Tag Archives: drones

More about Drones

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Once again, no one is thinking about helicopters.

An aviation friend of mine, Rod, posted a note on Facebook titled “The Drone Industry Should Play by the Rules, or Help Change Them.” I’m not sure if you need to be logged into Facebook to read what he posted, so I’ll just echo it here; I do urge you to read and comment on it there if you can and have something to add to the discussion:

Look folks, I’ve got no problem with drones operating outside the National Airspace System. (i.e. below 400 feet.) 

But if this innovative industry wants to conduct business in the NAS, you should have to play by the same rules as manned systems and certify the operators, the components, and the systems to the standards required by law.

If you don’t like the regulations that currently govern how the NAS is managed, help get the laws changed and deregulate aviation.

If you, like Rod, think that the national airspace system starts at 400 feet AGL, you need to read “Busting Myths about the FAA and Unmanned Aircraft” on the FAA website.

I asked where the 400-feet number comes from, pointing out that I’m authorized by the FAA to operate under Part 135 as low as 300 feet with passengers on board. He linked to an article on Politico about a lawsuit pending by the FAA against an “aerial anarchist” who uses a styrofoam plane for commercial aerial photography. From that article:

The FAA has never officially regulated model airplanes or small drones. The closest it has come was an “advisory” issued in 1981 that created a set of voluntary guidelines for model aircraft: stay within the line of sight, do not fly within three miles of an airport, do not fly a model airplane higher than 400 feet.

The article makes interesting reading, although it entirely misses the point of my problem with the kind of RC aircraft that are becoming more and more prevalent among amateur “drone pilots.” My problem has to do with the operation of these devices in areas where I fly, which can be within 400 feet of the ground, causing a nearly invisible hazard to me and my passengers.

As a helicopter pilot, I have no minimum flight altitude for my Part 91 operations — including aerial photography/videography, cherry drying, frost control, animal herding, wildlife survey — the list goes on and on. Part 91 allows me to fly as close to the ground as I need to (as long as I don’t create a hazard to people and property on the ground, of course). These are legitimate and legal low-level helicopter missions that often keep me within 100 feet of the ground. As previously mentioned, even my Part 135 operations allow me to operate as low as 300 feet above the ground.

Phantom with GoProThe Phantom 2 Quadcopter with a GoPro Hero attached. This aircraft can weigh nearly 3 pounds. How’d you like to get hit on the head with that dropping from 400 feet?

Imagine this scenario: I’m drying a cherry orchard and a local photo hobbyist decides to take out his Quadcopter with GoPro to get some footage of me or another cherry drying pilot in action. He keeps a respectable distance but is not prepared when one of us suddenly lifts up away from the trees and moves to another orchard. We don’t see him — we’re focused on our work and the location of other helicopter traffic — and one of us flies right into him. The helicopter’s cockpit bubble is smashed or the main rotor blades are damaged or, worse yet, the tail rotor is taken out and the aircraft crashes to the ground. Who’s right or wrong here? The drone is operating under 400 feet and at least 3 miles from the airport, so he’s “legal.” The helicopter pilots are performing a mission that we’ve been doing for years, relying on proven safety measures and radio communication to avoid obstacles and other traffic. Are we supposed to keep an eye out for amateur RC aircraft operators, too?

My aviation friend, Rod, suggests that drone operators should “help get the laws changed and deregulate aviation.” Does he really want aviation deregulated? Does he really want a free-for-all by anyone with a few hundred dollars to spend on an RC aircraft to fly it wherever they like for whatever purpose they desire?

Doesn’t he realize that it’s only a matter of time before they stray up into his previously safe airplane altitude?

Quadcopter
The Phantom Quadcopter is small and white, less than 14 inches wide. I’ve seen birds bigger than that.

And what are helicopter pilots supposed to do? How do you think I feel worrying that any one of my flights could be ended by a collision with an RC aircraft piloted by a hobbyist with a new toy who doesn’t care about the rules or safety? Someone who mistakenly thinks it’s my responsibility, while cruising at 80 knots, to keep an eye out for his toy? Something that might not much larger than a Frisbee?

