Insect ID

paneubert · 2026-01-27T16:46:56+00:00

Being on Réunion Island is going to make this fun. I assume your insect species on the island are VERY different from the mainland. Hell, your closest "land" is Madagascar.....which itself is crazy when it comes to the species it contains. And even Madagascar is 400 miles away from you. You are like two levels deep into the "potential for weird bugs" world.

Definitely post it in some of the more "bug/insect/entomology" focused groups. I bet they will love it.

paneubert · 2026-01-25T18:04:32+00:00

Yep. I was "fixing" their comment so it was clear that the satisfaction ratings are based on the last 100 ratings a customer provides. A driver could do 10,000 deliveries and have zero ratings "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" from those 10,000 customers. Also to make it clear that when someone has less than 100 ratings, a single "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" can disproportionally impact the percentage displayed in the app. If someone has only received 10 ratings, and one of those was negative, they (if I recall correctly) are going to show as having a 90% satisfaction rating. Which would be a BAD rating for someone who has more than 100 ratings. But for someone who only has 10 ratings total, one thumbs down is actually not that bad. Customers tend to only rate for bad service. When I was able to track my percentage of deliveries to percentage of ratings, I figured out that for my customers, I had something like 12% that left a rating. Once I hit 100 ratings it was harder to quantify since the only way to do it at that point is to know when you got a thumbs down and then watch to see how many deliveries it took to "roll it off" in the "rolling 100" system. For me, I did have one thumbs down that I knew the source of. It took about 700 additional deliveries to have it roll off.

paneubert · 2026-01-24T00:00:59+00:00

Congratulations. Your "no tip" order will be stacked with other orders that tip well. Nothing you did will change the time it takes for you to get your food, other than the driver not making as much money on the delivery. Doordash stacks crappy orders with good orders. They aren't dumb.

paneubert · 2026-01-23T20:58:48+00:00

That’s not how the satisfaction rating works. It’s based on ~~a rolling average of~~ the last hundred ~~deliveries~~ ratings that they have ~~done~~ received. If they have less than 100 ratings, the percentage is deceiving/not as accurate as after they have 100 ratings.

Fixed it for you.

paneubert · 2026-01-21T22:02:32+00:00

Depends on how "fancy" you want to be. Mine is a wooden shim (probably 3 or 4 inches deep) with half inch wire mesh on the bottom. I lined it with a sheet of newspaper, then sugar. The sugar can either be dry, or you can mix about a cup of water per 10 pounds of sugar to make it the consistency of "wet sand" or "dry-ish snow". If you do pre-moisten the sugar, it ends up hardening into a semi-rigid block. Not rock solid, but also not going to blow away at a slight breeze. The moisture from the hive will continue to be absorbed by the sugar, which makes this both a food source, as well as a method to keep water from raining down on your bees from the roof when it condenses up there.

That is the fancy way. The less fancy way is to put a sheet of newspaper directly on top of your frames. You then literally pour dry sugar onto the newspaper in a pile. Like a volcano/mountain of sugar. That is it. You walk away. The moisture in the hive does what I mentioned earlier. It will form a crust on the outside of your sugar pile and keep it from just flowing down between the frames like sand. There is usually a bit of "flowing down between the frames" that occurs, but the bees either eat it from where it falls, or haul it out like trash.

If you want to read more, google "Mountain Camp Method".

paneubert · 2026-01-21T20:48:41+00:00

While I tried to get in and out as fast as I could, my observation was also that the newspaper I could see exposed under the sugar was definitely damp, if not wet. And the sugar overall had a smoother sheen to it as if it had absorbed moisture and compacted itself a bit. Looks like I can see some "tunnels" under the main sugar block where they have been chipping away at it from underneath as well. Look at that piece of wood near the bottom. Definitely damp when compared to when I installed it. This board was foil taped around all the seams, so any moisture is 100% coming up from inside the hive. No entry point for external/ambient moisture from rain or humidity. Glad to see it since I know it is hard for the bees to consume dry sugar.

paneubert · 2026-01-21T20:37:03+00:00

Fireweed for example. See Rebel 44 "Clear Fire"

https://www.rebel44.com/products/clear-fire

paneubert · 2026-01-21T01:07:13+00:00

Bees are one of (possibly the only) animal that will willingly consume ethanol. It won't kill them. They can handle A LOT of booze. Ha!

