Wraps and Fondant

I've probably said this before but honey bees do not hibernate and bees at the centre of the cluster are quite mobile and maintain their warmth by flexing their flying muscles. The centre of the cluster of bees is still quite warm - 29C compared with a normal temperature of ~35C.

Bees on the outside of the cluster are much more densely packed and appear motionless or even dead. However gradually the outside bees migrate to the centre of the cluster to be replaced by the warm bees. A bit like penguins.

Although the bees are settled in for the winter, there are still things to do that can help them.
As with most things there are a wide range of different views about winter insulation and a wide range of different materials that can be used. The issue around insulation is that a balance has to be struck between no insulation and possibly the bees die and too much where the bees are kept too warm and continue to be active and consume stores too quickly.

I have settled into a regular routine as regards winter care and touch wood I have been reasonably successful.
To insulate the hive I use wraps that are sheets of plasticised material that is wrapped around the hive.
To supplement the stores they have built up I give them blocks of baker's fondant.

Click the button to see the video,

The Warre Hive - Part 2 - Making the boxes

The plans Warre produced were very detailed although people have tweaked them slightly to allow for techniques and materials not available to Warre.
Hives are often made of cedar which is very weather resistant being an oily wood but its also expensive so I am going to use cheap wood.

One of the underlying principles of Warre's hive is that it should be easy to build and I am going to try to stick to his dimensions to save any potential problems - if I change one dimension this might have an unintended knock on effect that could muck things up.

On the face of it the brood boxes are fairly simple.
The walls are 210mm high and 20mm thick.
The nearest Wickes gets to this is 110mm by 19mm. Thickness is OK and I will have to join two pieces to get the height.
The handles are simple blocks but they need to be secure as a full brood box can be heavy.

I am going to make things difficult for myself by having observation windows in each box. This isn't in Warre's original plans but the man who translated Warre's plans into English, added this as an option.

Click the button to see the video.
I'm sorry the video is much longer than usual.
My favourite YouTube channel is about someone who is rebuilding a very old boat and his posts are about cutting up huge pieces of wood with noisy 'boy toy' tools and I think I became a bit Tally Ho.

The Warre Hive - Part 1.

As both of you know I have a Top Bar Hive that I am very fond of despite being [perhaps because its] no use for producing 'retail' honey but its allegedly good for the bees.

I attended a talk that explained these hives were widespread in Africa as they don't need complicated machinery to make and thought to mimic the situation where bees take up residence in a fallen log and the colony expands horizontally.

Therefore its not surprising that this type of hive is popular with what I unkindly call the 'eco hippy' beekeepers who practice 'natural' bee keeping.
This begs the question 'what is unnatural bee keeping?' but it's true that conventional hives like the ones I use, are not an entirely natural environment for bees and they have to do things they wouldn't do in the wild.

There are other types of 'natural' hive and one of the most common is the Warre [pronounced War ray] hive.
It was invented by Emile Warre [1867-1951] a French monk who looked at dozens of different hive designs before coming up with what he called the 'people's hive' and plans were included in his book 'Beekeeping for all'

It was his goal to find a hive system that was simple, natural, economical, and bee-friendly and it mimics the situation where a colony lives in a hollowed out tree - its a vertical Top Bar Hive.

It is usually three/our identical boxes stacked on top of each other and like the TBH has bars that the bees can build their comb on.
On top is an insulation quilt and on top of that the roof.

The boxes don't have a queen excluder so the colony can move up and down the boxes as they would in a tree. The boxes can have windows so you can check where the colony is and how its doing.

Warre provided detailed plans of how to build one and I'm going to give it a go.
Although the Top Bar Hive turned out OK my woodworking skills are minimal. However my son in law is a joiner and he will be able to advise.

In Warre's book he says:-

The production of honey is the main purpose of beekeeping, one that the beekeeper pursues before everything else

Don't agree with that and for me the Warre, like the Top Bar Hive, is more of a curiosity piece and I'm not concerned with 'retail' honey production. Extracting honey from this type of hive is a PITA.

Warre also said:-

I pity those who keep bees only to earn money. They deprive themselves of a very sweet enjoyment.

'pity' is a bit strong but I agree with the sentiment.

Next: - Part 2 - Making the boxes

November update

November update

We've had some mild spells at the beginning of the month and the girls took the  opportunity to build up stores.
Click the button to see the bees in action.

