Norm

Hi Kellie, welcome to the forum.

She is a dominant pied opaline spangle I believe I would agree with you Kaz.

That we will... its a scarey thing! Buuzbee, your name is appropriate for my posting, often thought that should be my name…(Laughing out loud).. I agree with you, things are scary…Nothing still seems to be done about climate change, just talk & arguments, money seems to be more important than our environment … I have a sticker on my frig, that I have had for years… Quote…American Cree Indian saying… Only when the last tree has died & the last river been poisoned & the last fish been caught, will we realise we cannot eat money. Unquote…every day they are starting to say things are getting worse than they thought…I think more is known, but the powers that be, are afraid of the public outcry if they told the truth, & to them the bottom line is more important. Years ago I watched a program about an English independent scientist named James Lovelock…the physicist that first found the hole in the ozone layer. If you do a search on the internet with his name you will find his web sites…he says he is just about the only independent scientist in the world & works from his home, most others are employed by governments or big business. He said about climate change, that he didn't agree with most scientists, he thought what would happen would be a few short years 10 or 20 with spectacular weather events, then the world will FLIP into a much hotter stage where most of the earth will be worse than the current deserts in the world. The only thing I don't agree with him is that he says Nuclear is the only hope…I think that's jumping from the pan into the fire.

Looking good Kaz, the Normals seem to have broad heads at least; it's a bit hard to tell with the TCB, so maybe some improvement with the show bird cross. FANG might be a hen…don't you think? Wait & see what the flights turn out like, still might be a TCB. My Cinnamon TCB hen is big & looks like it's turning out nice, after producing her I have discovered that her dad is Cinnamon, I just thought his Black wasn't so intense.

Sorry to hear of your loss Maximus…but even though strange occurrences like that are interesting it's probably better that they don't survive. Most twins don't hatch from eggs, because they get tangled up inside & can't chip out. With these "freaks" it's best they are not bred with, as with most things it might have a genetic component . Getting variations like that into our breeding population probable isn't a good thing, for trouble free breeding later on. I had a nice hen [chook] that's eggs were strange, often with miss shaped shells & many didn't hatch. I didn't sit the miss shaped ones, but one of her eggs did hatch & I noticed that the chick hatched from the wrong end of the egg [pointed instead of large end] it was lucky that it made it, but once again not a good thing. When I was young I used to open all my eggs, that didn't hatch to see why [a messy operation often] I don't do it any more. Once I found a young pigeon with two heads, I preserved it in spirits for a long time, but don't remember what happened to it now. Budgies used to once only lay about 6 eggs, which was basically the norm, but even the fact that many these days lay even up to 10 or rarely more isn't a good thing, as I think that about 6 is a good limit for them.

What about Melanistic Spangle, it looks a bit like one of them?

Yes Kaz, it aids repair & apparently stops scarring, with wounds or burns & now there is a special Medihoney, which comes from Leptospermums, one of the plants commonly called a Tea tree, it produces a jelly like honey & has antibacterial properties, I think the New Zealanders did all the experimental work on them.

Thanks for sharing your birds; they are very nice…that Dark Green Lovebird with the Black head is a Normal Masked Lovebird. If you don’t know, the various breeds will breed together if given a chance…crosses between Fischer’s & Masks will be fertile [able to breed] but crosses between the Peach Faces with either Fischer’s or Masks will produce infertile [mules].

Yes… what a brave girl, I can tell Benjamin Terry is going to be loved…the name is nice, I'm glad you are going to call him Benjamin, he will get called Ben, but Benjamin sound great, very masculine. PS. Where's your stripes Zebra…I can't see any stripes. Sorry Nasty Norm. I couldn't help myself...

You were lucky to find him in time. Thanks for warning others.

Yeah they are amazing…Bees, cockroaches & crocodiles & others have remained unchanged for millions or years, they are so adapted for life on planet earth, but whether they can handle what humanity [the so called smart animal] is throwing at them remains to be seen. Eungai Rail isn’t that far from here, the honey would be similar & you are right the main coastal honey is Ironbark…Yellow Box is nice, it’s the western area honey, at least the tablelands anyway, it’s supposed to be the worlds best honey, a pure sample never candies.

Yes Libby for some unknown reason they seem to be attracted to chlorinated water. But not enough of them to kill them out. We beekeepers get lots of complaints about that.

As far as we know we haven’t got Africanised bees here…yet…got just about everything else…I have heard about your die off disease, there is talk that we have it too…nobody seems to know what is causing it…but maybe environmental damage as bees are very sensitive. But with climate change on it's way & a lot worse than they tell us, I think...it probably is all academic...we all will be in trouble.

She might be a show type [british] Budgie compared to the pet type, there is often a great size difference...we would need a picture to guess about what sex.

