hex0rz

The buckets was an example of using what Michael Bush had on his site for the feed method. I think what happened was that as the bees flocked to it, the increasing weight of the bees caused the float to sink more and more and drowning more bees as they landed on it. The other thing I noticed about this was that even if a bee did not drown, the ones hanging out on the bricks, sand area, etc., they looked to be grooming themselves alot. Understandably, as they just got done gorging themselves on syrup. But then, the odd thing was, they never flew off. But they were just fine. Which makes me wonder if they were too fat to fly? I've seen that type of feed station before. I may entertain that method with the buckets I get from work. They are blue 4 gal size, with one heck of a sealing lid! I poked holes in the lid with a small nail and they suck out the syrup that way. I've been brainstorming about a different method, I'm going to look into it more to see if I can make it work. It would be a very effective bulk open feeding method that should cause virtually no drowning! Wouldn't that be something! As this great experiment continues, I may have to consider a couple different alternatives to treating them due to the temperatures. I'm just trying to adopt something efficient and effective to doing things in respect to a large commercial apiary environment. If I do not perfect my methods now, what the heck 'am I going to do when I have 500 hives?! I used my inspection camera on the hives last night. Was starting to notice an increase of dead bees at the bottom entrance. Its on the small setting so only a few get thrown out at a time. The dead bees looked to be very young and not like some old summer bee. Which concerns me. I inserted the probe into them and found that before I could even get remotely close to the cluster, the guard bees were attacking the probe. Although, I did notice that there is a layer of dead bees covering the bottom board. I hope this is just attrition and not some massive die off from mites or moisture, etc. I have proper ventilation it seems as there is no build up of moisture/mold that I can see. I wonder if I could fog the bees and close the entrances off so they cannot escape into the cold and die? Then again, I would assume that if they broke cluster, they could die as well... hmm.

I will give this a shot. If readings don't come out like I need, I'll get it benchtested. Thought I would share a couple pics: What a difference, LOL!

This is what happened last time I tried to community feed: I would need some way of ensuring I could feed cleanly. But the problem remains that, by community feeding, you risk the potential for it being a vector of virus and disease. As feral colonies on domestic intermingle. You either disease the ferals or the ferals disease you... Not to mention, it was demoralizing seeing that many dead bees in my buckets! I've seen others use 55 gal drums, but I dunno how they do it. If I could think of a way of introducing small amounts available at a time with a large resevoir to tap from, it could be a better way. What I meant was, does the fact that your bees come from a VSH strain affect the results of your thymol fogging? Have you done a "controlled" experiment to verify the treatment? Are you doing a thymol fogging treatment only when they fly, or are you doing it during winter months too? Last time I treated, they came running out of the hive and some died because it got too cold before they could get back in the hive and cluster. If not, do you do the OAV treatment during winter? Here is how I have my hives in winter setup:

The post was before the forum was converted. If Mike was able to retrieve it, it would be nice, otherwise, I could maybe take some time to recount the story if really interested. Still pretty vivid in my memory... This is no coincidence...

9-15?! Holy cow. They have not fallen out yet?! ...IIRC, I believe it was called trenchmouth. Wow, man! You have alot better luck than alot of us! I have my opinions on flouride though... 20 minutes?! Thats a long time... What do you mean full strength? I asked the hygienist about peroxide and she said, "NO WAY"! I dunno... You are luckier than d4l! Sheesh! I've been looking into EO's ever since I got into beekeeping. My mother is into it as well so I have been experimenting with it. I'm familiar with young living as they and doterra are the only two I know of that make ingestible EO's. I'm going to need to look into some alternative for mouthwash and toothpaste. Hygienist told me not to get any alcoholic mouthwash but I don't trust much of anything else. When I reasearched the stuff they prescribed me, I found out the current toothpaste I'm using it no better than flouridated! I told the wife I can pay anyone to pull teeth. Could even do it for free! Just get hammered like nobodies business! Then go in and get some good dentures! LOL! Last episode with the dentist for my wife, she had 16 cavities! Thats why I did not have my dental care in recent past... She is indian and has hairline fractures in her teeth. But she also has some very straight teeth! I just pray and hope our children will have all the best qualities and features from us both! I don't want to see anyone else go through this crap! So I had my deep cleaning done yesterday. Then the hygienist used the laser in my perio pockets. I went to work right after the appt. I have had 2 other deep cleans in my life and I think she was the best yet! My mouth did not hurt a single bit afterwards! Well, atleast not due to the fact of the cleaning. I had a bite block in the whole time and it made my jaw sore! So my arsenal for fighting the war in my mouth is: 1. Sonicare tooth brush 2. Colloidal silver mouthwash 3. Floss and a water flosser. Dentist has one that has a magnet in it that is proven to reduce plaque/tarter. I'm excited to see how this will shape my future! I go back in, in 3 months for a perio maintenance to see how things progress. ...who could have known talking about teeth would have elicited such a response!

