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

[NakeDiesel]

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.

 

[NakeDiesel]

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

 

[Mr.zippy]

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

Nice win on the whiskey!

 

[M.Brane]

+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.

 

[bunks-tj]

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

 

[NakeDiesel]

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

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

 

[DeeDubz]

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

 

[NakeDiesel]

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

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.

 

[DeeDubz]

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.

 

[NakeDiesel]

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.

 

[bunks-tj]

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

 

[NakeDiesel]

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

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.

 

[NakeDiesel]

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

 

[NakeDiesel]

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

 

[NakeDiesel]

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.

 

[NakeDiesel]

long 4 day weekend, but it rained or was muddy during most of it, so didn't accomplish a whole lot outside. I did manage to get the post location layed out for the back lean too on the shop and marked on the ground where I wanted to place the 1000 gallon propane tank we are planning to purchase. It's going to be a nightmare getting the lines ran to it through the rock.

I got the sander exchanged for the actual one I paid for, that was a pita. Lowes has the tools locked up so I couldn't grab what I wanted, so the goon got it and carried it to the checkout because we are all thieves now in these stores. I originally tried to do it at the Tulsa store while I was there on Thursday and was told I had to go the original store I bought it at so I had to make a special trip to Owasso to change it out. Accomplished that Saturday after we attended a long graduation ceremony for my niece graduating high school. Then we had a cookout at my daughters house for her birthday.

Finally got all the pieces I ordered from Titan for the tractor. The 3pt bale spike, Global bale spike for the front end loader and the global to skid adapter for the front end loader as well. The adapter was missing a bolt, and of course it was metric so I had to make a trip to get the right bolt as I don't have stock pile of metrics.

Still need to finish putting the spike on the 2 pieces but that's just a few minutes each.

Son in law came over yesterday evening and I vacuumed down his AC system after he replaced his evap coil in the truck he just traded for, then recharged his AC.

 

[jbmatth]

Sounds like it is time to get a jack hammer attachment for the skid steer to run the propane line.

JB

 

[NakeDiesel]

Sounds like it is time to get a jack hammer attachment for the skid steer to run the propane line.

JB

I don't think my little skid would stay in one piece running a jack hammer....

 

[NakeDiesel]

Friday, I checked the hives and added deeps to 10 of the 12 new hives so they are building out very well right now. My new queen came in from one of my overwintered hives that wasn't doing well. My granddaughter was here so we both went out and put it into this hive and I swiped 2 frames of bees from another hive into it to help it out. Will check it in a few days.

We had the grandson for the weekend, so Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn to go watch the Rt 66 car cruise where they set the world record for number of classic cars in a parade. Here is a youtube video of the parade, it's 3 hours long.


https://www.youtube.com/live/ys6X8oDU5gI?si=wAJIlaTx3mt5TaKu

The 5 year old grandson last 1.5 hours of the 3 hour parade, so we headed out after my brother's 55 went through with him and my dad in it. The 55 was my dads that he street raced many moons ago. My brothers rebuilt it with an ls engine and all the modern features to make a nice little cruiser.

After that we took the grandson to Bass pro where I picked up some 45 acp ammo and holster for my Kimber, then 3 hours at incredible pizza eating and playing games/riding rides.

Yesterday I finished redrilling the holes on the first 100 batch of deep frames and got the yard mowed in the 90+ degree weather.





My brothers 55 with him, dad and his daughter



Here some of the pics I took of the cars going by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nakediesel/albums/72177720333962985

 

[NakeDiesel]

Finally put my sugar mixer 5000 to work yesterday while I sweated my *** off outside. Used my flow meter to put in 18 gallons of water from my hot water only flowing to the external faucet. Then started it circulating water into the barrel as I added 3 buckets of sugar to it. Let it mix a while and also used my concrete mixer paddle I normally use to mix the 5 gallon buckets with. Hauled it out to the hives with my 4 wheeler suppling power to the pump and then dragged it to each hive and pumped them full of sugar water with my gas nozzle. Worked really well.

 

[jbmatth]

That is a very cool setup for what I think will save you a ton of time in the future. Also it'll be nice not to have to carry so many 5 gallon buckets around.

JB

 

[NakeDiesel]

That is a very cool setup for what I think will save you a ton of time in the future. Also it'll be nice not to have to carry so many 5 gallon buckets around.

JB

It's definitely a back saver. I was able to reach all the away across all 7 hives to fill 2 rows of feeders and seemed to mix pretty good too. I'm going to add a 90 on the return just to add some direction on the return fluid and get some circulation going with it.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Checked on the hives with Supers on them, none were ready for another super, they are still building comb, we haven't had a good spring so far, hopefully they start getting honey stored and I can start adding more supers, the rest I'll add already have their comb built out.

Finished stapling together the first 100 deep frames, now will start putting the wax foundation in them along with support fishing line.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Friday, spent some time cleaning going around my fruit trees and cutting off dead branches I missed this winter, then hit the **** on my east fence at the house. Generated some more mulch for the 3 new trees and the other things I've planted but didn't mulch. I'd planned on putting the rest out Sat morning before the rain hit at 10:30 like they predicted. Well it started raining at 7:30am.. ended up with a couple inches of rain.



So with the rain, I worked on finishing some of the deep frames. Between Saturday and Sunday I finished 40 of the 100 frames I have stapled together.