The autumn liquid feed has now been completed and most of the hives has taken about a gallon each. One was a little slower than the others but still took lots on.

During November I will get fondant blocks ready for the Winter and put some covers around the hive to keep them warm.

The hornets have gone.

I noticed that the nest wasn't visible from the entrance as it has been and there was no activity in the box.
Eventually I plucked up enough courage to open the box up and all the hornets had gone.
At the bottom of the box was what looked like the remnants of a birds nest and then the remains of the hornets nest on top
It had largely disintegrated although some of the comb was intact.

Hopefully they will be back next Spring.

Solitary Bee Hives

I have made a couple of these for next Spring.
As I said before they, and the expensive posh things you buy in Garden Centres ARE NOT for honey bees or bumble bees.
They are better for the bees than the 'box of bamboo' things as at the end of the season you can take out the cocoons, clean them and then keep then until you release when the time is right the following Spring.
Also you can clean the hive up to stop the build up of pollen mites and other parasites.
The cassette can be taken out so you can see whats going on.

I will be selling these things for £15 and include a booklet about solitary bees, how to set up the hive and how to look after the cocoons.

A good year for honey ???????????

The British Beekeepers Association produce annual figures of the honey production of their members.
Apparently this year production was up from 23lb per hive to 30lb.
This produced numerous headlines like this.

I have to say I was a little surprised by this as the cold winter then very hot Summer meant things in the Bedfordshire area was pretty poor.
I haven't been able to find figures for each county but apparently Wales saw a big increase.
I was also surprised how many of the newspaper headlines attributed the increase to the warm weather.
Bees will fly between 15C and 19C but won't fly if its too hot.
Warm weather might mean the bees can fly but this doesn't mean they will be able to find forage. Locally it has been very dry so plants cannot produce nectar which in turn means the bees can't produce honey.
Apparently Welsh bee keepers have said that that they had hot humid weather for plants to produce nectar.
The BBKS press release says:-

It was a difficult year in climactic terms with a very cold snap nicknamed the Beast from the East halting the honey gathering in Spring and then a long drought in many parts of the country which meant plants with shallow roots stopped producing nectar. 

Cleaning up a hive

One of the colonies at Stevington Manor didn't make it through the winter and the hive has became infested with wax moth.

Wax moth is not as dangerous a pest as the varroa mite but it can cause damage to comb and is recognisable by the 'spiders web' forming on the comb.

So before the hive can be used again it has to be cleaned.

Click the button to watch the video

October Review.

Varroa Treatment

I have finished the treatment on the colonies at Ravensden and Scald End. The colonies at Stevington Manor were treated by someone who was temporarily looking after them.
The next thing to do is to treat them with oxalic acid. This is normally done at the end of the year and should be done when the queen has stopped laying as the treatment also kills any brood in the hive.

Autumn Feed

During September beekeepers will give their bees a liquid feed of syrup to help the bees build up their stores for winter.
Syrup feeding is a pain. Because of the volumes needed I have 25 ltr plastic cans at each site. I check the feeders twice a week and so far they have been taking it all.
Thankfully, this job will be finished this week.

Syrup feeder - smaller bottle is for the water feeder

In November winter feeding starts and baker's fondant is normally used.

Winter work

Although people are aware of the showbiz, rock'n'roll  lifestyle bee keepers enjoy, and their Hollywood parties that sometimes go on past 10 o'clock fuelled by the consumption of vast quantities of Horlicks and Chocolate Hobnobs, less well know is the number of dirty boring jobs they have to do and winter is when they are done.
I have been stacking stuff at the end of my garden, getting ready for repairs/improvements etc. It was a mess made worse when one of the tables collapsed.

Some of the jobs to be done include:-
- cleaning a load of dirty brood and super frames and recovering wax where possible.
 - wax moth treatment for supers.
 - replacing foundation in brood boxes and supers.
 - making some more solitary bee boxes - I might sell some of these at markets next year.
 - making a Warre hive - a pointless exercise but an interesting one.
 - the nuc boxes I made this year for swarms had a slight design fault so they all need to be adapted. The plywood ones have delaminated so will have to be replaced.
 - make swarm boxes for Stevington and Strawberry Grove and repair the one at Scald End that was wrecked.
 - the frames in the hives at Stevington are a different size to all the others so various bits and pieces have to be made especially for Stevington.
 - buying and constructed brood and super frames.
 - making work tables for Stevington and Gransden.
 - preparing the fondant feed.
Sounds like fun doesn't it?