I must say, it has taken me until now, that I finally see this. The killer has been exposed, and I'm taking care of it! Just recently been to the dentist and got my checkup and cleaning. Been much too long without seeing the dentist and getting a cleaning. I focused more on the wifes well being than mine. Did not have insurance and never could justify the expense of seeing the dentist. This trip though, has taken my whole outlook on my mouth in a whole new direction! I'm trying to redeem myself as best as possible and I pray that it can be stopped in its tracks. We all have our excuses for dental hygiene and I'm just like every other person who neglects things because of life being hectic. It was always get up, dress, eat as your getting out the door to go to work. Get home, shower, eat, get to bed for the next day! Well, it just so turns that by just neglecting 5 minutes of my life for too long, has made things worse. Now, I'm not at the point of no return, and by many standards, not bad compared to others. But if it had gone unchecked, I could be looking at many more complicating things to my life down the road! I have been diagnosed with periodontal disease. Many people in the US have it in some form or another. It just so happens that I have just the first stages of it. It did not become relevant to how bad it was until the dentist showed me my xrays. I was looking at bone loss in between my teeth! Scary stuff! Bacteria strong enough to eat bone! They scaled me and I have pockets that go as deep as 5mm. Now, not as deep as later stages, but 3 is the most an average person should see. What got me, is the fact this is the first place that ever said anything about it! Yea, I had some say I had gingivitis, etc. But nothing like this! They were very adamant about treating me, and I definitely followed through. Matter of fact, I see them tomorrow for some treatment. Getting laser surgery, etc. To the tune of one of my checks for working 2 weeks! This is after insurance coverage pays! Do your due diligence, brush and floss those dang food crushers 2x a day! This experience has turned me into a hypersensitive individual now and I'm doing it religiously! Read up on periodontal disease. Its more than just bleeding gums, bone and gum loss, teeth falling out. They are finding it is cause for many cardio problems, like heart disease, heart attacks, buildups of plaque in the arteries, etc! Its about long term health! If I stay like this now and until I die, its going to affect my health when I'm older! Here is a bigger problem. I have to struggle to find what is right for me to use and what is not! Like all things, there is poison not in just our food, air, but the health products we take to get better! Research what you use for toothpaste, mouthwash, etc! You WILL be startled! ..but there is one thing, 2 very kind people have done for me and my family. They enabled me to do something that I could not justify before, but because they really did not know how badly I need it in my life, they will never know how much I appreciate having it now! Rosalie and Mike, THANK YOU, for the wonderful colloidal silver generator! Without this, I would not be able to turn to a new method for mouthwash that did not contain the terrible chemicals that cause more problems than do good!

Here is mine...some may recall my story when I first joined the forum. ...because of this experience, I find it difficult for me to find the true peace I once had camping in the woods.

Uhmm, I believe the scripture goes a little like this, "...a days wages for a loaf of bread."

