Salt Spring Island Archives

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Beekeeping

David Harris

Accession Number Interviewer
Date Location
Media cassette tape Audio CD mp3 √
ID 116 Duration 57 min.

116_Harris-David_Beekeeping.mp3

otter.ai

29.01.2023

no

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into the very rich people consults. And that's why we're here. I think with the type of speakers we're getting nowadays we're going to make the whole organization just that much stronger. We have to because the screen department applies and ever come up with speakers who fail to come up with numbers so for the new year we'll be acting as our chairman for the speakers and have ideas always like to have an island already with a great one for next November promised another one

Unknown Speaker 0:54
even Harris will be our speaker today. David was born on Saltspring one acre when his mother was milking her mother and her father his father born mother in the consent tradition goes on to the next few 100 years

Unknown Speaker 1:31
sadly, subject today is going to be one interest we have a lot of new industries on Salt Spring production seems to be very strong and very things that one that maybe isn't as well known to a lot of outsiders is the business of honey production. Dave today is going to talk about his business with the company because high mountain Honey This business is located down in Fulford new faster to see the highs the honey signs you can't miss it on whether the theories on the left as you go down and I'm seeing more of a honey sources we have the most surprising sources for different types of honey different types of trees and that sort of thing so tell us your story

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This of course is hanging downward like that. Here we see the maple now the maples are excellent producers of maple syrup in Quebec in Ontario that in Quebec and Ontario at this time of year there's a great to have snow nice but this is very good honey. Now when I arrived at the Frederick gates keepers why wasn't materials rainy days the Popcaan and another June's rainfall and a mortgage because those are the conditions for now when you look outside here this is November but I write down every day but nine times out of 10 in this country around April 21 And it can be as much as 70 degrees Fahrenheit and these things are still blooming and the honey what's comes from them can be a real flood if there's some nice warm weather now I can usually tell by snowing what's in the heights and two weeks ago which are those rather tensions living up and down the valley had been building and a great deal of honey is produced but now it's the same thing as the maple tree is the Indian Alaska and the fifth class and then the RV this blackberries it's no various the Ocean Spray almost anything the blooms. Now if you haven't examined Nicola appreciations no pass around as well. One picture being worth 1000 words. There's approximately 100,000 words right in this book. And I'll pass this around. This picture which I'm holding up was taken way up on the San Juan Ridge at 50 Miles actually 18 miles behind Jordan River and Now to get a 3000 feet view of SE and the Olympic Mountains are seen in the distance the sun was coming over this way and just touching the tops of the mountains and here is an area called alligator Creek up in the hills and you can see the stumps and the black and burgundy for the moment. Now, flowers there is no beekeeping there are no there is no there's no hanging for us in the summertime because there is no more favorite

Unknown Speaker 5:43
and on here is a picture of the Byron Saltspring. The Byron in may even see the groom living here. The groom was brought brought to silk in 1863 by Captain brands and it's spread all over the place. Now the champions, the groom and the bees as far as a great deal on the ground. People look at the broom and they say it shouldn't be top down. It should be spread around. And there's a very nice patch down there at Blackburn lake. I can't think as far as plays, every time I go by and I always offer our prayers to the captain bringing up the suit. Now here is a picture taken out of Russell park to the west of the record. So burn these forage around there. I keep them there eight months of the year and they work on the wild roses in the middle of May. You can actually snow while at the end of the warm day and they also work on the Ocean Spray on the blackberries in the salon. These pictures are taken over often. There's also some Juniper medicaments I'll pass this around you here are the bees being wheeled aboard the trackers name. I put a rubber band around them to hold them together. And I jam the entrance is foam rubber and put a screen on top of the tracks. And I take them onto the forefront very person. So I usually get down there and wait until everyone else has gone on and then I drive on. And then they go over the back of the boat. Now there could be 25 hives on the track and each one could have 50,000 days it's about a million days. And once they get up to the mountains, they can smoking under those eyes and all sorts of things can occur. that the problem is when they get up in the mountains that there's no one else there actually is not a problem. So the only person who gets his knee. Behind me here is the senator one river in the San Juan River, which goes from his final summary of the Jordan River Dam was built in 11th. House the electrical power from the city of Detroit is still produced from behind the Jordan River Dam. But there are various pictures here of these attractions and students sitting on the track here you can see looking down the Jordan River can enjoy the Olympics. And the game the Ocean Spray had rubber parks the pearly everlasting up in the mountains, the San Joaquin Valley Western Shawnigan lake which is loved in the 50s and 60s and then mill the BC forest brothers in Detroit. And the Sixers here at the mountains and here you see the bees haven't fallen off the track and then the air becomes filled with these things and that's fine, which I'm finding here is in 1885 They went out to sue River. This is another scene over here and went on up through least at least on the makings of the three there as it goes along the San Juan River and in 1873 There were a great many people there. And there is still around Richmond but all it remains is still as long as there's still trains running up there in the late 40s. Now then the railway we're not to suit Lake and have to Charlotte. Kind of the same as the railways served in the 1920s in American differences to

