Apisolis Instead of smoke

[Murox]

My existing smoker runs on packaging cardboard, egg boxes and rotten wood from our garden/adjacent field.
I'll try anything which is more effective from a control point of view and costs less

Spoken like a true Scotsman/ Welshman/ beekeeper

 

[user 819]

I don't use packaging /corrogated cardboard but do use egg boxes and an item we all throw away likely and that is kitchen or toilet roll cardboard rolls.
As for Apisolis , how much !!! They are half way to buying an instantvap which would be a far more useful bit of kit to waste money on.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

I've found some egg boxes make really noxious smoke. I only use wood shavings (sold as animal bedding; for some reason the compressed bags are better than the loose stuff). And, after a very 'high' Sunday service at Rochester Cathedral during which there were periods when we could hardly see what was going on, I bought some incense and put a little in the smoker. An aroma I've always loved and rarely experience nowadays.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

after a very 'high' Sunday service at Rochester Cathedral during which there were periods when we could hardly see what was going on

very glad we don't have much of that papistry stuff here on the mountain

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

here on the mountain

You must be speaking figuratively. Glanaman: altitude 107m.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You must be speaking figuratively. Glanaman: altitude 107m.

I live on Godre'r Mynydd Du, the foothills of the Black mountain. you don't have to have a house built on the very peak to live on a mountain

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I live on Godre'r Mynydd Du, the foothills of the Black mountain. you don't have to have a house built on the very peak to live on a mountain

The name Glanaman is derived from Clun Amanw (mutated to Glynaman by the 1841 census), the pastures/heathland of the boars - the area was mentioned in Brut y Tywysogion (chronicles of the princes) and the red book of Hergest and also features in the Mabinogion when Arthur and his followers chased the Twrch Trwyth (a great wild boar) from Ireland to it's death off the cliffs of Cornwall one of the twrch's entourage was killed just a mile away from Brynmair.
In early Mediaeval times, our part of the Black Mountain was known as Mynydd Y Banw (mountain of the boars) and was the Royal hunting ground of the princes of Deheubarth, so for a time after the Norman squatters was called the Black Forest. The mountain was the Hafod (summer pastures) of Carreg Cennen castle, the original stone castle being built by one of my ancestors Prince Rhys ap Gruffudd (sometimes called by the uneducated 'the lord' Rhys)

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

I live on Godre'r Mynydd Du, the foothills of the Black mountain. you don't have to have a house built on the very peak to live on a mountain

True. Houses on mountains are built near the bottom. I guess (having been brought up in the Knoydart / Lochaber area of Scotland) the idea of mountain conjures up something fairly grand.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

The name Glanaman is derived from Clun Amanw (mutated to Glynaman by the 1841 census), the pastures/heathland of the boars - the area was mentioned in Brut y Tywysogion (chronicles of the princes) and the red book of Hergest and also features in the Mabinogion when Arthur and his followers chased the Twrch Trwyth (a great wild boar) from Ireland to it's death off the cliffs of Cornwall one of the twrch's entourage was killed just a mile away from Brynmair.
In early Mediaeval times, our part of the Black Mountain was known as Mynydd Y Banw (mountain of the boars) and was the Royal hunting ground of the princes of Deheubarth, so for a time after the Norman squatters was called the Black Forest. The mountain was the Hafod (summer pastures) of Carreg Cennen castle, the original stone castle being built by one of my ancestors Prince Rhys ap Gruffudd (sometimes called by the uneducated 'the lord' Rhys)

You have such a wealth of stories and history. Do you guide tours for people in your area? You're wasted on here.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You have such a wealth of stories and history. Do you guide tours for people in your area? You're wasted on here.

Don't do guided tours but I have taken people around our old Chapel, the old Bethel up on the hill (apparently one old document has been found which calls the area the Bethel forest) and did a guest appearance on a Welsh language history series once. There's a great oral history tradition amongst the old families so I was brought up in the middle of that, we can trace our family presence here back to medieval times, and was in fact a founding member of our local history association at fourteen, unfortunately the group is no more.
A distant relative, who lived here until leaving for university, was one of the senior librarian at the National Library and has written a few books on local history - Dr Huw Walters he treated me to a pass to the newspaper archives there many moons ago (I think I was fourteen then as well) and we do correspond occasionally, especially about the Bethel's history, although unfortunately Huw has been diagnosed with the early signs of dementia - that will be loss of a great mind and a treasure trove of information.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

