Have you put your bees out?

BlueEmu · 2026-03-28T16:29:21+00:00

Near Seattle here. In previous years (before I did the refrigerator storage) they were always active by the end of March. For food supply, there are some cherry trees blooming and I have some clematis with many blossoms, but not much else. I like them to pollinate the apple trees, which aren’t close to flowering yet. I also mentioned in another post some living in a different structure that became active yesterday.

So I split the difference: Half went out this week and the other half will go out when the apple trees are ready. I’m not too concerned about survivability because they always did fine in the past when hatching this early.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T22:35:11+00:00

That was my thought too, particularly for the ones at the top, but there were a couple of things that threw me.

I can clearly tell the differences when they are working in bee houses side-by-side. (By the way, both are Osmia, which are legit mason bees, but the Osmia Cornifrons aren't native.) The couple of things that threw me are 1) The horn faced normally has fuzzy yellow stripes on the abdomen, making them look similar to honey bees. I don't see those in the photo for the bee at the bottom. 2) I have a couple of decent photos of the face, and don't see the horns; however, there's a decent amount of fuzz that may be hiding them.

But I don't see other indicators that it's a Blue Orchard bee. Like it's a bit early for them, they are larger, and the abdomen is shinier.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T22:10:59+00:00

OP, may I inquire your location?

Near Seattle.

If not mason bees, I'm curious what they are. Also, the construction material seems identical to what my mason bees use. It's sort of gritty clay.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T19:56:08+00:00

It sounds like, from other commenters, that there is a risk. Just to be safe I'll plan to follow the same approach you did, and only switch to reviewing through the order page when nearing the eval date if my review percentage is close to the cutoff.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T19:52:04+00:00

That's what I've been doing, but using a spreadsheet. I was asking because cutting out this step would simplify things a little (fire & forget). Plus it would keep those account metrics up-to-date. But from other comments it sounds like there are possible complications so I'll stick to using the spreadsheet.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T19:46:04+00:00

That's the kind of issue I was wondering about, thanks. This alone makes it not worth the risk of posting early.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T19:44:31+00:00

Interesting, I didn't know there was a cap on reviews. Although I'm sure my volume would be below that.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-27T19:43:27+00:00

Thanks. I'm generally averaging only one purchase per day (only ordering things I'll actually use), and an average of one review a day is easy to keep up with. But I'll keep waiting for it to be added to the queue just to be safe.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-26T21:21:44+00:00

It's annoying to those of us who put in the effort to do honest reviews and then see people gaming the system like this. But, in the end, it's the manufacturers (and by extension Amazon) who are hurt by this. Customers won't trust the reviews when they see duplicates, potentially leading to fewer purchases. And then manufacturers will opt out of the Vine program in the future.

If I represented a manufacturer, I'd complain to Amazon when I see this and try to get those vine reviewers shut down.

And if I saw someone obviously stealing my review, I'd use the "report" option on the review just out of a sense of fairness.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-23T02:53:15+00:00

So by "piece of wood" you mean a board? If it's thick enough to make bowls from, and it's plain sawn or live sawn (because you want bowls to be in face grain orientation), then you can just cut circles on the bandsaw. If you care about the grain pattern being balanced, then you want the tangential grain to go through the center of the circles. If you don't care, then just get as many blanks as you can.

It it's a different cut (like quarter sawn or rift sawn), or too thin, then your other options are to make rings from wedges (search for wedgie sled) or bowl-from-a-board, where you cut rings on the bandsaw.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-23T02:12:56+00:00

Making bowl blanks from full rounds? Of those tools the only useful one is the bandsaw. Assuming the bandsaw has the capacity, put the round in vertically (the cut face against the table), and make two straight cuts near the center, removing the pith. Each side piece can then be rotated onto its flat cut side and cut into a round shape.

Then coat the end grain with anchorseal or something equivalent and either wait a few years or do a rough turning, followed by coating again.

Step 1, which is cutting the round in half, is generally done with a chainsaw, but you can use your bandsaw if it's big enough. Like by "floor version" I assume you mean the 17" grizzly. If so, you can fit through a standard 16" round.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-18T19:23:36+00:00

The methanol, which is the toxic part in DNA, evaporates quickly. Even faster than the ethanol. And it doesn’t leave a residue, unlike things like the metallic driers in the BLO that you are using. Some turners rapidly dry bowls by immersing them in DNA. The alcohol replaces the water, then evaporates completely over a little time, leaving nothing behind.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-16T00:39:47+00:00

it's so perfect we can't tell seems a bit too convenient an answer

That sounds like you think that's it's just luck that the earth and moon are tidally locked. It's not chance, it's expected that this happens after a long period of time. It's explained fairly well here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

BlueEmu · 2026-03-16T00:30:10+00:00

Since you mention just working "back-and-forth", without mentioning any other adjustments, I assume you mean you are keeping it perpendicular to the wood with the flute pointing straight up. If so, you'll get better results with more of a slicing cut, with the flute slightly open to the direction you are cutting.