Sunday it rained more, but I was able to wade in the wetness and weed eat around the house and shop.

I've been talking with a company out on the East coast that make steel trusses. I'll need 9 for the back of my shop and 11 for the front. The back will be standard 10' spacing and give me a 20' lean too on a 1:12 pitch. The front I'll use their headers to give more space for the big doors. So I'll use a 20' header and 2 14' headers for the 3 doors and then switch to 10' spacing after them.

Here is my drawing of what it will look like:

 

[NakeDiesel]

Yesterday, built the 4'x20' 2x4 form for the 1000 gallon propane tank we will be putting in here at the farm, replacing the old 500 gallon one I borrowed from my brother 15 years ago. I'm upping to 1k because I'll be adding a generator for the house as well and need the added capacity in the winter so we don't run out of heat/power during a week of power outages from ice storms.



The son in law that works for the sewer dept for the city of Cushing brought over his line detector and we marked out where my black pipe gas line ran from my propane tank to the house. So I will basically uncover the old line and redig it out where I can as some of the pipe ended up under my AC pad I built. I have had the poly gas pipe and risers bought for over a year now.

Pulled the trigger and spent just under 11k on the lean too rafters for the front and back of the shop. 1100 in shipping fees from NC to OK. The steel trusses for the back 20' lean too were about 3700.00 for 9 trusses 10' apart, the rest is the front. The front I'm using 10 trusses, along with a 20' steel header for the 1st bag, then two 14' headers for the 2nd and 3rd bays. This allows me to go greater than 10' for a post. and have trusses in the right places.



I've got my work cut out for me this summer. Want to try and have the rear lean built by end of summer but not sure I'm going to be able to get it completed by then. Guess we'll just have to see.

 

[NakeDiesel]

Was a bit warm out yesterday, hit 91 with a 103 heat index. I sweated a little bit while out and changing my flagging of the back lean too post positions out to 20'.

I was looking at pouring peirs and embedding a post mount into the concrete. I was trying to find the imbedded mount that I liked, and was going to end up spending about 3k for the galvanized version as most are only powder coated. Didn't think the stongties sold at box stores would do the job with our winds. So I've decided to just concrete the poles in place. I can get the 6x6x20' posts about 30 miles from the house for 75.00 each. I'm going to either embed rebar into the posts to give them or use very large nails to do the same thing.

I also messaged the lady at strouds this morning to add 4 of their 20' headers onto my order. I'm going to open up the back lean too and that will give me 4 20' openings on that side. Make it much easier getting equipment in and out of it.

just a bit of difference in height from one side to the other. Will level it off after I get the posts in the ground

 

[NakeDiesel]

Didn't get a lot done yesterday due to a storm rolling through, but I was able to drag my little stihl tiller out and chopped a lot of the grass and roots up and used a rake to get them out. The remaining grass, I shot with grass/weed killer.



Started planning out running the lines out to the pad and what it's going to take to get through all the rock. So I started digging through drawers in the tool cabinets till I found my air hammer chisels and of course they won't fit my hammer drill, so ran in town right before 5 to see if the oil field/farm supply store had chisel bits for my hammer drill, nope. Wasn't surprised, they've gotten bad over the last few years on not having a good stock on a lot of things you used to be able to find there. Place started going down hill long before the owner died, now that he's dead, it's really going down hill now.

So today I'm running to Sand Springs to Harbor Freight to get the bits for my hammer drill, and we will see if I just don't buy myself a jack hammer while I'm there. Also running by Riddle plant farm and picking up a few more fruit bushes to replace where the blueberries didn't come back. Tired of messing with Blueberry plants.

Grabbing a slab of ribs from Rib crib and a couple of sides for dinner while I'm there and just got a call from the wife asking me to run to the liquor store and grab Margarita supplies for her, she's been having a hell of the last few weeks with all the layoffs going on at her hospital and at corporate. She lost one person on her team and others had to move around to different positions. They have whacked CEO's, COO's, CFO's, CNO's from many of their hospitals and at corporate, Lots of managers and even whole departments are gone now.

 

[NakeDiesel]

It's half assed cool out at only 72 degrees when I started on the hives, it's 82 now, but hella amount of humiditiddies. The little rain shower last night dropped the temp from the 90s down. So I did a quick go through on all 22 hives and was still soaked in sweat, I've already soaked through 2 ball caps today and on my 3rd one. 4 of the 9 wintered hives got a 2nd honey super added and the 5 nucs I bought this year and been feeding got their first supers added. The others just aren't ready for them yet. I'll mix up another big batch of sugar water tomorrow for 9 hives

 

[NakeDiesel]

Ran to the big city this afternoon and spent a grand at harbor freight. Never thought I'd ever spend that much there at once. So what did I buy? A jack hammer, 3 bits for it. A cart for it. 2 boxes of 9 mil gloves, 3 rock type bits for my hammer drill and a very long mixer paddle and 6 12' long ties.







Then picked up 3 fig plants at riddle plant farm.



Bottle of tequila and margarita mix for the wife and a bottle of scotch for me.



20260612_180325 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr



20260612_180318 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr



20260612_182659 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr



20260612_182710 by NakeDiesel, on Flickr

 

[sawduststeve]

Hi Johnnie

The factory I sold was smaller than this

Keep sending like its going out of fashion.

Good work all round.
Steve