The one thing that Dave Blair and I have been doing for most of the last 2 weeks is "beautifying" the camp. I've told you about the clear cutting that they did on the "back 20" (http://www.jitrekking.blogspot.com/2014/02/yesterday-was-federal-holiday.html)
This not only involves cleaning up trees that were "victims" of the "clear cutting" spoken about in that post but also cutting down old and rotting trees. Today was such a tree. There was a sweet gum tree - Below are a couple pictures m - to show you how one SHOULD look and the other of the unique leaves of the sweet gum:
That isn't what the one we felled today looked like. It was rotted out inside and hollow about the first 30 feet up. Here's what it looked like after it was cut down and cut up for removal:
You can clearly see that 80% of the inside of this tree is totally gone. Each of these pieces is about 4 feet long. The stump is still in the ground. We cut it up about 5 feet high. Below is a REALLLY cool picture.
This is the trunk of the tree after we cut down to the just above the hole that was in the base of the tree at ground level on the right side of the tree (at about "2:30" where the two curls are touching). This would indicate to me that the cleft was ALWAYS in the tree as it grew but was a "weak spot" that allowed bacteria/fungus or something to enter and kill the central heart of the tree.
Through the years it ate at the tree until it was eaten away up to 30 feet up. All the limbs died and fell off and were replaced by the "scabs" (bumps) you see on each section but the first. The tree finally only had enough substance to support a large single branch that was at the top of the tree. This made the tree top heavy and heavily weighted on the side that the one large limb was one. Eventually a wind would blow the tree over quite possibly on an RV that someone would have been in. It HAD TO BE cut down.
We could see that the base of the trunk of the tree had a bunch of black gunk in it. Dave a I suppositioned that it might possibly be feces from animals living in it. You can see pretty easily that it was quite possibly a squirrel "Sheraton" hotel. We were about to ruin the day of ANYTHING that was living in this puppy!
"GOING DOWN! GROUND FLOOR EXPRESS!!!"
Sure enough as soon as the tree hit the ground a (probably totally dazed) squirrel bolted from one of the holes about 1/2 way up the trunk. "Home Sweet, BOOOOMMMM!"
Dave started at the upper end of the tree chain sawing it into these 4 foot pieces. He cut down through the whole "good limb" at the top of the tree and hit the hollow section. About 2 cuts down, he noticed some bees beginning to buzz out of a small hole about 8 feet down the trunk. Luckily, this is winter and the temperature at 38º this morning, so these bees weren't able to move very quickly. They were awakened from a frozen slumber by the vibration of the chain saw. We stopped immediately and went to get some bee, wasp and hornet spray. They couldn't continue to live here now. They were 6 inches off the ground in a tree that had an appointment with a burn pile. "Good night, sweet princesses!"
All bees at this time of year are females. The male drones that had their shot at the queen were pushed out the door (or killed) at the beginning of the fall. Since they don't do anything but lay around and try to breed (DON'T THINK THOSE WICKED, EVIL THOUGHTS LADIES IN THE AUDIENCE your husbands do SLIGHTLY more than that!) males don't get to live. All "worker bees" are "females" (though technically their genitalia develop into that stinger that you hate).
I started spraying the clump of bees at the opening. There was a pretty big clump of them at the opening apparently forming a "bee plug" to keep the cold air off of the Queen Bee inside. They started exiting groggily from another hole. BAD CHOICE LADIES! A couple blasts more and there are no more bees.
It's lunch time.
After lunch Dave and I head back and we cut the rest of the hollow trunk. This time we start nearest to the base of the tree and work up toward the bee hive area. We stop 8 feet below the bee hive area and then we go above the hive 2 feet and cut - no bee movement. We move away that 4 foot section of hollow trunk. Next we cut 2 feet below the hive area and a couple of groggy bees buzz out of the original hole. I roll away the piece of hollow log below the hive section. Some number of bees start to fly out. Dave heads to another area of the ground to work to allow the bees to settle down. I head to the office to get another can of bee killer.
