Above 1200 Sq/FT Smart *** Garage, aka: It's finally going to happen

Busy weekend, Cleaned up in the shop some while the wife was taking tests online that were proctored for her American Case Management certification which she passed both tests the first time. Those tests only have a 67% pass rate. This is a national certification that she just completed, so now her name tag will read - ACM - RN and in a few years after she finishes the BSN degree it will be ACM - BSN or something like that... Proud of her. Some of her fellow directors of case management she knows at other hospitals didn't pass the first time they took it.

Saturday I put all the new nuks I bought into hives and added top feeders to them and mixed up 10 gallons of sugar water for them. The 7 splits will be check today and added to hives if they have released their queens into the hive from the queen cages.

Yesterday (Sunday), after the wife finished her 2nd test and swore she flunked it, I took her to Colton's steakhouse and treated her to a nice ribeye. After we went to Riddle plant farm and I purchased 3 mini fig trees, a huge 13' cherry tree (man was that expensive), a replacement pecan tree and a replacement plum tree for the orchard. The wife also picked out some veggies for the garden boxes I need to get them all planted this afternoon as well.

Last night I also spotted a bee swarm about 15' up in a tree by the hives, out comes the ladder and a nuk box and I was able to capture the large swarm into the box. I'll check it today and make sure they are still in there. I'll leave them there for a few days then move them to a full 10 frame hive for them to start building out.

Ordered a bunch of building materials to build 15 more deep boxes, that will let me add another 8 hives if I need too. Also ordered kits to build 200 deep frames, bottoms and tops for the additional 8 hives as well.

Friday my shipment of bee hive parts arrived via freight truck. This order had 15 deep boxes I'll need to assemble and paint, 9 bottom boards, 9 tops, 9 inner covers and 200 frames/wax to build.

Found another swarm on Saturday, got it into a 5 frame nuk, going to give it my buddy that also raises bees and has been looking for a swarm to add.

Got the nuks out in the bee yard into hives on Friday as well. Mixed up 10 gallons of sugar water for those hives. Saturday morning I mixed up another 20 gallons to refill the 5 I put in hives last weekend and topped the others off again.











Saturday, the wife and I attended the New Leaf Gala fundraiser and I bought several things on the silent auction, including a custom knife, some jewelry for the wife and a 1 night stay, show of our choosing and 50.00 gift cert to eat dinner at the River spirit casino in Tulsa.

I also entered a raffle buying 5 tickets for 150.00 for a guys drawing of a whiskey bundle. Holy hell, I actually won it. 13 bottles of whiskey. I looked them up when we got home and they are about 1500.00 worth of whiskey.





















Started painting the hive bottoms today, 1 coat on so far

NakeDiesel said:

Friday my shipment of bee hive parts arrived via freight truck. This order had 15 deep boxes I'll need to assemble and paint, 9 bottom boards, 9 tops, 9 inner covers and 200 frames/wax to build.

Found another swarm on Saturday, got it into a 5 frame nuk, going to give it my buddy that also raises bees and has been looking for a swarm to add.

Got the nuks out in the bee yard into hives on Friday as well. Mixed up 10 gallons of sugar water for those hives. Saturday morning I mixed up another 20 gallons to refill the 5 I put in hives last weekend and topped the others off again.











Saturday, the wife and I attended the New Leaf Gala fundraiser and I bought several things on the silent auction, including a custom knife, some jewelry for the wife and a 1 night stay, show of our choosing and 50.00 gift cert to eat dinner at the River spirit casino in Tulsa.

I also entered a raffle buying 5 tickets for 150.00 for a guys drawing of a whiskey bundle. Holy hell, I actually won it. 13 bottles of whiskey. I looked them up when we got home and they are about 1500.00 worth of whiskey.





















Started painting the hive bottoms today, 1 coat on so far

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Nice win on the whiskey!

+1 That should take care of you for a while.

I admire your dedication to the bees. I have a love-hate relationship. I have collected a few while riding.

keeping bees is way harder than it seems, lose a swarm catch a a swarm, beetles. mites....

bunks-tj said:

keeping bees is way harder than it seems, lose a swarm catch a a swarm, beetles. mites....

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It's definately work... and trying to stay on top of the mites and beetles can take some effort.

This week, finished painting the bottoms with a 2nd coat and got them out of the way. Got the 15 deep boxes built and have the 1st coat of paint on the 6 of them. I filled in the brad holes on all the boxes before painting them.








Last night I had my next session with my Tattoo guy and he did my Mud race truck on my arm. Turned out great I think. Next session is in a few weeks and can't wait to see how he took my idea for my upper arm. It's definitely not going to be a normal image....





https://flic.kr/p/2sbL2rp

nice score on the whiskey, you wearing whites(boots)?

DeeDubz said:

nice score on the whiskey, you wearing whites(boots)?