And make no mistake about it: an impact on a main rotor blade or tail rotor could disable my helicopter and cause a crash.

What would I like to see? Here are a few suggestions for the operation of unmanned radio or computer controlled aircraft:

  • Limit amateur/hobbyist operations to designated RC aircraft fields that are marked on aeronautical charts.
  • Require professional/commercial operators to receive training and pass tests established and overseen by the FAA.
  • Require professional/commercial operators to publish NOTAMS whenever an operation outside an RC aircraft field is conducted.
  • Require all operations to be conducted with a spotter to keep an eye out for full-sized aircraft operating in the area.
  • Limit all operations to altitudes below 300 feet AGL.

I firmly believe that these aircraft, when operated by amateurs, are a danger not only to other aircraft but to people on the ground. There have been numerous crashes in populated areas, including one in Manhattan, and even a death attributed to a crash. How long will the FAA wait before it steps in and properly regulates these aircraft? These aircraft are proliferating at an alarming rate. As a pilot and property owner, I’m starting to get tired of worrying about the consequences of a careless operator’s actions.

And no: deregulating is not the answer we need.

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February 26, 2014 Update: The FAA has spoken.

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Bees: More about Mites

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My own observations prove another beekeeper’s theory true.

I started my beekeeping hobby in June 2013 and have been blogging about it periodically. If you’re interested in reading the other posts in this series, follow the Adventures in Beekeeping tag. Keep in mind that the most recent posts always appear first on this blog.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m concerned about varroa mites in my beehives. Mites can weaken a colony to the point that winter survival is impossible. Since I’d like all my hives to survive the winter, I’m starting a war on mites now, before it’s too late.

My Setup, as it Relates to Mites

There’s a few points I want to make here without spending a lot of time on a long narrative.

  • My three hives come from two sources:
    • My original hive was a nuc I purchased from a beekeeper in Peshastin. That hive grew and thrived very quickly, producing 2-1/2 gallons of honey in about a month. When a hive inspection showed signs of swarm cells, I split it off to form my third hive.
    • My second hive was a swarm capture. The swarm came from a colony living in the wall of a friend’s shop building. These are as close to “wild bees” as you can get.
  • My hives aren’t all set up exactly the same way. As I experiment with different hive components, I use them on different hives. For example, my first and second hives have standard wood bottoms while my third hive has a bottom with a varroa trap screen drawer. When setting up this third hive, I placed a sticky board in the drawer and left it there for about a month (which is really too long.)
  • My first and second hive have drone frames installed. As I discovered earlier this month, the drone frames work — once they’re adopted by the bees — and my first hive was confirmed to have mites.

Mite Count

On Wednesday, after a normal hive inspection, I placed sticky boards (with screens) in my first and second hives. Remember, I’d already learned that my first hive had mites; the idea behind the sticky board was to see how bad the mite problem was in each hive. Because I’d left the sticky board in the third hive so long, I couldn’t really gauge the mite problem. So I got serious for this test and left the boards in for just two days. If I had a third board, I would have tested that third hive again, too.

Mites on a Sticky Board
I’d say this hive has a mite problem, no?

When I pulled them out yesterday morning, I was surprised to find that the sticky board from Hive #1 was full of mites. Here’s a magnified image of just one square inch of the board. The dark ovals are dead mites — you can even see the legs on a few of them. The light ovals are also mites, but I don’t know if they’re some sort of shedded skin or exoskeleton or the actual mite itself after being dead for a day. The other dots on the image are mostly litter from the hive as well as some propolis that the bees laid down between the holes on the screen. Keep in mind that this sticky board has 176 square inches and although not all of them are as full of mites as this one, some are a bit worse.

All this was gathered in less than 48 hours.

But what was even more surprising to me — at first, anyway — was that the sticky board for Hive #2 had very few mites on it. In fact, because I pulled it out first, I thought that I’d pulled it out too soon. It wasn’t until I pulled out the other sticky board that I realized that the boards had done their job; I just had far more mites in one hive than the other.

Why the Difference?

