tech Bike Shift Lever http://www.notechmagazine.com/2013/10/low-tech-bike-shift-lever.html …
Before The Age of Automobiles, Cyclists Fought For Better Roads http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/before-the-age-of-automobiles-cyclists-fought-for-bett-1450090817 …
Stop Trying to Make Killer Bees Happen http://shar.es/IqK8T
Designing Urban Agriculture: http://www.cityfarmer.info/2013/10/27/designing-urban-agriculture-a-complete-guide-to-the-planning-design-construction-maintenance-and-management-of-edible-landscapes/ …
Why the Brain Prefers to Read on Paper http://www.notechmagazine.com/2013/10/why-the-brain-prefers-to-read-on-paper.html …
HOWTO make a bike-charged emergency battery: http://boingboing.net/2013/10/29/howto-make-a-bike-charged-emer.html …
Easy cold-brew coffee with a French press: http://boingboing.net/2013/10/30/easy-cold-brew-coffee-with-a-f.html …
Ten Steps You Can Take Right Now Against Internet Surveillance https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/ten-steps-against-surveillance …
in response to “Why the Brain Prefers to Read on Paper” can we expect a hard copy of the blog anytime soon?
Ha! Via scribe, of course.
Re Africanized bees. This past year in AZ has had a number of bee sting deaths reported as being Africanized Bees. Its about as volatile and issue as gun control around here. As most people know, bees will swarm humans if they feel threatened – or more specifically if they feel their hive and honey stores are threatened. And people will swat at them, and hence get stung. This morning opened my hive for the first time in months. While I suited up, just in case, was hardly bothered by anyone wondering what I was doing. of course it was still coolish and I’d just refilled their feeder with syrup . . . anyway, a neighbor used to keep langstrom hives and he stopped because, he said, his bees had become Africanized and it would take quite some time for them to calm down after he’d worked the hive. Since they were near a street, his concern was someone walking by might get stung from the upset bees that were flying around. Despite my bees calm nature, do not advertise that the hive exists because know if a neighbor is stung BY ANYTHING, they will be knocking on my door claiming it is my bees . . .
It’s always interesting to hear what people get afraid of. A car accident is, of course, much more likely than being killed by bees.
More articles about Africanized bee dangers being all in the head just insult me, not convince me. I don’t know. Maybe these same people defend all pit bulls, think there is no recidivism of child molesters, that rape victims are to blame, that the only danger in this world lurks in our perception and not in reality.
As I grow older, I am more aware of the dangers of driving in bad weather conditions. I didn’t “just get afraid” of roads in bad weather. I became more aware. Plus, driving defensively might make me look afraid. However, I think it makes me look smart and more likely not to have a car accident.
In 1977, when we moved to this house, I sowed white clover in the yard full of grass. My neighbors were upset that bees would come and might sting them or my children or their children. Yes, there are bees in my yard all the time. I have not gotten afraid of them as I learned more about Africanized bees.
Okay, I am very ill and rambling.
WOW!!!!! pit bulls grouped in with child molestes and rapists….huh….i am stunned. and i should probably remain very silent on this topic…
Below is a comment that came in this morning from our local bee maven. As a new bee keeper am always willing to hear what a more experienced person has to say. This comment was made to another person on our list in response to an inquiry about his raising queens in the future. Bee Weaver is the company where we all bought our bees this year.
“. . .I’d say that ninety percent of the BeeWeaver Buckfast/Italian queens I’ve worked with are quite gentle. The old pure Buckfasts were virtually stingless. They were too gentle, in my view. However, BeeWeaver is now breeding queens in an “Africanized” zone, and there is no way to control the drones’ part of the equation without artificial insemination of virgin queens, so some of their queens are becoming more defensive as the Africanized bees take over southeast Texas.
The fundamental dilemma we face is that our locally adapted, Africanized queens are highly defensive and highly productive (they make a lot of honey). I call these girls the Verde Valley bees. Some of them are like wildfire. Their sometimes exceptional defensiveness can make backyard surburban/urban beekeeping difficult if not impossible. Remember your colony before the Blueberries?
We can import gentle queens and packages from other places (which may also be Africanized or not), but these bees are not locally adapted to our conditions and flora. This lack of local adaptation is ONE of the main factors leading to the two of you having to feed your BeeWeaver colonies this fall.
If you had a locally adapted hive, those girls would have been able to make enough honey even in a dry year, but you would almost certainly have had to work with highly defensive bees. That really isn’t much fun, especially when you are just starting out. Most people just give up.”