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be deployed under Company Law. And wherever the courier whatever a pumping station is right now.

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The actual inside of London but people tend to forget quickly the time passes and how quickly People are in their grave and how quickly people forget a lot better since 1873 is now going back to the second time

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anywhere on Vancouver Island I see old trees that were cut down to the

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places where you wouldn't expect to see anything. And it's time to look out across the 100 rows and pass this around and you can know the two of us here and this looks like an afternoon in Sarajevo but this is what happens after the various I'm naturally I don't like various names

Unknown Speaker 10:56
and I sometimes think their gallbladders were firm over 6000 goes to offer a value and this is the starter going into my track it happens 10 miles up in the hills last year in silicon I turned the track around this great effort and ran back to suit bought a starter and put it in and the starter was no good. As you can see in the middle of see if you can buy a bottle and a hot day and drink now what I could have done was walk 10 Miles done my ferry walk 10 miles back up reach them put my starter in wouldn't work walk back and watch them walking away my grandmother used to watch again

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no I haven't well here more things this one tells you all about the yellow one and the other one tells you all about the greens

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the Jamaican and my grandfather's brother here's the sound just the dentist is late

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to work and he has to pick up cream from his uncle Jim's Queenstown for 18 years and before that before that it was picked up by Johnny happened burger was a partisan wagon and Johnny was born in 1866 and 60. In the Catholic Church, my mother gets 90 This year instead. Chicken I remember going to school and hearing Johnny coming back down the hill when he came back and she said if you learned to go out again in the first world war you waiting outside there on the road for Johnny to come by. And you have to fix that payment to the IRS and they have no air conditioning.

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No

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no stereo system none of those things needed from Ganges filtered negatively which is more than the average 19 euros and going up and down.

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I have yet to see a 19 year old it goes by the sensible state. It used to be 25 miles an hour. It's not a 51 thing that detention is done they're playing bingo hall and smoking and I tell you when people listen first choose the strings now here's the little bit about the hundreds of choices.

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thing in the history of beekeeping is a subject that you can spend days and days and days but I remember my grandmother used

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spread the disease and swine He says in front of the very sorry shall they let them know about

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she was nursing my mother was having another baby and I was very I was really excited because these were what they used to do those days when they record his chicken analysis as a chicken

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he had read somewhere in the book and they read somewhere in Washington

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Washington

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as much as we can and we stood out there and it was very exciting what you do in the morning is your walk up snip

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swarm they swarmed them now the only time those things after they've been hanging in there consumed as far as you can tell them to Brightstone the neighborhood this needs to

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come basic materials

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the honey of a tablet is comes from the builder belly and some comes from the set of hills that man is facing

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that's the way it used to be from all this rage. I was pleased to hear that because I consider that a compliment somebody else is to keep us happy

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get some that as part of your 50 sins

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if you have immunity

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my nose swelled because I literally have to get

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getting into

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the first book here which is the Bible the BK verse is called the hive and the honeybee. And this book has gone through numerous printings that was first printed. And it's the Bible with modern Vicki. This book runs page when the page is literally the environment and it goes into almost everything about beekeeping. And another very interesting book is one called 100 years of beekeeping in British Columbia. It was printed in 1958 by a man named wh Trimble and it has a great many pictures and a great many names and a great many dates and it describes the first thing is coming to Victoria and generally Christine's coming to BC now the visa has been around for 10 years

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and at the time here and these exist for the purpose of carrying in fertilizer nowadays themselves because it The value in combination in the US pollinate crops we're literally trying to

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say that you could you could strike the honey was to be is produced from the gross national product and wouldn't have any effect on farmers but the lack of pollination didn't have

Unknown Speaker 20:40
world's largest producer for many years and that was the Chinese market and they produce it was very primitive and having a table it's very easy to get laid and make

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a lot of change predicting living creatures after the payments have existed for 50 million years and pollinator things, climate change, based around that they stayed in the world, that's where they were in Delft 67,000 years ago. There were people in Spain

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who went out and rubbed crevices in the rock and they drew pictures of those in a cave in Spain.

