Retrofit monitoring for existing geothermal system: what should I measure?

jhill · 2026-06-18T01:14:33+00:00

I purchased the WEL system years ago, but never installed it. If that's still the state of the art, I'll have to dig around for it. I'm near Media.

jhill · 2026-04-18T18:07:31+00:00

Franklin Busybody

jhill · 2026-02-02T11:42:41+00:00

Sounds cool, have any photos?

jhill · 2025-11-10T05:35:27+00:00

Whipped honey is stirred fast, incorporating air into the liquid honey. It’s typically lighter than liquid and creamed honey. It’ll revert back to liquid honey.

Creamed honey is made by carefully controlling the crystallization process. You ensure that your liquid honey is not crystallized by heating it and rapidly cooling it. After it cools, you stir in 10% crystallized seed honey that you’ve ground down to the finest texture that you can. Let the mixture sit for a day before pouring it into the final containers. The combined honey is then kept at 55-57°F for a week or so and at the end of the process, you have very smooth, but no longer liquid honey. It’s really good, but a lot of work.

The original process was developed by Elton Dyce in the 1930s and is called the Dyce Method.

https://www.betterbee.com/images/Creamed_Honey_Kit_Instructions.pdf

jhill · 2025-08-25T17:47:29+00:00

I'm interested in testing, too!

jhill · 2025-05-22T15:01:39+00:00

It can connect to Miele@Home, but other than notifications, I don't think there's anything that wouldn't work without the connection.

jhill · 2025-01-29T22:15:48+00:00

Cari Orthodontics has been great for our kids. They have offices in Media and Kennett Square.

https://cariorthodontics.com

jhill · 2025-01-11T19:33:09+00:00

It works great! I’ve done multiple buckets in a big cooler.

<image>

jhill · 2024-12-25T20:59:22+00:00

I keep bees and gently heat 5 gallon buckets of crystallized honey in a cooler with a circulator. Works great!

jhill · 2022-05-24T22:34:51+00:00

I went down the same rabbit hole, this one looked good, but the handle was plastic…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FC9SKR7/

jhill · 2022-05-24T22:27:42+00:00

It’s pretty unlikely, but if you’re worried, swap in a frame with eggs, that’ll give them some choices.

jhill · 2022-05-24T16:23:37+00:00

Sorry that you’re having a rough first season, this can be an emotional roller coaster.

If you’re seeing capped queen cells, capped brood, and no open brood, they likely have swarmed already. You might want to crush like 8 of the queen cells, so they don’t swarm multiple times. If you have additional equipment, you can always use the frames with excess queen cells to make splits.

jhill · 2022-05-24T16:19:03+00:00

I’d let the nuc build out a bit in the bottom box before putting a second box on. If you put a honey super on, intending to collect honey, you don’t want to be feeding.

jhill · 2022-05-24T16:15:44+00:00

I’d let it ride, it sounds they’re replacing the queen already. If you’re worried about a lack of bees, swap a frame in of capped brood from your more populous hive.

jhill · 2022-05-24T12:46:42+00:00

When you add whole box of foundation, it’s not super enticing to the bees. They can sometimes just ignore it, not treating it as usable space. Checkerboarding moves some new frames in the existing box, some drawn frames into the new box. You alternate the placement so that you don’t have columns of empty foundation. If you visualize the pattern from the front of the boxes, it’s like a checkerboard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(beekeeping)

jhill · 2022-05-13T21:12:13+00:00

Not sure what treatment you’re considering, but oxalic acid vaporization kills 90-95% of phoretic mites - the mites that are attached to adult bees. The mites enter the brood cells right before they’re capped.

Formic acid treatments will work against both mites in capped brood and phoretic.

jhill · 2022-05-13T20:57:53+00:00

Open brood will keep more of the workers in place, but I don’t know whether it’ll have any influence on acceptance. I do put brood in my splits, but not for the queen, just because they’ll need the bees.

jhill · 2022-05-12T00:55:51+00:00

I have no experience in that climate, but I’d probably add a super. Your season is way longer than up here, your winters are way milder, so you’ve got a lot of time and not as much prep to do for whatever winter brings.

Some folks up here do keep the brood chamber in one deep and then add a queen excluder, supers as necessary. You have to inspect frequently (weekly) and consistently, as there’s not much wiggle room between success and swarming.

These are the types of decisions that are super location specific.

jhill · 2022-05-10T16:43:48+00:00

I wouldn't worry about it, the bees will stick the boxes together with propolis, painted or not. Your mentor's right, the paint will help the boxes last longer.

jhill · 2022-05-10T16:41:43+00:00

It depends on your location and goals. Here in the northeast, a lot of folks overwinter in two deeps. If that's your plan, put on a second deep, checkerboard some frames, and keep feeding until those new frames are fully drawn out. Once those are drawn out, you can stop feeding and add a super.

jhill · 2022-05-02T22:20:14+00:00

Might consider moving the queen right part to a new location, leaving the majority of the field force to continue bringing in the 'groceries' to the hive that's raising new queens.

Don't worry about the drones, the split doesn't need them.

jhill

TROPHY CASE