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Yes, they whites. Some of the most comfortable boots I've ever owned. I've owned them in the past and wore out 3 soles, had to have the toe area covered over from wearing them out. I've been wearing a specific style of ariats for the last 5 years, they are slip on wide toed and steel toed. They started bothering my right foot and somehow managed to fracture my right foot wearing them. So I've switched back to the more expensive whites.

Ive had a pair of whites since 2004. Up until my knee started bugging me those were my main hiking boots aka wildland boots. I think I paid 500 at the time which was expensive I assume now they're over a G. I will say they're the Cadillac of boots. It's a PIA the *** breaking them in. I found Wilburs boot grease and wearing them every day over time they get comfortable. At first it feels like walking on ladder rungs.

I didn't buy the most expensive pair this time. I bought the line scout style.



these are the previous ones I've worn and after I get these broke in and worn for a year or so, I'll probably buy it again as I really like them.



Saturday I definitely got my steps in, and they were all up and down a damned ladder. Help my daughter and son in law put a steel roof on their house. I refused to step on their single wides roof. My much lighter son in law was causing it to deflect more that I think it should. I'm not impressed with the construction of their single wide at all.

Yesterday took the wife out for lunch with one daughter and a couple of grandkids, will do dinner with the other daughter this week sometime as she work nights on weekends. Then went out to the shop and worked for a while on the bee boxes I've been building, I sanded all the corners down where I filled the nail holes and have them stack and ready to be painted. Those that I've already painted need their top and bottom edges sanded to remove paint and make sure they are flat across the whole surface.

I also bought a couple of baking racks, to store my deep and medium frames on inside the shop. I have to widen the racks out about 2.5 inches to make them work with the frames. I dug around in my bolts and found 4 3" 5/16" bolts and then gapped with washers to find the right spacing needed to make it work. I'll need to pick up bolts today to build them both and figure out what I'm going to use as spacers for the final assembly.



Also found that one of the wife's auxbeam lights were dangling from her bumper. The bracket broke on either side of the mount bolt. I've emailed auxbeam asking for the part number to purchase a new one and waiting on them now to figure out how to replace it.

One of my weak hives was being actively robbed this Saturday. I got close and was perceived as a threat.

bunks-tj said:

One of my weak hives was being actively robbed this Saturday. I got close and was perceived as a threat.

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I've got one hive that is mean as hell and I have a huge wall of bees trying to take me out every time I open it up, but man do they produce a lot of honey, guess they channel that anger into production. But they don't bother me unless I'm opening the hive. I can walk around there within 10 feet or so of all my hives and occasionally have one check me out but they aren't shooting to take me out either.

The rubber wheel bands for my little dewalt bandsaw came in today, got it fixes then cut the spacers out of emt for my racks. One is now fully built and loaded with frames. I'll assemble the 2nd one tomorrow.

Got a couple more boxes sanded as well.

20260513_175811 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

20260513_165233 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

I finished building the 2nd baking rack on Friday, then started sanding the top and bottoms of the last nine deep boxes when on the first on my 1/4 sheet sander starts squealing. So it's toast. Lasted at least 20 years.

RIP little Black and Decker sander.
20260515_170928 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

We had a Tulsa day Saturday. The wife had a hair appt, then took her to get a mani pedi. After that, we grabbed bbq, then i grabbed a new sander. Replaced the fallen soldier with a dewalt 20v version.

20260516_164830 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

Then we went to Sam's, where I got weird looks buying 300lbs of sugar. We got a few food items too for us. I grabbed another case of coop f5 for the shop fridge, I was down to 3 in the fridge.

20260516_164823 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

The last stop was at a brewery supply store where I spent a chunk of change buying all the items needed to try my hand at making mead.

20260516_165026 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

Mixed up 25 gallons of sugar water last night to feed the growing hives. Will check all of them next time before I refill their feeders to see if they are ready for the 2nd deep or not.

Ended up buying a 5 foot brush hog off my brother for a grand, he had bought it off someone a while ago that was selling out and moving and it's just been sitting at his place since he already had a brush hog and he just bought a skid steer brush hog to work with his new skid steer he just bought.



It's not as wide as I wanted, but I'd decided that I wanted to go with a batwing brush hog, but I wasn't finding what I wanted used, so this lets me keep looking, till I find what I really want and can save up some more money to go towards it instead of spending 5k to 6k for a 7' brush hog and not being happy with it.

Who knows, maybe I'll buy a small tractor to use this 5' hog on... my wife would be so happy with me doing that....

Today's the last work day of the week for me and the wife, I'm going to start laying out a 4' x 20' set of forms for a new 1k gallon propane tank, a pad for a generator/solar equipment/ats/mts/etc... and 9 holes for sonotubes for the back lean too on the shop. So I need to start marking where the posts need to go for a 16' overhang on the back.