Autumn Varroa treatment

There is something on the web site here about the varroa mite, and its not nice reading.
Varroa is a fact of life and like Jeremy Clarkson its not funny, unfortunately cannot be got rid of and so has to be tolerated.
Although it cannot be erased a bee keeper should take steps to try and keep the mite to a 'tolerable' level.
Normally this is done in the Autumn once the honey has been taken off as some treatments can taint the honey.

Its generally thought to be good practice to rotate treatments to prevent bees building up a resistance to a particular treatment and this year I have treated the Scald End bees with Apiguard and the Ravensden bees with Apivar.
I will reverse this next year.

Someone has done the Stevington bees for me but I don't know what they used.
Click the button to see the video

In December the next treatment will be done with oxalic acid.

The Project has started

Its going to be a little while before the bees arrive next year at Strawberry Grove
but I wanted to make a 'statement of intent' so thought I could sort out the hives in advance of them arriving next April.

Its generally accepted its best to have at least two hives in an apiary. This gives you a degree of safety so that if one colony is struggling its possible to use material from the other hive to help it out.
Therefore we have agreed that we will aim to start with two hives.
Initially we discussed getting swarms but this isn't a reliable source - this year I had very few calls about collecting swarms.  Also, swarms normally don't produce any honey in their first year.

We aren't trying to compete with Rouse, but it would be nice to be able produce some honey next year for Sam's and Fliss' customers.
So, the plan is to move one of my colonies from Ravensden/Scald End and also to have what is known as an over wintered nuc.
This is a small colony created this year and gets through the winter and will produce honey next year. I have one on order.
Hopefully next year SG's customers will see something like this,

I put together a hive from bits I already had and made a floor and roof. This will house the nuc that has half the normal number of frames a full size hive has, but it will expand as the colony grows.
Initially the nuc is put on top of the full hive to gives the bees some time to sort themselves out and then the frames are transferred from the nuc into the full hive.

Lifting heavy brood boxes/supers can be hard work so I usually put a hive on a table made from a pallet with  legs made from a fence post.. This raises the hive to a more manageable level.
Luckily I have an arrangement with a company in Bedford who let me have as many pallets as I want and two hive tables were made.

Traditionally bee hives are dull - either green or brown.
I have seen photos of hives in South America and some Mediterranean countries that are brightly coloured so I have painted parts of my hives different colours and the Strawberry Grove hive is also multicoloured.


We took the hives and tables to SG today and set it up.
There is a bit of gardening to do around the tables but I will do this another time. Its just an excuse to pay another visit.

At Strawberry Grove you haven't really arrived until you have your own sign.
The goats have one so do the chickens and turkeys.
Even the worms in the wormery have their own sign.

And so do the bees.

Fliss and Sam are helped by local volunteers and it would be nice if we had some helpers for the bees. I can provide suits and gloves and training in dealing with the bees.
If anyone is interested they can contact Fliss or myself.

Stevington Manor

A few weeks ago the Beds Beekeepers Association sent an email to its members asking if anyone was willing to look after some bees at Stevington Manor.
I knew the person whose bees they were and sadly he has had to give up bee keeping. I had looked after the bees when he was on holiday.
I also had met the owners of the Manor and I decided to give it a go.

One of the reasons for volunteering is that the gardens at The Manor are stunningly beautiful.
Have a look at their web site here and you will see what I mean. If I was a bee I would want to live nearby.
Another  reason is that a year or so ago after I collected a swarm from a house near the Manor, Kathy and her husband with some friends shared homemade cakes and tea in the garden which was lovely.
You can't have too much home made cake and tea.

There have been three colonies at the Manor but one of them died off and the hive became infested with wax moth. I will do a blog about cleaning up the hive later.

The other two hives looked very healthy and were taking in large amounts of yellow pollen.

I went back a few days ago and took the cleaned up wax moth hive back and set it up for next year.
I hope to populate it next year with either a swarm or by splitting one of the two existing hives..

The bees are in a paddock next to the Manor gardens and  a bit of gardening needed to be done to cut back the bushes behind the hives and to cut the grass in front of them.
I started the autumn feed by giving them two pints of syrup each [each hive, not each bee].