Yes Libby that's what people with true allergic response to bee or wasps & maybe even peanuts, have to do…lots of people say they are allergic, but everyone swells up for about three days when they get their first few stings & I think that's what most people think is being allergic. Thanks for being interested guys, I'm glad you enjoyed it & yes Elly bees are very interesting & amazing creatures, if you want to know more about them maybe I will be able to answer your questions. Like apparently years ago scientists looked at the cells made by bees & after checking they were amazed to find out that the cells were built in such a way as to use the minium amount of material, with the greatest strength & greatest storage ability, given the problem they had to do in making the cells. They decided that the bees were only a few degrees out in making the perfect cells. But later on as scientists got better at working out things they found out the bees were correct & it was them that made the mistake…The cells were perfect.

Most people will react at first if your not used to stings, but allergic People get allergic through having stings & then becoming allergic to them. Bees mostly will only sting if you touch their hive or if you squash one.

Yes Kaz that’s basically what they are doing, they keep their hive at a constant temperature, so if it gets too hot some move outside to cool it down & some will be at the entrance fanning to create draughts of cool air going in & hot coming out. It varies on the area where you are or if you move the hives all the time, we just keep them basically in the one place, so we get honey only in three or four months of the year. The amount varies also, some hive get almost nothing if something is wrong, others get lots more than others, because of the strain & it’s ability. It’s common to get three or four boxes of honey off of a good hive, I haven’t ever weighed it but maybe something like 100 kilos. I haven’t seen that movie Andrew…but I saw some shorts about it on TV…of course they got the basic thing wrong…the characters in the movie are all boys, whereas bees the Queen & the workers are all females…the Queen is the only sort of complete female, she mates & produces fertile eggs which mostly turn out female workers, unless they want to swarm then some Queens will be raised…Male bees are produced from unfertilised eggs, they have half the chromosomes of the females [virgin birth]. Workers are controlled by a chemical called Queen substance the Queen produces that the workers eat that stops them laying, but if the Queen dies & they don’t raise another, some workers will start laying eggs, but these are only Drones & they call them Drone layers & the hive will die out. I don't know exactly Libby, but maybe something like 5 to 7 Kilos. Each bee only produces about a teaspoon of honey in it's life, but a strong hive can have something like 60 to 100 thousand workers in the summer. You can buy a hive from another beekeeper, but I started off by just catching a couple of swarms & putting them in a box. You have to register your bees with the department of agriculture & keep them in proper hives. If your not allergic to bee stings after some time you don’t usually swell up anymore, as your body adjusts, but allergic people can die in a couple of minutes, from shock. I have been keeping bees for about 46 years, it still hurts, some times more than others depending where you get stung, if it’s a sensitive part like your finger tips, but they say that beekeepers cut of the pain signal to the brain…but after the initial pain it usually goes away.

As per a request from another forum member. Some pictures of my beekeeping. A Beehive on a hot day. Some frames of honey ready to be uncapped…note frame on left not sealed by the bees as yet…the others are already sealed, which has to be removed by uncapper before going into the extractor. Some frames uncapped ready to be placed in the extractor. Our extractor room, most larger beekeepers these days uncap using a machine we still only use a steam-heated knife.

Can you post a picture of this bird you want to know the mutation on this forum & maybe we can help you?You have a good day too...regards. Thanks; Lacewings are not as easy to get hold of as some mutations. And yes I have some Texas Clear Bodies, if you search you will see some articles on this forum with pictures of some of my birds. I really like the Opaline marked Yellow. Green series TCB’s I have bred 17 young birds this season & some splits. Sorry Nerwen, I'm having trouble enough trying to get her to breed so that I can increase my Lacewings, her sister a Lutino, has already had three batches, whereas, she hasn't even entered the nest, I have put her back in the avairy for awhile to see if she will go down next time. I bought a more show type male, but so far his hen hasn't gone down eaither & I have worries that he wont be any good, as was a petshop cull.

Definitely never mix any other bird with any variety of African Lovebird, even if you have an established aviary of Lovebirds, in my experience never introduce another new bird, [Lovebird] as it will be dead in a short time.

Looking good Kaz, a nice collection of birds. What's the difference with those photos of yours that don't have a black border, that you can click to see the actual size & the ones that do? Are these already reduced to a smaller size?

This is a picture of her when she was young, that’s all I have at the moment. She is Opaline & her wing markings aren’t that strong. Is that your own web site? Nice looking birds, wish I could understand the language...

Yes Fallows are a rare Mutation, apparently people don't like them, I don't know why as I think some of them look real nice. I was surprised to find one in a pet shop & my attempt to get some show types around here have failed as the guy that wins all the prizes here wont sell. So you are lucky.

Hi Kathy & welcome to the forum.

At least with having two birds split to Lacewing, if you get some Lacewing hens you can pair it back to the other split, if they aren't too closely related. I bought a bird that tuned out to be split for Lacewing, which I didn't know until it produced one Lacewing hen, it was also split for Lutino & produced three of them. I took three rounds from them, but didn't produce another Lacewing, something like 18 young.The problem is that all the cocks produced have the potential to be split, but you have to breed with them to find out, I kept all the cocks & have bred with most of them, but as yet haven't produced another Lacewing. I mated the original split cock to another hen to get more, but she hasn't bred & the young hen also mated to get some more splits hasn't bred as yet. So unless you're very lucky it can take awhile. The Lacewing hen I produced is a white hen, I like the Yellow ones the best, what series are yours Green of Blue?