Whaaa! WIN! Heres mine: http://youtu.be/bkbvm9BVd8o?t=45s *Language warning

IIRC, I thought the italians were the most gentle? I hear the Carniolans are a really good bee for colder climates as they are much more conservative. The russian bee appeals to me though as they seem to have a better mite resistance and are more prone to be acclimated to the colder climates. I tried the open feeding deal, and found that I attracted more than just my bees. But with the internal feed method, yes, I have to open the hive, but I know that the feed is going to the bees in that hive and nothing else, for the most part. Right off the bat, with my limited experience, I'm trying to go in the direction of what it takes to manage hundreds of hives. I imagine that a feeding method that works for hundreds of hives, should work for my measly 4 current hives. That may sound contradictory, as I would not imagine internal feeders is preferred to large operations. I've decided to do the thymol fogging because I find that if it does indeed have efficacy to it, it will be the quickest way to treat hives for the varroa. I do appreciate the idea of the OA vaporizer and had plans of pursuing it, but have not ventured into that yet. Its time consuming to do, but produces great results. I have also thought about trying to incorporate it into the FGMO fogging, but I guess it does not like to dissolve in oil. They make many different products with thymol for bees and have thought about doing some different things, but its alot more intensive than fogging. I did not know it, but they have some stuff called mite-a-thol for tracheal mites. I believe its menthol crystals. I put some in each hive for that for winter as well. I used up about 1 to 1 1/2 bottles of the HBH and while it sure sets them off in a frenzy for it, I do not know how well it worked for anything else. I've got my own EO's now so I'm planning making my own formula. I have thought a bit about the prospect of dead and dying bees from the collateral damage from pollination. The pollination thing may never come to fruition, and I may just stick with the original plan of selling products of the hive and bees, queens, etc. Although, ND clover fields, I may just try that one someday for the sheer amount of honey that can be produced! I have almost watched every single FBM video posted! I did indeed learn alot from his videos, but I've found many corners to cut and micheal bush's approach to things have appealed quite much. As I said, with all the people I've gleaned from, I've definitely got a hybrid approach to things. Just as long as I do it the lazy way. The less I mess around with things and still get the results I need, the better. Also, do you think that the VSH bees you have is in part to success with your thymol fogging? Alot of the beesource people are very paricular to claims being made about any success to a treatment method.

Alright, so tonight, I was tinkering with it a little more. Got the fuel line hooked up and primed it. Would not fire until I poured some fuel down the carb. Had to use the truck while running to get enough voltage from the battery to get the engine to really turn. Finally fired up! Got it to idle a little bit and would die. Kept trying until finally it started to run. Kept the primer bulb going to keep fuel going. It will run for maybe 2 min. at idle before dying. I'm thinking I've got a float bowl problem. I would like to tear the carb apart and get it all cleaned, redone, but I do not have a kit for it. I pulled the battery cables from the truck and the mill instantly died. I'm thinking the alternator is no good. It was a bit of a demoralizing night in a way. I'm about $250 into fixing this thing to make it work/run, and the owner told me to save the receipts as he will reimburse me, but I'm wondering when I should draw the line for this. I got the mill running enough to make about an 1 1/2 cut into my play wood before it died from lack of fuel. It seems like the cutter head and that whole portion MAY be in working order. Any way to test the alternator without removing it and taking it to an auto store for a benchtest?

What kind of bees do you have? I still have trouble identifying what bees I have. I read alot about mutts and they can practically be anything. So I dunno what I have, but just by the pictures I see on the net, I think I may have 3 russians and 1 italian. The rooshkies have black stripes and the italian is all brown. I really like the look of the italian queen. Some say the solid is a cordovan, but I'm far from knowing all that stuff. Anyways, the russians flew more than the other did. Not sure if my future business name would go well if I used russians, though. Anthony's Russian bees.... Being what my name is and italian bees, I'd like to call it Tony's Italian bees! Just have to actually have italian bees, lol! I've fed my hives to the brim as much as possible. I was open feeding until the robbing just got too far out of hand. I've got pics of that one! So I went to internal feeding and the honey bee healthy helped other hives fight each other. So I really reduced the entrances. Fed alot of 1:1 for a bit at about mid-sept to try and get them to build more comb. Which was a huge gamble as that is not the norm. But fortunately, we had a really warm year and it worked out pretty good. Once it started getting colder, I started them on 2:1 to pack it in. I've got some really nifty buckets from work that are 4 gallons and the lid seals really well. Used a nail and hot poked holes in the lid and did a top feeder like that. Worked really well until the night lows got too cold then had to switch to baggie feeding until they would not take it anymore. Did one more inspection and they really packed them into the comb well! I made my own protein patties and put about 4lbs in the 10 frame hives and 3 lbs in the nucs. I used a medium 5 frame box for each nuc and made candy and poured them into the boxes. Thats alot more sugar candy than I think anyone typically does! Each 10 frame hive got 25lbs of sugar doing a mountain camp method. 1 10 frame hive is 3 mediums tall of comb and the other is 2. The nucs are 2 tall of comb. I'm very interested to see how they fare through winter as I dunno what is really needed for nucs up here and also how they take the protein feed. Its was experimental as well! The bigger problem I may have is how badly the varroa may get to them and the moisture. I'm doing an upper and lower entrance and I can definitely see the vapor and moisture iced up at the top! I'm also doing a not so popular method of treatment for the varroa mite. I'm doing the fogging method with thymol and mineral oil. Up north here, the SHB is not a problem. The wax moth and varroa, yellow jackets, and all the other nuisances that come with keeping bees. But fortunately, not SHB. I've kind of got this hybrid method going on with me as I read how people do things and what I think may work for me and my own thoughts on things. Funny how that works, right? One thing I've come to accept is the idea of wrapping hives. I will never bother to do it as the potential for moisture. Which I'm curious if that is something you may face with those bee cozy's. I've done a good bit of reading on protein patties and as I understand it, if I have the protein mixed in with the sugar during winter, you risk them getting dysentary and big problems from that. Sounds like a good time to do this method is more towards the spring where its warm but nothing is flowing yet. I will be making some bee candy with protein feed and try it out. Just not for the winter stretch. I know there is places like Dadant that sell, "winter patties". But all it is, is a low protein content sugar feed. I rather like the idea of having the patty by itself and if they want it, its there and they don't get deceived thinking its stores when its really protein and they cannot cleanse because of it. Atleast, thats my theory, lol. The long term goal is to get to 500 hives. 450 hives to be trucked around for pollination and honey contracts through a broker and the remaining 50 stay back home to be used in breeding bees. My 2 nucs as of this moment are built with actual 2x's to see if it makes a difference with the cold. Not only that, but how if any better it is for building purposes. My current 10 frame boxes are going to be utilized for either the Michael Palmer double nuc method for overwintering nucs or they will become mating nucs. Until I get my box construction methods perfected, the wood will be used for these 2 things. When I get it to where I want, I'll start off working towards the 450 to be used on 4 way pallets for pollination, etc. ...but we both know, unless we have some capital, that is going to be many years down the road!