It's time to stop

When we started bee keeping we only intended having a couple of hives at the end of our garden and the honey the bees produced was given away.
However as my family well know I have an obsessive streak and can become over involved in things and then move on to something else - wind surfing, bird watching, crashing model aeroplanes, fishing, motor bikes, shooting, dinghy sailing, to name but a few.

A few years ago a series of random unplanned events, coupled with my obsessive streak, meant I found my life being taken over by bees.
I became involved with Farmer's markets, started giving talks on bees, collecting swarms and all the while the number of hives I had increased as did the time I spent on looking after them. Bee keeping is hard work and I'm old.

I outgrew Ravensden and took on Scald End and recently things have escalated further.
I am helping someone who is starting up a honey production business and am mentoring someone who is taking up bee keeping.
I also am setting up an apiary at Strawberry Grove in Cambridge about which I have done a blog and have just agreed to look after bees at Stevington Manor. [more of which later].

Over the last few years as the bee obsession grew, from time to time Sue would say to me 'Is that enough now?' 'Not sure' I would reply and we both knew that meant 'No'.
However after the Stevington thing was confirmed, I officially announced that this was it. No more bees, I have enough. N more bee related projects.Enough. It must stop.
Possibly

September roundup

The season continues to wind down.
The main task for August has been treating the colonies for varroa.
I have used one type of treatment at Ravensden and something different at Scald End and I will publish a blog about this

At Scald End and Ravensden I am being helped by Duncan who contacted me about wanting to start bee keeping and the varroa treatment was an introduction to him of how contrary bees can be.
We had treated some bees at Ravensden without incident and the bees were very calm. When we did the same thing at Scald End it was overcast and thundery, things bees don't like, and the first hive we tried to do made it abundantly clear they would rather we went away. Duncan hadn't seen bees like this before so we went away as requested.
Two days later I went back, the bees took no interest in me and I did the 7 remaining hives in about 20 minutes. I didn't suite up except for my silly veil and didn't bother with gloves.

September time will be the time for feeding the bees in readiness for Winter. The various bits of kit we need are in place and we will start next week.

Stevington Manor

My seemingly unstoppable take over of the UK bee population continues a pace.
I have agreed to look after some hives at Stevington Manor and will do a blog about this next week.

Strawberry Grove Growers

Since my blog I have been working on one of the hives that will at the Grove.
Bee hives are normally boring looking things but I thought I would make this one  bit more colourful.

I will take it to the Grove in a couple of weeks,

Strawberry Grove Growers

At first I thought it was rather fun selling honey and other things at farmers markets and did every one I was invited to.
However as time went on I became less and less interested in them - I did 51 in 2015, 31 in 2016 and 20 last year. This year it will be a maximum of 12.
One of the problems with them is that I think they distract me from what I am really interested in, which is the bees and the preparation, set up and taking down after the event are a pain in the bum.

Although I take, for me, a lot of money at big events like  Bromham and Kempston fairs and the Beds Young Farmers Rally, the markets aren't an income source and just fund what I need for the bees, although they don't even do that completely.
If the Inland Revenue are reading this, yes I have made a loss every year.
So I now only do the monthly market at Bromham Mill and the quarterly market at Potton which are nice friendly markets where I have lots of regulars I know and chat with, and the very occasional small one off event.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by someone who had apparently met me at Bromham and asked if I would come along to her Open Day.
Before committing myself I had a look at their web site and, putting aside my dislike of Facebook, their Facebook page.I  didn't want to make a hasty decision so I then carefully considered whether or not I would go, taking into account a wide range of considerations and factors and after 0.001 of a nanosecond decided I would. Hell, yes!

It was a great day and I really enjoyed it, the photos on their Facebook page give a good idea of what the day was like and what is happening at Strawberry Grove.
As well as fruit and vegetables, Fliss and Sam also have some goats and chickens and are planning to get some pigs and turkeys for Christmas,
Chatting with them throughout the day it seems they are also interested in having some .........can you guess?