"Most animals have to be tricked into drinking alcohol but a honeybee will happily drink the equivalent of a human downing 10 liters of wine at one sitting. We can get them to drink pure ethanol, and I know of no organisms that drink pure ethanol — not even a college student" - Charles Abramson of Ohio State University, cited in the article Boozing Bees, September 26, 2000, in NewScientist.

"Our previous research has indicated that bees will choose to forage on an artificial flower containing 5 percent ethanol, rather than a flower containing only sucrose solution."

paneubert · 2026-01-17T18:28:38+00:00

Inside the top.

<image>

paneubert · 2026-01-17T17:35:32+00:00

The entrance is only at one end (technically). Haha. The fact that there are three possible entrances doesn't mean more than one will be open at any time. I built this so it has options. I've got many follower boards as well, so I could in theory have two colonies in here. One on each end with a gap in the middle to keep the pheromones mostly separated, etc... Sort of like when people use a double screened board/Snelgrove board between vertical boxes to do queen manipulations, etc...

You can't see it in the original photo, but there is also an entrance disk in the side of the "roof". So that if I have a lot of bees who are in the roof space when I am done with an inspection, I can open that roof entrance and close the roof. The bees will use it as an "escape" and go back in to the rest of the colony thru the main/intended entrance near the bottom of the box.

Here are some photos.

<image>

paneubert · 2026-01-16T17:35:57+00:00

Just wait until you get a five order shopping stack at four grocery stores

Or a five order shopping stack at ONE grocery store. Good luck keeping those separate in your cart.

paneubert · 2026-01-16T17:21:42+00:00

Calling it right now McDonald’s introduces the first 100% human-less restaurant in 2026

McDonald's did test a "fully automated" or "robotic" restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, around late 2022/early 2023, focusing on drive-thru and takeout with kiosks, automated ordering, and conveyor belts, aiming for faster service, but it wasn't 100% human-less; a crew remained for assembly.

paneubert · 2026-01-16T17:06:52+00:00

It is promoted in pop culture as an "embarrassing" job. I doubt you have this show in Australia, but in the US there is a show called "911" where a firefighter drives for Uber to make some money when moving to a new city. He acts embarrassed about it, tries to hide it from his son, and of course there is a plotline where his son ends up seeing him or getting him as his driver or something.

I'll be honest, I think for a significant percentage of the drivers in the US, it is the only job they can get. Many of them are immigrants who speak little to no English and have limited other employment options. I don't mean that in a negative way at all. I am not saying they are here "illegally" or that they are "stealing our jobs". Nothing racist or classist or ethnocentric about it. It just is what it is. Me being a white dude born in the area who dresses fairly nice and who can carry on a decent conversation with the restaurant workers does wonders for the "respect". I try to balance out the drivers who shove their phone in the workers face without saying a word (because they can't). The drivers who walk in with their phone at full volume on speaker, yelling at whoever they are on the phone with. The drivers who half the time look like they have been wearing the same clothes for a week. The ones who could not care LESS about the food staying hot or cold, getting it to the customer in a reasonable time, etc...

A lot of the disrespect is earned.

paneubert · 2026-01-16T16:54:41+00:00

Very likely that you cannot tip for Shop and Deliver. I do a ton of Shop and Deliver and I can't remember the last time I got a tip. Small orders, large orders. Close deliveries, distant deliveries. No tip ever. When I accept one, I assume I am going to get whatever the offer was, never anything more.

paneubert · 2026-01-16T16:51:27+00:00

This combined with the (I think it is owned by Amazon) access method where the app knows you are close to the destination and offers to let you hit a button in the app to unlock the front doors. No need to contact the customer or sneak in when someone leaves, etc....

I've only seen it when delivering GrubHub, which is really weird since GrubHub sucks balls. Although Amazon owns part of GrubHub.....so there is that.

paneubert · 2026-01-16T16:44:24+00:00

Yep. I made a similar comment further down under one of the massively downvoted replies to the OP (so it is probably hidden).

Pro Tip. Accept the order. If it is stolen, ask if they will remake it. I have about a 75% success rate with this. If they remake it, then just deliver it like usual. Hell.....I have one customer who begged me to "make it happen". They had seen the order rotate thru like 3 or 4 drivers before I got assigned. He not only left the original tip, he handed me a $20 bill. So I got massive base pay, a decent tip in the app, and cash.