Wow! Okay, so I'm taking a break for a moment and gethering my thoughts. Been out for a little bit troubleshooting the mill. I've got it narrowed down to fuel supply. I thought the compression was bad, but the duty cycle for the starter was my problem. I'm getting my compression, and spark. So I poured some fuel down the carb and she finally fired and ran until it ran out of fuel. Dumped the old fuel out of the tank and burned that off. Put some new fresh fuel in the tank, but I think I need to get the old crap out of the lines to the carb. Hoping the carb is good and not all gelled up, too. It has an inline Mr gasket pump that I need to get back out and diagnose. Need to see if its getting 12v to it and/or there is continuity. I'm pretty sure the pump will make noise when its running and its dead quiet. I'm going to see if I can run the engine without the pump to narrow it down. Progress is being made! The battery to the mill is totally dead. The cells are long gone! I hooked up jumper cables from the truck to the mill and juiced it that way. Was having a hard time figuring out which cable was what. Lol, thought I was trying to fire the engine backwards or something! Was getting backfires through the carb! But it finally fired and ran pretty smooth for what it was!

Hey, way to revive this! It is that time of year again, making boxes for the bees! I make frames too! It is simple, really. To rip it into 1x's. I use 2x8's cut the wood down to 6 5/8's and the rip it in half. Voila, 2 1x8's! And even at a dimensional lumber size! Well, within a 1/16th or so because of blade kerf. It is time consuming to do on the table saw, though. Around here, pine and fir is the common species. I use fir on all my wood ware. I have looked long and hard trying to find a place cheap enough to just buy the wooden ware from and have yet to find one that can beat my price. Labor unincorporated of course... I did find a semi-local place near me that can break even with me on frames though! I just have to assemble them. Mennonites are huge in my area, but have not seen many people locally that do bees stuff. There are a couple people that I do and have seen running around occasionally with bees. Most of the time it also has been a problem of not enough money to buy equipment. The paradox is that you either have enough money and no time or vice versa. Recently, it has become the latter. More money than time, but I still enjoy building. I have the equipment to build boxes now and actually picked up a jointer machine to use so I can make boxes out of all the pallet wood I have. I get really good stacks of pallets at work for free. Just use a sawzall to cut the wood and I find that one pallet can typically make one box! Joint the edges of the pieces, secure them together with wood and glue, rabbet the ends and glue/staple them. Its just an experiment to see how much and how quickly I could make a box from pallet wood. If it don't work out, I hear there is a really good wood project on the internet for making flooring with pallet wood!