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Now that we see there are people who were becoming agricultural and they find these and as people started to buy these and they had so, they said it learns that if you put up these these are some of the pillars these

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are the Egyptians but one thing they kept their gaze in clay pots and also in long play cubes and they put them on barges and they follow the balloon blooming periods and annihilated float up and down the Nile River

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and the Egyptians were worshipped when the Pharaoh rapid and part of the planning process is to rapidly because timing is a very strong solution that triggers a lot of bacteria and they literally rock and heavy and this will help preserve period impairments lenses was slaves treasures

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and also the recursive as far as the years since the greatest militaries and they found

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Aristotle was very curious about that

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the other days and continuously facing the other means and they're continuously looking. They're picking up and then they transfer this to the director Alyssa queen and today's pheromones now the central terminal

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taking the

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actual synthetic

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And then chances are it's not nearly as many as anyway I believe he looked at this because these other comments in previous years actually and everyone saw it and sounds bizarre

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and wasn't

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the Roman virgin was speaking about

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the Romans as well as smoke smoking smoking

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and these this is a forest fire

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now whenever I open shots especially if I wrote this if I have the right amount of smoke it's literally clear the smoke

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Robbins great big risk after the Romans and Greeks civilization behind it wasn't too much in the way a decade as far as much technical change in the Middle East they kept these and they kept him in a very good spot

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and to this day I'm I was meeting somebody doesn't want to talk about Bosnia Herzegovina there they

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also got these in Northern Italy and Germany and they got the reason they love these

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three things and they get this

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now we're in phase 3000 stages that there are particles that spread around together then in England to the new 16 colonies in 1638.

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Very rarely because rarely went to Thailand

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and Naser is a transplant transplant

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how they get the adults and he's posted last American but in 1750s.

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You read a section in there called the covenants away from them the Indians, new Indians here to migrate the game with knowing the white man was coming by this morning and in the in the Indians language, there is no word for that when they saw it. They call it STEAM slides are the colors of whiteness. And as the pioneers came out in the forest, swarming the next thing Indians do

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If you look at the

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way look into it famous where's the where the sustaining product the SWOT strengths strengths and add recruiting practices and then notice these non disappear

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California

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we didn't have

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those days

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and you couldn't get you'd have to get

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padding around the wrist which is inserted if you've got highway 10 from friendly wasn't fair to go along panorama Ridge panorama Ridge just before your time today it's very good picture in here bear damage and Panorama ridge in the 1920s it is right here in the 1920s there are still lots of bears around the ridge and lots of beekeepers here's the inevitable result

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seven years

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and nobody gets visa

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1865 is considered very significant and that was the move of this frame. This is this is a what is called a sheet of foundation. I have bought these frames pre cut and I bought and I have assembled them then I have bought the foundation which is a sheath and this comes from the DC supply store it's very nice and it's reinforced with wire so I'm breaking the extractor and in Pentagon it is the actual cell size of the colony the actual test size themselves that they would make nature. Now naked friend if I were to put this in was just provided just their training buddies But hang eventually it's taken a long time to go and it would be irregular and it may contain great deals it's called drones but this has started now when you put that

Unknown Speaker 34:11
into the box can get busy and they will actually build up the walls of the home. Now this wax right here which you can see in the middle is starting to be built out in this direction and it is wax which is secreted from the wax lens and now they will leave 10 pounds of honey to secrete a pound of wax and once they are secreting wax they'll build these up very rapidly. Now you can see that they actually have a slight upward upward tilt and they are found that the hexagon is the the maximum strengths for a minimum is dependent

Unknown Speaker 34:55
on the topic of lifestyle And then discovered where to build friends then separated by trees you can see these bars here separated and then the bees would not we've not done this up together as well. Now up until 1865 They let the bees build their own columns and then they pull the columns out of Preston kill the bees and it was very difficult to be a commercial Beekeeper because these ads this one is one that shows the foil hat this is the completed frame this can be as 10 or 15 years unless the benefit

Unknown Speaker 35:57
passing around is rather sticky this one is just recently extracted and he has been extracted this is still wet and sticky fingers I put this out to be usable