I met them again and have agreed that we will aim to have two hives for next Summer.
Rather than rely on me getting some swarms, which can be an unreliable source and also means no honey until the following year, I will move one of my colonies there and we will also get what is called an over wintered nuc which is a small colony created this year that gets through the winter and will [hopefully] produces honey next Summer.
All being well Fliss and Sam will be able to offer Strawberry Grove honey for their customers next year.
We have sorted out a site for the bees which is very 'Ravensden'ish' in that it is secluded and surrounded by trees. It's lovely.
I already have some of the equipment needed and over the coming months will start to set things up,

Strawberry Grove is a community based project and local people can come to the Grove to get involved and the same thing could be done with the bees. It could be an opportunity for people to help look after the bees or just find out a bit more about them.

Sam and Fliss sell wonderful veg boxes that are a combination of the usual and the unusual.

I am trying purple carrots. Yes, purple.

I suggested that perhaps I could take a few boxes to Bromham market to sell and gauge the interest. Its possible I could deliver them to the Bedford area.

Why are wasps such b......ds?

Wasps, the comedy villain of the insect world that [nearly] everyone hates.

I dislike them because a few years ago I had a queen, called Barbie, that produced wonderfully calm productive bees and she was the star of the show when I took her to markets in an observation hive. One morning I thought there were a few more wasps around her hive than normal and when I came back in the afternoon the wasps had taken over the hive killing the colony.

But why are they such b....ds?

Unlike honey bees wasps don't die when they sting you. Honey bees have a barb on their stinger that means when they try to escape they disembowel themselves. Wasps have a smooth stinger and can sting you many times.

In the early part of the year wasps are fairly placid and like honey bees will only sting when provoked.

Later in the year things change and apparently its because of the unusual ecology and bizarre anatomy of social wasps,

In the spring, queen wasps wake from hibernation and start to build their nest, laying eggs and raising their first brood of daughters. These worker wasps cannot produce fertilised eggs, so spend their time helping their mother to expand the nest and raise more young."

The worker wasps then go in search for soft-bodied invertebrates [wasps are carnivores unlike honey bees which are vegetarian] to give to developing larvae.

Bizarrely, adult wasps cannot digest the food they catch because their gut is so constricted by their thin 'wasp waists. Instead the workers chew up the prey and feed it to the larvae. In return, the larvae produce a sugar-rich spit that the workers can drink.

The colony will go on expanding throughout the summer until the queen decides to produce males and new queens. After these 'reproductives' have left the nest, the old queen stops laying. This means the workers no longer have access to larvae.

Instead, they live on the sugar produced by rotting fruit. This can be a problem because fermenting fruit contains alcohol, so wasps can become intoxicated and rather irritable.

We still hate them though, don't we?

Water for the bees

Water for the bees

Obviously bees need water, not only for their own consumption but also to regulate the temperature in the hive.
Bees maintain a hive temperature between 32C and 35C and to cool the hive they spit water into the hive and fan it with their wings.

The Scald End bees are OK as they have a stream about 5 feet behind them.
For the Ravensden bees, there's not much near by so I have been trying some water drinkers for them.
I finally finished up with a seed tray full of water with a sheet of correx floating on it. There are holes punched in the correx for the bees to drink from.
I might try to rig up something with a ball cock attached to a separate reservoir so it fills itself.

Click the button to see the video

Bee News - August

The weather doesn't get any better. Everything's brown and there are cracks in the ground wide enough to get your hand down. Then it rains but its too late to help plants produce nectar.
The local Oil Seed Rape was taken in a few weeks ago and this triggered a notice from the Association saying that's it for honey this year.
It has been the worst year I have ever had and took nothing off in May for the first time ever.
I have taken what honey is available which probably won't last me until next year.
To be honest I'm not really too bothered about missing a few markets.
As I said in a previous blog most of the hives have had their brood space doubled which has meant there is little excess to extract. However checking the brood boxes, they are all full of honey and brood so this bodes well for their winter survival.

Swarms and Swarming updates

The swarming season is probably over.. Its been much quieter than I expected although the few swarms I have actually dealt with have taken up a lot of time collecting and sorting The three swarms that have been moved into Ravensden appear to be doing fine.
The highlight of it all has been the unexpected monster in a bait hive that has been transferred in my Top bar Hive.

Things seem to be going well and I am tempted to make another weird type of hive called a Warre Hive, pointless but interesting.

Perhaps a winter project.