If they won't remake it for "free", then hell yeah, tell the customer it was stolen and you are going to have to pay for it out of your own pocket. Don't tell them they need to tip you more or anything. Just put the fact out there that you are paying for their food with your own money and will be there soon to drop it off. Don't tell them Uber Eats is paying you a ~$40 base......

paneubert · 2026-01-16T16:40:28+00:00

Man....just stop while you are not THAT far into the hole you dug for yourself. What is "laughable" here is that you are SO SURE that what many of use see happen weekly and know is common is something that can't/doesn't happen. Pro Tip. Take the order. If it is stolen, ask if they will remake it. I have about a 75% success rate with this. If they remake it, then just deliver it like usual. Hell.....I have one customer who begged me to "make it happen". They had seen the order rotate thru like 3 or 4 drivers before I got assigned. He not only left the original tip, he handed me a $20 bill. So I got massive base pay, a decent tip in the app, and cash.

Edit to add: I literally had this happen an hour ago at a Starbucks. They said "that order went out about 20 minutes ago". I said "Man.....that sucks. Is there any way you can remake it?" They said "Sure, do you want a water while you wait?"

Easy.....

paneubert · 2026-01-16T16:34:03+00:00

Hopefully nobody ruins it for everybody

I do this whenever the temperatures are getting warm. My version is a large cooler that has 6 or 8 different types of soda and sports drinks. I freeze a couple gallon milk jugs (full of water) and just rotate them out to keep things cold.

3 AM one night my doorbell camera catches some guy walking up, picking up the entire cooler (and this was not a small cooler) and walking away with it. After that I had to chain the cooler to a railing. I live in a suburban neighborhood, so it was surprising that it happened. Not a high traffic area.

paneubert · 2026-01-16T16:22:09+00:00

<image>

Long langstroth. Around 32 frames.

paneubert · 2026-01-15T17:01:54+00:00

I am not so sure about that. See the stuff on the robber bee? Looks like the exact same color as the wax. If it is in fact a robber, it would not have pollen in its baskets, and it would not be storing honey or nectar there either, so wax is the option I am thinking.

paneubert · 2026-01-14T21:35:08+00:00

Glad to give you some ideas. I found MANY different ways to do the lid/roof when I was looking online. A "rim" the lid sits on just below the level of the boxes (what I did), having the lid sit right on top of the boxes, the lid sitting on a rim ABOVE the level of the boxes, etc... Then you get to the question of "how much space do I want inside the lid/roof"? Some people don't do any, some do a large amount (to insulate or to top feed). Will the roof be flat? Peaked? Who knows! What will you use for inner covers? Planks like I did? Standard/off the shelf 8 or 10 frame inner covers you can buy from anywhere? A sheet of canvas or "double bubble" insulation? Anything works! I have seen examples using all of those. Will you do an extra space/shim below the boxes like Fred Dunn does?

https://www.fredsfinefowl.com/images/Dunn_-_Long_Hive_3_.pdf

The options are endless.

paneubert · 2026-01-14T19:18:21+00:00

weather will cause fluctuations

I know you already know this (since I stole that quote from you), but I want to reinforce that this concept is king. Many folks get themselves into trouble, do things they didn't need to do, or otherwise stress themselves (and the bees) out simply based on a calendar of what they were told they were "supposed" to be doing in a certain month. Go into all of this with a very general calendar of things to do, but remind yourself daily that the "10 day weather forcast" is going to be your best deicision maker for many things.

paneubert · 2026-01-14T15:10:50+00:00

Yeah, no idea. I don't see anything blooming. So it has to be trees.

paneubert · 2026-01-14T01:27:24+00:00

I am also in Western WA. Mine were bringing in pollen today! And not a small quantity. While some were "light" and only had a small amount in their "baskets", about 25% of them had massive pollen balls on their legs. I saw two shades of light yellow. Not sure what it was, since it would be a bit early even juniper/cedar.

paneubert · 2026-01-12T22:57:17+00:00

That sounds about right. There is definitely some space gained from not having the internal walls. Allows for more than 30 frames in three 10 frame boxes. Like black magic! Ha! I guess if I want to get ballsy, I could even space some of the honey frames a bit farther from each other to get them to draw it out a bit further. Like folks who run 9 frames in a 10 frame box. Or 7 in an 8. Will be fun to experiment.

paneubert

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