Especially when there is not a large market saturation for this sort of skillset either! The region used to have alot of mills, but nowadays, there is about 3-4 mills in the area. This covers an area of about a 100 mile radius or more, I would think. There is a niche type market with these sorts of things. I've ran into a few people who wish they had a mill to use to build their own house with the lumber they had standing on their property. This would something I could shine at, since I could trade my work for some of that lumber, too. If this deal works out, I do hope to get to the point where I could build my own house with my own lumber! So and UPDATE since last posting! I went and picked the mill up last Saturday. I realize now, that back when this one was made, I really wonder how the heck they ever even got these things hitched and unhitched from vehicles! I had to use alot of wood to shim and the bottle jack that comes in our trucks to get the tongue high enough to get hitched to the truck! Then, come to find out the trailer lights did not work! So I bobbed and weaved through the area and go to the local harbor freight and bought a magnetic trailer light kit. Stuck those on and got over to the local fuel station to check tires. Aired them up to what was spec'd for the tires(35 psi). Took off for home, james! All was well until I was about half way home and made way up a hill. Suddenly, the truck shook violently, WTF? Looked in the mirror and saw the light had fallen off... Pulled over and assessed the damage. Driver side tire catastrophically failed and the tire shredded itself out! Bent the fender some. Felt the rim and was pretty hot! Felt the other tire and was pretty warm too! So I limped it about a mile to a turn off and waited until the FIL arrived with 2 new tires he picked up at walfart. Got them put on also had to put on a new magnetic trailer light kit as the tire blowout ruined the first set! DARN! So long $30 hard earned dollars! New tires air up to 80psi and handle a load of 1045 pounds at that pressure. Finally got the mill in the driveway at a little past 1am that night! So, tomorrow morning I'm going to try and go out and start troubleshooting the engine and see what I can do to try and get it to fire! The kicker is, being that it was so late that night and away, the owner of the mill does not realize what I had to do to get it to my house. I hope he will reimburse me for the lights and tires! The original tires on the trailer I can now tell were dry rotted and the sun destroyed the rubber. Dang mill has been sitting outside on his property for like 6 years with no use! GRR! I emailed woodmizer and sent them pics and description and they valued it at $3200-4600 if everything was in proper working order. Right now as the mill sits, I might be willing to offer $2500 for it. My other catch 22 is, if I put all this work in it just to get it running, how much of my time and money did I spend to do it? Whats it worth? If I decide I do not want the mill, hes going to make out good as he would have a running mill again for free! Bah! I think I better mill some wood with the 2 months that I have it for to make it worthwhile, lol!

...still working on this beaten path.

Been darn cold here. Been getting many nights recently with night lows at or close to 0 degrees with wind chill! Clear skies and too much wind. Supposedly the weather is supposed to get warmer here by mid-next week. Near the 30's or so and then we will start seeing the snow.

The last time I saw my bees flying was about mid-Oct. Started to rain and then the polar vortex came in. If I was you, I would be looking at doing some combining to get the weak hives to make strong ones stronger. At this point, I would also strongly consider accepting the fact you probably won't get any late season swarm to survive. I dunno where your located, but I just don't see it happening. You know, the other thing too, I wonder if it is even a swarm at all, but more than likely an absconding from a hive originally. I'm quit shocked to hear that you even still have good enough weather for them to forage! With the polar vortex and how its dominated the midwest mostly, I started thinking about all the other beeks in the south that have bees that are not used to that kind of temp. change. You do not want to feed the bees pollen or substitute during the winter months as a rule. The beekeeping world and everyone in it have a conglomerate of methods and opinions on how to keep bees. It can be quit overwhelming sometimes as a new keeper. Have you tried the global bee patties yet? BTW, are you on beesource? Have not come to that point yet! Getting some other winter stuff in line first before I go off to the shed and play mad woodworker. Just been busy because of work and not typically around a PC much to post. Mostly lurk here on my phone. But a few threads prompted me to respond to. On the flip side, I feel you on this polar vortex! Where I'm situated, the northern canadian winds blow through here and wanted to dampen the wind on the hive. So I went and bought 4 straw bales and put them on their sides and stacked them. I've got a hive stand I planted into the ground about 2 feet off the ground. Then I put 4x4 over the top to bridge over the hives and then secured tarp over the whole thing and left them some frontal space just in case the weather is semi-favorable for them to cleanse but not die from coming out and can stay under the tarp. Well, when those winds first starting blowing through, it helped me find my weak points! The bales tipped over and pulled on the tarps and cocked 2 of the hives lids off and exposed the inside to the cold! It also knocked one of my nucs over too and was close to completely falling over. They might have gone about 2 hours or so like this before I went out to look! So I got the lids put back on and now the hives all have their own ratchet strap to keep them together! Then I took another heavy duty ratchet strap, like the ones used for semi trucks and ratcheted all 4 hives and bales together! Redid the tarp and still probably going to have to go back out there with barbless fence wire and use it to secure the tarp! I've got baling twine securing the tarp, but the constant wind is causing the twine to break! Needless to say, I've got an inspection camera that I shoved inside one of the hives that had a missing lid and seen that the cluster was still alive! Couldnt get the head into the other 3 hives, so I punched the sides and got buzzes from them! Crisis averted! Whew! Although, about a month or so before the weather turned, I put 25lbs of gran sugar on the tops of each hive and they darn near polished it all off! Going to have to take an opportune day when it comes and re-stock them... I've only got the 4 hives, 2 10-frames and 2 5 frame nucs. Figure I better make sure they need to be babied or they may not make it through winter and I wont have anything for next year to use to expand the apiary!