Drinker for the bees

Bees need water like we do and this Summer being so hot being able to get some is more important than ever.
At Scald End there is a stream running behind the hives so no need to worry about them but at Ravensden there isn't water for a mile at least.
I have tried various types of drinker with varying degrees of success but the one that has worked is just a seed tray with a sheet of correx floating on it. The correx has small holes in it for the bees to drink from.

Click the button to see the video

Getting stuff back in

As the honey season is over I have been bringing back unneeded equipment from Ravensden and Scald End.
This is the unused supers, brood boxes and nuc boxes.
There is a lot of repair/improvement work to be done over the winter.

Varroa

Now all the supers are off, its time for the first varroa treatment. There us something on the website here about varroa and the treatment will be done in the next few weeks.
Blog to follow

Something new?

Although I haven't done many markets recently I was invited to an Open Day in Gransden.
It was a terrific day and the project Felicity and Sam are running there is great.
Their web site and Facebook page gives you an idea of what they are doing.
I will do a blog about it next week but there is the possibility that they want to have some hives on their land.

Colony for the Top Bar Hive - Part Two

I usually put up some bait hives each year to possibly attract a passing swarm, but without much success.
Because of the generally quiet swarming activity and that a couple of them are difficult to get to, I haven't checked them often.
However on one of my regular trips to Scald End to check the nucs I thought I would have a look at the bait hive at the far end of the apiary.
It was stuffed with bees. And loads of comb.
As far as I could see without opening it up completely, it looked more like a feral colony than a swarm that had just taken residence. I had obviously not checked for some considerable time.

As I mentioned in the previous blog this gave me the opportunity to fill the Top Bar Hive at Ravensden.
However this means trying to combine incompatible hive types and having to deal with a lot of 'raw' comb.

The whole process was a bit intense although it worked out OK in the end.
However:-
 - I will check the bait boxes more frequently in future, and
 - I need to change the design of the bait boxes. A job for the winter.

To see the video of how things turned out click the button.

Hornets

The Hornets are here! Maybe

Its been a week for hornets.
Asian hornets, although not a threat to us, are a real risk to honey bees and they have the endearing habit of decapitating honey bees and feeding the carcass to their young. They can easily destroy an entire honey bee colony.

They have spread across Europe and have reached France and obviously the worry is they will get to the UK.
They are already in Jersey and this appeared recently.

A secondary nest is significantly more worrying as it contains a large number of queens and its the first time this type of nest has been found.

There have been two occasions in the last couple of years where the Asian Hornet has been discovered in the UK. On both occasions it seems to be dealt with.

SomersetLive recently printed an article about another possible Asian hornet sighting.

For the two previous sightings there was an immediate notice sent out by the National Bee Unit to all its subscribing beekeepers and other bee organisations issued press releases, but this time nothing.
As I went through the article it said the 'unconfirmed report' was

issued by a city-based barrister.

This gave the report more credence as its well known city based barristers are far more knowledgeable about hornets than say, country-based barristers.
Later in the article it stated it

was reported by barrister Matthew Scott on Twitter.

A barrister on Twitter.
Coincidentally this occupation was recently voted joint top of a poll of People You Trust Least' along with journalists, politicians and scientists.

Incidentally I  have heard of an unsubstantiated report of Elvis Presley riding a flying unicorn around the Houses of Parliament but its not on Facebook or Twitter so I don't think I believe it.

Although this report is unsubstantiated, there is a substantiated report of a European hornet nest at the bottom of my garden.
Last year I collected a bird box from a local school that the teachers thought had honey bees in it.
It actually had bumblebees but I took it away and put it at the end of my garden where they enjoyed the Summer and I enjoyed having them around.
A few days ago I thought I saw a hornet and tonight I saw one fly into the bird box.
I got the camcorder out and took a few clips.

For those of you who aren't city-based barristers with a Twitter account, the picture below shows the difference between Asian and European hornets.

This is what the RSPB say about European hornets

The hornet's life cycle is similar to that of the common wasp. Newly-mated queens hibernate during the winter, and emerge in spring to begin building a nest. They lay eggs that hatch into sterile female workers who take over nest building and collecting food for the developing larvae. Later in the summer males and fertile females hatch. These mate and the females become next year’s queens. The males, old queen and workers die in the autumn.
Hornets have an unwarranted fearsome reputation, but will only sting humans if attacked.

They are quite impressive and I think I will just leave them alone.