My father was a great local historian. A large number of our forebears emigrated to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia but kept alive the Gaelic language and culture. Their descendants started returning after WW2 looking for their ancestral roots and my father was someone they always came to. Over many decades, my parents formed deep and lasting friendships with these people, making many return visits to their homes in Canada.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Don't do guided tours but I have taken people around our old Chapel, the old Bethel up on the hill (apparently one old document has been found which calls the area the Bethel forest) and did a guest appearance on a Welsh language history series once. There's a great oral history tradition amongst the old families so I was brought up in the middle of that, we can trace our family presence here back to medieval times, and was in fact a founding member of our local history association at fourteen, unfortunately the group is no more.
A distant relative, who lived here until leaving for university, was one of the senior librarian at the National Library and has written a few books on local history - Dr Huw Walters he treated me to a pass to the newspaper archives there many moons ago (I think I was fourteen then as well) and we do correspond occasionally, especially about the Bethel's history, although unfortunately Huw has been diagnosed with the early signs of dementia - that will be loss of a great mind and a treasure trove of information.

I went to school with a boy J Douglas Porteous) who wrote an interesting book "Planned to Death" about the antics of the local county planning department whereby the village of Howdendyke in East Yorkshire was reduced from a tight-knit community formed around a paternalistic employer to a mere shadow of its former self. As a contemporary of his and a fellow Howdendyke child I played in most of the parts of the village he wrote about. There's a website "Goole on the Web" which has sections relating to the villages in the area where I've put several contributions up for posterity although a lot of the early entries were lost during an unfortunate crash of the servers following a cyber invasion by malicious activity. The book is out of print but copies occasionally appear on eBay.
Edit having reminded myself about the Goole on the web site I just spent some time reading the Howdendyke section. Made me feel quite nostalgic . https://www.goole-on-the-web.org.uk/vol3/howdendyke.html

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

My grandmother's cousin Dr Gomer Roberts wrote (alongside a few religious tracts) a book called 'Hanes Plwyf Llandybie' (the history of Llandybie parish) still the 'go to' book for local history and as part of our village is within the parish bounds a handy term of reference for me, a few local people have written bits of history of the village back to the beginning of the last century (I knew most of their children or grandchildren) and I do pop back to their books sometimes, in fact I have a book written by one of the deacons of the chapel I was raised in (now sadly closed) John Jenkyn Morgan who wrote a history of the chapel for the 50th anniversary, apart from Huw and mybe the National library, mine is the only other surviving copy., Huw of course is the only living one now and his book 'Erway'r glo' (the coal acres) is a good study of our industrial history, but that is only a flash in the pan in the history of our valley. It was only the other day I found a letter from him on National library notepaper (so before he finally retired) he had found an account in a non conformist magazine, written in the 18o0's and was a description of the old chapel I'm involved with saving and gives us the only picture of how the chapel looked when it was built in 1773 as many didn't know that the Bethel we know nowadays which says 1773 on the front was actually a rebuild and extension of 1827

 

[Antipodes]

True. Houses on mountains are built near the bottom. I guess (having been brought up in the Knoydart / Lochaber area of Scotland) the idea of mountain conjures up something fairly grand.

I live in one of the most mountainous islands in the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/travel/tmagazine/tasmania-is-out-of-this-world.html

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I live in one of the most mountainous islands in the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/travel/tmagazine/tasmania-is-out-of-this-world.html

I lived in Lesotho for a few months whilst setting up a beekeeping project for Welsh government. Lesotho is just all mountain, it hold the record of the country with the highest low point of any country in the world. The lowest point being something like ten metres higher than Yr Wyddfa in North Wales. That's why it's called the kingdom in the clouds.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

I live in one of the most mountainous islands in the world.
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/travel/tmagazine/tasmania-is-out-of-this-world.html

Funny thing about Scotland: although the upper two thirds is mountainous, and it is so, so rainy, the mountains are not high enough, and the rain not wet enough to make anything like sufficient energy from hydro power.

 

[Murox]

Funny thing about Scotland: although the upper two thirds is mountainous, and it is so, so rainy, the mountains are not high enough, and the rain not wet enough to make anything like sufficient energy from hydro power.

There are hydro turbines at more than 28 sites from just one company plus I think you should take a look at this.

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

My point is - and has been made by others more knowledgeable than me - is that hydro power in Scotland is not the panacea that many thought and maybe still think it could be. All these mountains and lochs, all that rain, and yet we can supply only 12% of our electricity needs. I believe that doesn't compare with other wetter more mountainous places, such as Norway (88%).

 

[Antipodes]

My point is - and has been made by others more knowledgeable than me - is that hydro power in Scotland is not the panacea that many thought and maybe still think it could be. All these mountains and lochs, all that rain, and yet we can supply only 12% of our electricity needs. I believe that doesn't compare with other wetter more mountainous places, such as Norway (88%).

100% renewable here. About 90% of it hydro.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/tasmania-renewable-energy-sustainable-hydropower/

 

[Erichalfbee]

You're wasted on here.

No he’s not. He can do both.