Defer to the paper towel trick: - Take your dipstick out and let one drop of oil fall onto a paper towel. Give it a minute to soak into the towel. Report back with the size of the saturation and the characteristics of it. This will give you an idea of how much fuel dilution there is in the oil. It'd be even better if you could provide a high quality picture of it as well.

I too have been trying to figure out why fuel is dropping so suddenly and drastic. Under 3 for gasoline here and in Spokane they were having a gas war leaving people paying only 1 dollar a gallon! Diesel is about 3.65 here on average though.

One of my first posts on here was about an experience i had in the woods once. Not necessarily well embraced, but not called crazy either. I have not experienced the foul odor as some have. But i did experience other things. Would you equate this smell as something close to what a landfill would smell like? I've been told that's how people would describe it. Only if it's what i think it is. No your not crazy and there are others who have had an experience too. Pm me if you want to talk about it..

So a family friend is an Arborist. He has through the years accumulated some things for his business. One of which is an Woodmizer sawmill! He picked it up for 7k many years ago. His intention was that his boys through the years would use it to make some money while going through high school. They never posed interest in it nor used it. Its sat for a while now and has been used by few people through those years. The original owner made a living from it and then sold it to the family friend. Dunno what it was like then, but now, its been through a rough time it seems. It could use a new paint job and some fixing, fab work, etc. Some things have been added to it and "jimmy rigged" as well. I stopped to see it over the weekend and tried to get it started and use it to see how it operated. Put some fresh fuel in the tank, checked the oil, hooked it up to the truck battery through some jump cables. Its an electric start, 2 cyl Onan. I tried everything I could to get it to start but it never once fired. I was ill-equipped for the job to try and start it. Did not have any tools or ether. I thought it would be bigger but it was a few years since I seen it last. The family friend wants to sell it and I have expressed interest in it for a while. Were trying to work out a deal for it and he is going to let me borrow it for a couple of months first and tinker with it and see if I still want it by then. Then we will work out a monetary deal. He has some things to include on the deal, like extra saw blades, a siding attachment to make siding, a band sharpener and some other things I'm forgetting. It sweetens the deal some, but I still dunno if it is worth it or not. I should be getting it sometime soon, hopefully Thursday or the weekend. We shall see. Has anyone here ever used a woodmizer, sawmill? I'm trying to get an idea of the value of it and how to operate it, etc. This would be a great addition to my tool arsenal. I have long term future plans for usage of such a piece of equipment. I would like to use it to make some deals with people for cash for the labor and saw their logs or trade for a portion of the lumber for the work. Over time, accumulate enough lumber to build with and/or have another cash flow. Cedar is very commonplace here and may consider buying a log truck load of it and mill it for anything. I'm also looking at making beehive boxes as well. So... what do you guys think?

Thats why its good to mix the wood up.

Thanks for the input JAG. I'm still definitely going to need to research this for quit some time.

...I'll trade you. Wood is without a doubt one of the best feelings I ever experienced. Nothing more fulfilling than the thought knowing you can cook yourself right out of your shelter in the dead of winter!