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I want you to watch this

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that's much heavier

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now this is the wax happened to take this

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now to get that honey myself for this

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unhappiness and this is plugged into the wall to get a piece go straight out to kind of try to keep my son

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this is very hot and sharp and

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every time I cut my thumb with this knife I never wanted to do it again and never do it excellent This is soggy uncapping knife is electrically heated and it cuts the wax up very quickly very cleanly. And then the frames into what's called an extractor it's a big barrel

Unknown Speaker 38:04
and the first one I had to turn by hand the one I have now is power grid and the world's referring to typical forest runs down the sides of the barrel out into a bucket that I pour it through the screen now there is a part

Unknown Speaker 38:37
of it and it's like any other grass requirements it's never linear like it's here's the graph of y equals sine x goes around and the longer I keep bees the more I become impressed with the way he used to work and the things they have to deal with some time later and the more I'm investors retirement so law a law which says you have four good props and the reason you have for good crops and lifetime is because the weather follows the cycle also a 30 year cycle also a 300 year cycle also a 10,000 cycles and since they use the latest years you might get four crops and anything like that sign in because of the right weather conditions now last year was an excellent strength training and this is a these are confined into their hives and not doing this flame just were worn

Unknown Speaker 39:46
maple trees

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heavy that's fine isn't isn't very good hey yes there's nothing oh honey crystallizes given time but the honey to buy in the stores. Very close. And it can be five years old and it can be overheated. My hand is pleased to say

Unknown Speaker 40:16
these lands and a few of these legs and it's not as far as I'm concerned, real honey. And I've been keeping days for 20 years now. And the only time you know about beekeeping is the first period you do nothing about it. I sit down and I take this book and there's always something that I haven't known before. Of course, as a beekeeper right over there sitting there are people that have kept the city for years. And they say things every time they open the superstitions, they're tasked with big even some of which are rooted in facts and in England as someone has to go and tell the bees swarm, and that's rooted in I think, the idea that when the beekeeper guys he's usually laid down in his grave and they put tested the flowers. There's so many good flowers and the bees will come to the flowers. I have seen them on our view this last night I met a fellow one time to record this and several services, they say that you should always knock on the door before you enter the beehive and the bees accept evidence that you're good man. I knew a column and driven home in Detroit and he always left them three times. And he said these are easy to handle. And if you think about it, maybe they were because of you. Feels like anything else are creatures of habit. And if you've got them and then follows this disruption they'd have to get used to it and they don't they don't come out and do anything

Unknown Speaker 42:08
you're ready to deal with the Africanized bee and Africanized.

Unknown Speaker 42:20
But the way in which we behave in Western Europe and North America is you're continuously breathing down on this hand introduction different things. In fact, in New Zealand, they're trying to develop and work effectively. If you find the queen, especially as the grabber in history hadn't been

Unknown Speaker 42:41
in Africa they did. Heading down the tree smoking and the ones that survive this process of violence as soon as they hear footsteps and attack the person around now they brought these days to Brazil

Unknown Speaker 43:06
testing for heavy production, seven loose and the African games has to do with the scoring. Otherwise they typically get killed in the areas they're in and they'll spoil them to spread rapidly throughout Central America and they've made their way to Mexico and beekeeping in Venezuela has been decimated Costa Rica's and destroy that upgrading in the last issue of the Americans because the people can hear it the attendees you can walk right up to it, nothing happens. And if I had Africanized bees, I wouldn't be able to keep them within anyone's house and the court system and people are actually telling me this is not a stretch to be able to Monterey, California

Unknown Speaker 44:20
anybody else

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anybody is around they're supposed to be there anyway. Every once in a while someone will come and push order. Oh, hi. They're trying to pay the price. But my my problem has been very, very damaging previous more than the previous Nike news. But I think as soon as it becomes acceptable or something when the population will be reduced, right now. I can't think of two My child support to history is the days that seem great many stories about babies and the people who continue on