By the time I got back to the hive it had settled down. I began spraying into the newly opened, large open end of the trunk which was actually the "deepest" part of the original hive. Very few bees came staggering out to die. Next I took a 5 foot piece of 2 inch diameter vine that had been attached to the tree when it was cut down. I used it as a "roto-rooter" to give the each of the 4 openings (the original hole we noticed bees coming out of; the second somewhat larger hole that bees began to fly out of when I sprayed the original opening. The 3rd and 4th were the large hollow "trunk" openings at the top and bottom of the bee hive section of the tree. The bottom trunk opening is where the "nursery" wax "comb" was. It pulled out easily but this time about 20 bees that were LESS than "happy" came out. I had the bee killing spray in my hand and just kept spraying at the opening as they appeared. They never knew what hit 'em! After about a minute there were no more bees and no more comb at that end. Next I went to the top of the piece and applied the vine roto-rooter from that end. There was a fair amount of comb near the top. I pushed it to the bottom opening. The piece now was devoid of living bees and any bees wax at all (BTW, there was NO honey in ANY of the comb. It is the end of winter and the bees had eaten it all already).
Tomorrow I'm spending the day cooking beef curry and roti for the sojourners that are on site. There are about 20 of us.
We could see that the base of the trunk of the tree had a bunch of black gunk in it. Dave a I suppositioned that it might possibly be feces from animals living in it. You can see pretty easily that it was quite possibly a squirrel "Sheraton" hotel. We were about to ruin the day of ANYTHING that was living in this puppy!
"GOING DOWN! GROUND FLOOR EXPRESS!!!"
Sure enough as soon as the tree hit the ground a (probably totally dazed) squirrel bolted from one of the holes about 1/2 way up the trunk. "Home Sweet, BOOOOMMMM!"
Dave started at the upper end of the tree chain sawing it into these 4 foot pieces. He cut down through the whole "good limb" at the top of the tree and hit the hollow section. About 2 cuts down, he noticed some bees beginning to buzz out of a small hole about 8 feet down the trunk. Luckily, this is winter and the temperature at 38º this morning, so these bees weren't able to move very quickly. They were awakened from a frozen slumber by the vibration of the chain saw. We stopped immediately and went to get some bee, wasp and hornet spray. They couldn't continue to live here now. They were 6 inches off the ground in a tree that had an appointment with a burn pile. "Good night, sweet princesses!"
The Hole from which the bees were exiting. On the ground are the dead one's that were at the opening when I sprayed the bee, wasp and hornet killer spray on them.
All bees at this time of year are females. The male drones that had their shot at the queen were pushed out the door (or killed) at the beginning of the fall. Since they don't do anything but lay around and try to breed (DON'T THINK THOSE WICKED, EVIL THOUGHTS LADIES IN THE AUDIENCE your husbands do SLIGHTLY more than that!) males don't get to live. All "worker bees" are "females" (though technically their genitalia develop into that stinger that you hate).
I started spraying the clump of bees at the opening. There was a pretty big clump of them at the opening apparently forming a "bee plug" to keep the cold air off of the Queen Bee inside. They started exiting groggily from another hole. BAD CHOICE LADIES! A couple blasts more and there are no more bees.
It's lunch time.
After lunch Dave and I head back and we cut the rest of the hollow trunk. This time we start nearest to the base of the tree and work up toward the bee hive area. We stop 8 feet below the bee hive area and then we go above the hive 2 feet and cut - no bee movement. We move away that 4 foot section of hollow trunk. Next we cut 2 feet below the hive area and a couple of groggy bees buzz out of the original hole. I roll away the piece of hollow log below the hive section. Some number of bees start to fly out. Dave heads to another area of the ground to work to allow the bees to settle down. I head to the office to get another can of bee killer.
By the time I got back to the hive it had settled down. I began spraying into the newly opened, large open end of the trunk which was actually the "deepest" part of the original hive. Very few bees came staggering out to die. Next I took a 5 foot piece of 2 inch diameter vine that had been attached to the tree when it was cut down. I used it as a "roto-rooter" to give the each of the 4 openings (the original hole we noticed bees coming out of; the second somewhat larger hole that bees began to fly out of when I sprayed the original opening. The 3rd and 4th were the large hollow "trunk" openings at the top and bottom of the bee hive section of the tree. The bottom trunk opening is where the "nursery" wax "comb" was. It pulled out easily but this time about 20 bees that were LESS than "happy" came out. I had the bee killing spray in my hand and just kept spraying at the opening as they appeared. They never knew what hit 'em! After about a minute there were no more bees and no more comb at that end. Next I went to the top of the piece and applied the vine roto-rooter from that end. There was a fair amount of comb near the top. I pushed it to the bottom opening. The piece now was devoid of living bees and any bees wax at all (BTW, there was NO honey in ANY of the comb. It is the end of winter and the bees had eaten it all already).
Tomorrow I'm spending the day cooking beef curry and roti for the sojourners that are on site. There are about 20 of us.
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