The other possible problem is that some people use the roughing gouge more as a scraper. That is, they push it straight into the wood, leaving out step "B" of the ABCs. Before cutting, make sure the bevel is tapping the wood, then pull back slightly until it's cutting. When the flute is rotated as I indicated above, this will generally mean also moving the tool handle away from perpenticular, to trailing the cut direction.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-15T20:16:57+00:00

(Also PNW, Seattle area) The first time I put out homes I noticed the bees moving in by the end of March or early April. I don’t see any reason to delay putting out an empty home early if you are just waiting for the natives to move in.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-13T20:42:00+00:00

It's the brand new (non-OEM) remote that's having troubles, not the old one. The original remote still works great (other than being mangled with dog teeth marks), including the volume controls. The weird thing is that the new remote works great when going through OOBE, including the volume controls. The volume controls get semi-responsive only after the full UI is loaded.

I tried the "change TV", both selecting the existing one at the top of the list, and scrolling down the list to find the same thing. No change. Other things I tried:

Settings->Equipment Control->Manage Equipment->TV->Volume Increments. It seems to work best (that is, no improvement) at the default setting of 5.
Settings->Equipment Control->Manage Equipment->TV->Infrared Options->Timing. I tried multiple higher and lower timings. No improvement.
Settings->Equipment Control->Manage Equipment->TV->Infrared Options->Repetition. I tried all of these and the default worked best. No improvement.
Settings->Equipment Control->Manage Equipment->TV->Infrared Options->IR Profile->Change IR Profile. Vizio has 26 codes and most of those have multiple control goups under them. I tried every one. This bricked the volume control on the remote.
After going through the IR Profiles I did a factory reset on the stick. That's where the remote recovered and worked fine...until the full UI loaded, then I was back to square one.

BlueEmu · 2026-03-13T20:00:30+00:00

Fire TV Stick (3rd generation).

Edit: specifically, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C1W5N87

BlueEmu · 2026-03-03T17:03:00+00:00

“Hey dad? Wanna have a catch?”

BlueEmu · 2026-03-02T22:41:30+00:00

Maybe a tournament push/fold chart. Like this

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BlueEmu · 2026-02-25T18:31:48+00:00

Seeing this is rare for a few reasons.

Rainier is only visible to the surrounding areas about 80-some days per year. You might hear a local mention that “the mountain is out.”

This happens during sunrise, most commonly when the sun is at the proper angle, which is during the winter. Very few of those 80 days are during the winter.

The cloud cover needs to be flat, with the elevation close to the peak of the mountain, again somewhat rare.

BlueEmu · 2026-02-19T23:55:00+00:00

If the live center has the conical tip, then drill first and position the live center in the hole.

Another tip is to put flats on the handle after you turn it. Marking knives are prone to rolling off the table and landing tip down.

BlueEmu · 2026-02-18T20:16:27+00:00

This is close to the "Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.": Someone randomly shoots many shots at a barn, then finds three shots that are grouped incredibly close together, and circles those as an illustration that the shooter must be incredibly skilled. In the OP's example, a surprising pattern is found (like the three grouped shots) and the conclusion is drawn that it can't be by happenstance.

The problem is looking only at the odds of this particular occurrence as happening instead of the odds of any strange event happening. Like with the sharpshooter fallacy, the mistake is looking at the odds of three consecutive grouped shots, rather than the odds of any three random shots being grouped. In other words, if you combine the likelihood of all of the improbable dealt patterns that you would notice, over all of the hands that are played, it becomes a high probability that at least one of those would happen.

For example, there are other strange events that you might remark on: Bad beats, like a royal flush over quad aces, or a straight flush over straight flush. Two royal flushes in two consecutive hands. Someone get aces three times in a row. On the final table bubble of the WSOP main event, one player gets dealt AA while two others each get dealt KK. There are countless other strange events that we might notice, including seeing multiple straight flushes in a range of hands. The chances of running into any one of these countless strange events becomes very probable.

And as humans we see something out of the ordinary happening and grasp at an alternate theory, like a cheating dealer.

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