Unknown Speaker 45:26
I wonder my mother and playing the last 2123 years and the biggest will raise themselves now I'm trying to do some divided and I'm trying to do it very soon okay. I'll take my hives my strongest take the Queen and put it with some others for three or four frames and the ones that were there for are they're trying to pay it in the next year and hanging from your friends will based on themselves and then there will be new queen bees. Now it takes 60 days for them to go from egg to hatch. When they hatch the first one will crawl around and sing her sisters in the cellar you can tell when the Queen suddenly killed her sisters because she'll step into the silence side of the wall now the other day is once thing the queen that the Queen's will send each other the Queen's wants and if you put two queens in the same time one kills off the other now that queen was flying he made him so sly was a week ago one day And so Nathan yours well drones and that's your lifetime supply Siemens can come back and commence laying eggs for the next one to three years and in the middle of June or July 2015 thought population in winters when there's 5000 bees per colony clustered around the Queen like this I keep her at a temperature of 85 degrees and by the middle of June swarming is your That's the letter it's a strong high in the middle of June and expect 50,000 Bees and w one and maybe 200 drones and drones and they can't feed themselves they have to be fed and they can't afford to probably pay the price on the honey flow dries up and they're just extra mouths then the female workers denied food I got weaker and weaker and then they rolled out as high as you can always see and you see 30 to 40 drones and you know that was over for the year by analysing drones

Unknown Speaker 48:22
drones have noticed I can catch these by the wings like this it's the same technique sometimes you can catch the drone put it in your hand drone and since it hasn't been the same it's like having a small electrical shock and you'll open your hand and

Unknown Speaker 48:51
never children come to the big adventure give them the drone and children have been taught that they'll reach out like this very gently and they have to be dragged up to the drone putting their hands

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and they find now when I tell people people say these things and I say no they don't I don't like that today's was saying hi falls over in the factory but to come up and not disturb

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there any further questions but it's a very animated trailer my guess it's a shoot them on the spot and you're never

Unknown Speaker 49:52
around. I've been I've been as close as from here to that table from Verizon there. They're not very they're not aggressive and they can't see sometimes they appear to be or when you're working there I've actually gone up and picks up cases and

Unknown Speaker 50:18
I like to do quaking with fear and violence and I jump out and I grab rocks and I started throwing like this one was with a friend to the track and I jumped out the driver's door and I ran around and there's a steep bank driving the river and I picked up rocks and I was looking down and I couldn't see my there's nothing there and I heard the noise and it was right by the front wheel right the passenger stepped around like this this robots back to the back of the slot deck or to the left and a hell of rockets and they didn't have anything else to nail it. Montana is in the truck in the middle of the night and unloaded is very hard to get guns in the back of the truck

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bumping against scratches against the number in the game or the drop on the heavens and

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another time there's a bit bigger than about 500 pounds I stopped a friend of mine was there and he's a bit nervous

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I could sit there and watch that and he didn't move back to the very

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end blind department there is no man named George Van and have to use to rig up his electrical

Unknown Speaker 52:07
history regard the bathroom and then they tripped the wire and they run that way but most people try putting an electric fence in the shock factor the big six volt battery

Unknown Speaker 52:23
drive grounds to the ground and sometimes it's best just to fix the yard at the fair is fair is my favorite because you're great deal of commotion and they've always always been right

Unknown Speaker 52:49
in fact the word for there in the Slavic languages is hunting they're very they're very well off and they're hunting and bears and that's what they call 1000s of years through various phases of planning you can always call the bearer the devil in four legs I guess I guess that says Name I'd like to pray to people People First look upon the animals is something essential essential you can't kill our population rises and falls and right now it's at an all time high because some is logging so many dairies so hunting is there is a much higher population than they were even 20 years ago and they're off the mainland coast here the loggers filming that there's a barrier to square miles to get there because again lots of logging

Unknown Speaker 53:58
Oh any more questions small nope, no no that was nice anyway but don't us fire put their hands up on stands in the stands sitting in cans and motor oil and things like that. So they have more trouble in the southern states much more vicious around here they'll do very much lost now my main problem is just bear in mind because no vandalism or something else again. Then we have to look at it this way the various Avada theme days have been here millions of years more than fairs and less than that When you think about it in the next 200 years that someone will go to Mars and the first thing that goes behind the Galaxy insurance 1000 years ago is when you think of flight with the Kitty Hawk because not even as long as the 747 and 60 years later people walked on the moon that didn't take long

Unknown Speaker 55:28
thank you anyway, no more questions ever these things. You're welcome to the homestead it's found beekeeping is something I was like to talk about. There's always things to be saying and I was licensed to define it

Unknown Speaker 55:55
any more questions?

Unknown Speaker 56:02
Hi there very, very glad to have you.

Unknown Speaker 56:19
Appreciate it

Unknown Speaker 56:29
very much