Last night, I was at a BBQ gathering of helicopter pilots and mechanics who are based in the area for fire season. One crew — pilot, mechanic, and fuel truck driver — are based in a really nice house in a farm just down the road from where I’m currently living. They had a fire going in the fire pit and grilled up some steaks and brats and corn. It was a really nice night out.

I got to talking to one of the pilots, a guy who flies the Cessna Skymaster “push-pull” used for observation and direction to fire crews. He lives in the Snohomish area of Washington and keeps bees at home. We got to talking about mites and he asked me where I’d gotten my bees. When I explained their source, he told me that commercial bees always had mites.

I thought about what he said. It completely jived with what I had observed. The hive from the nuc had a bad mite problem. The hive from the swarm had very few mites at all.

He said that because so many hives were moved around for pollination, the mite problem spreads. He keeps mites out of his hives by keeping them away from commercially available bees.

Certainly something to think about.

Three Means of Attacking Mites

Because I’m serious about eliminating — or at least greatly reducing — the mite population in my hives, I’m currently using a two-prong attack:

  • The drone frames, as I discussed in another post, can help concentrate most of the mite reproduction on one frame, where they can be easily removed. Unfortunately, the queen is far less likely to lay drone eggs as the summer season comes to a close. In addition, only one hive (so far) has adopted the use of the drone frame.
  • I’ve purchased a miticide and dosed each of my hives with it. Although it can’t be used when the bees are producing honey for human consumption, using it now, before winter, should help reduce the number of mites and make a stronger hive.

The third method, which I hope to be able to institute soon, is to have sticky boards beneath screens on the bottom board of each of my hives. While it would be great to do this via a varroa trap with drawer for each hive, the $27 price tag makes that a bit more than I want to spend. So I’ll likely cook up my own solution using some “hardware fabric” I already have on hand to make the screen. I’ll talk to a beekeeper friend to see what we can rig up.

In this area, bee colonies have a 50% overwinter survival rate. I have three hives. I want to have all three colonies survive the winter. That’s going to take some work — and I’m willing to do it.

Bees: The Drone Frames Really Do Work

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A component of my integrated pest management system.

I started my beekeeping hobby in June 2013 and have been blogging about it periodically. If you’re interested in reading the other posts in this series, follow the Adventures in Beekeeping tag. Keep in mind that the most recent posts always appear first on this blog.

A while back, I installed a so-called “drone frame” in two of my beehives. A drone frame is a special frame with large cells embossed on a plastic foundation. The bees supposedly see this frame, realize that the big cells will be perfect for drones (which are larger than workers), build out the cells for drones. The queen lays drone eggs in each cell and the workers feed and cap them like any other drone cell. Varroa mites, which prefer drone brood, enter the cells before capping and do their parasitic mite thing — including laying eggs — on the drone larvae. The drones hatch and carry more mites into the hive to mix with the other brood.

Varroa mites are a bad thing for beehives and supposedly every beehive in North America has them. Not only does their blood sucking weaken the bees and possibly cause deformities in newly hatched bees, but they have been tied to colony collapse disorder (CCD), which has been getting a lot of press lately because of it’s potential to do serious harm to the food chain humans rely on for survival.

I checked the drone frame each time I opened my main hive. I try to inspect my hives every 10-14 days. The first time I looked there was no activity. The bees didn’t seem interested in the frame. The second time I looked, the bees had begun to draw out comb. A good sign. The next time I looked, the frame had been partially filled with capped and uncapped honey as well as a good number of capped drone cells.

That was August 11. I was unprepared. I should have brought along a second drone frame so I could have swapped them out. The idea with the drone frames is to remove the frame once it contains capped drone cells and to put it in the freezer for a few days. This kills the drone larvae as well as the mites. (Drones don’t do anything except fertilize the queens — kind of like some men I know — and my queens were already fertilized.) After a while, you put the frame back in the hive, the workers see the dead bees and clean them out, and the queen lays new eggs.

I went back with an empty drone frame only five days later. I was late. The drones had already begun to hatch. In fact, more than half of them were gone. Others were hatching as I watched.

Drone Frame
Here’s the drone frame as it looked today after a week in the freezer. You can see the capped cells where drones were emerging. The dark empty cells are where the other drones hatched from. There’s honey along the top of the frame. The reverse side looks pretty much the same.

I have to admit that it made me sad to do what I had to do.

I brushed the workers and newly hatched drones off the drone frame and back into the hive. Then I put the drone frame aside and replaced it with a brand new one. I have four of them and three hives so if I time everything right, I’ll only have one in the freezer at any time; I’ll just keep circulating the freezer one to replace the one I pull in a hive.

I put the drone frame in the back of my truck and went on with my day. I secretly hoped the drones would all hatch and fly away. I didn’t want to kill them.

But the next day, when I inspected the frame, I found that many of the drones had half emerged and died there. I also saw the mites — they were quite easy to spot with my glasses on. There were a lot of them.

Varroa Mites on a Drone Frame
Here’s a closeup of some of the cells in the drone frame. Although my camera focused on the outer edges of the cells, you can clearly see the dead mites. The bottom-right cell has a dead drone bee that died while emerging from its cell. If I’d waited just one more day, they all would have hatched.

I put the frame in a plastic bag and stowed it in my landlord’s freezer. (I wonder if he noticed.)

I spoke to another beekeeper at a recent meeting of the North Central Washington Beekeepers Association. I admitted how I’d screwed up by pulling the drone frame late. He made me feel a little better when he admitted that he’d done the same thing.

This afternoon I pulled the drone frame out to take some photos. Tomorrow, I’ll bring it to my hives. I’ll check the second hive with a drone frame to see if there’s any capped drone cells in it. If there’s any, I’ll pull it and replace it with this one. Otherwise, I’ll put this one in the one hive that doesn’t yet have a drone frame at all.

I suspect that my mite problem is worse that it should be. I also ordered a miticide from the bee supply place. I need to get the mites under control before winter sets in. My friend Don blames the loss of his hive last winter on mites. I’d like to beat the odds of a 50% winter survival rate here in Central Washington and have all three hives make it through the winter.

Wish me luck!

Bees: Installing Drone Frames

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Trying natural varroa mite control.

I started my beekeeping hobby in June 2013 and have been blogging about it periodically. If you’re interested in reading the other posts in this series, follow the Adventures in Beekeeping tag. Keep in mind that the most recent posts always appear first on this blog.

Varroa mites are a real problem for beekeepers in the U.S. (and likely abroad). They breed on bee larva, sucking the “blood” out of their hosts and spreading throughout the hive. It’s impossible to prevent them from infesting a hive. The only thing you can do is try to minimize them and their damage.

A drone frame is a special brood frame with larger cells on the foundation. It’s part of a varroa mite control program. Theoretically, when the bees see these large cells they realize that they’re perfect for raising drones. Drones have only one purpose — to fertilize the queen — but they’re really not needed once the queen has been fertilized and is laying eggs. They’re larger bees and need larger cells to develop. They also take longer to develop, which is why varroa mites prefer infesting drone cells. So the idea is to encourage the bees to put only drone cells on one frame which, hopefully, will attract many of the mites in the hive. Then, before the drones hatch but after the mites have infested the drone cells, you pull the frame out of the hive and freeze it. This kills the drones (which, again, you really don’t need) and the mites. You then remove the caps from the drone cells and put the frame back into the hive where, hopefully, the process starts all over again once the bees have cleaned out the cells.

That’s the idea. I figured I’d give it a try, so I ordered two drone frames — so I could always have one in my hive, even when one was in the freezer. After getting the frames, however, I caught a swarm and started a second hive. So I’ve got one frame in each hive and need to get another pair to swap them out.

The photo below shows me inserting a drone frame into the bottom box of my first beehive. I pulled out a frame that was virtually untouched by the bees and moved that into the upper box in place of another untouched frame.

Adding a Drone Frame to a Bee Hive

I just hope I can fit the darn things in my freezer. Right now, I’m still living in my RV; eventually I’ll have my chest freezer out of storage and set up where I’ll have plenty of space.

I should mention here that using drone frames is part of an integrated pest management (IPM) system. I’ll use other control methods — such as a bottom board screen — when I settle my bees into their permanent home later this season.