What do you think about this strategy of adding queen excluders and then using bees escapes as discussed in the video. Does anyone have experience with bee escapes? If so is there any particular type you like the best and is there any advice you could give me on their use? Will be using them soon!!!
Hey Bruce, great videos! I started the spring of 2017 and have 25-30 colonies. I've tried brushing, shaking, blowing, and fume boards to remove bees from honey frames. All those methods work to a certain degree, but not without drawbacks. Last year I tried the bee escape with the triangle maize on one bottom side. It seems to be the least invasive to the bees and worked pretty well. Depending on how many full supers you remove, you might replace them with and empty for bee space. I ordered more escapes from Dadant today, making a total of twelve. That's about all I can extract in one day. The only issue is if there is ANY BROOD on a honey frame, the bees will not leave. Moving any frame with brood as low as possible in the stack of supers takes care of the issue. The super with honey and brood is left behind for the bees. That brood will emerge, and the frame will hopefully be back-filled with goldenrod in the fall. I also tried the frame spacer in an 8 frame box down to 7 frames. Saw the first full one yesterday. The bees had drawn out the comb until it was touching each other and utterly full of honey. No more scratching cells too shallow the capping knife! My experience with queen excluders is mixed. It seems like some colonies practically refuse to go through it and back-fill the brood nest, others don't mind it at all. It does seem to make a difference if you put it on too early. So your approach to waiting until the bees are already in the supers makes sense. I'm in the south Atlanta area and am experiencing a steady early flow as well. I have a few hives with 5-6 supers on already, and the top 3 are full and completely capped like yours. I plan on extracting the first round on April 2nd.
Jason JC’s bee’s has a video on ceracell bee escapes th-cam.com/video/hJHRO3pIBaA/w-d-xo.html You can buy the metal escape covers on eBay or amazon and make your own clearer boards for under $10
When putting new foundation on a hive let them start drawing comb and putting honey then put your excluded on. They will not go through the excluder to new foundation. I use a leaf blower to get the bees out of the super, I turn the super up on its end near the front and blow using just enough power to get the bees out, it doesn't hurt the bees.
I just got my first nuc of bees last week, so I'm not getting any honey this year, but I get excited when I see beekeepers like you grunting under the weight of a chock-full super of honey. I can't imagine what I'd do with 5 gallons of honey!
Northern Illinois here. I’ve used the triangle bee escape and it worked very well. I’ve also used the small escapes that fit into the oval opening in the top cover - that also worked, not as fast but certainly effective. Of my 4 hives last year, 2 crossed the excluder, 2 would not and backfilled - no explanation for that!🥴. Great looking honey for you! Thanks for videos, enjoy them very much. ❤️🐝🐝
Especially on such tall stacks. Of course a separate entrance is not wanted because you are planning on harvesting soon, but during the flow they are helpful to have.
Not really too much necessarily just too early lol! I was actually able to mices some boxes around on hives that weren’t quite as strong and give some hives some more space. These bees just amaze me. Will get the honey harvested ASAP and stack em back up. Maybe they can fill them up again. I frankly just wasn’t prepared this early. Everything seems 2 or more weeks early this year. Thanks for checking in!
Wow!! I would surely love that kinda harvest. Its always best to harvest asap whenever you have that much so early in the season. Extraction and putting the frames back would allow them to continue right away.
Yes we have decided weather permitting to go ahead and harvest from this location this weekend if we are able to pull it together in time. Thanks for checking in!
Great video brother!! I think youre onto something. I get better honey production without the excluders. Adding them after will definitely solve brood in the super issues. I suspect it will also reduce the number of bees in supers at harvest.
Your boxes are stuffed! You could get a honey bound hive in April with 5 mediums on WOW!!! It is to bad you don't have the bee escapes, now you will have to lift those mediums off again and re-stack. That is a lot of honey. I like both of your ideas but in MN we are hoping to get a 60 F day more than once a week. I am jealous and happy for your problem. I'll be interested in which bee escape works best. Cericell (sp) looks cool and are probably the escape I plan on buying unless you show me different. Thanks Bruce.
Hey we went ahead and used the bee escapes and they worked well. I did videos on applying the escapes and removing the honey. Hope you will watch. If I could I probably would have bought the Ceracell escapes. I have one of them and will try it out. But I bought 30 of these escapes and that would have been out of my budget with the Pierco. You just can’t beat free shipping at Mann Lake.
I have used those before and they do work well but gonna try the bee escapes this ho around. Less traumatic on the bees and the beekeeper. Who knows how it will work but we shall see. Thanks for checking in!
If you can’t extract right when you need to, get some plastic tubs with lids to store the frames in until you have enough to extract, freeing up hive bodies and space, I believe ceracell makes a decent bee escape but I don’t use them I stand the body up on its end and use a leaf blower to remove bees. Don’t forget to undersuper, don’t put foundation above honey they might not realise they’ve been given space, I think you should be removing their honey in the supers regularly and getting new combs drawn out even if you have to store the frames and extract it later.
Hey thanks for the advice. Good information. I try to use those strategies for the most part. Th biggest issue with storing frames is that if stored to long there could be hive beetle problems. Honey needs to be extracted pretty quickly once removed from the hives. Or at least that is what I try to do. These particular hives are not mine and I am using every piece of equipment the owner has. I will probably try to buy some more next year. Thanks again for checking in. I actually found some supers that I could move around a little to give the bees a little more space so I think things are going to work out well.
brucesbees yeah I’m hearing ya, I’ve only had beetles in one box of honey frames I left (forgot) for two weeks in the hot room they slimed the hell out of it, you can freeze the frames over night then store them in an airtight tub for however long you need without the worry of moths or shb. While Inspecting brood boxes lift up dark or black combs to the super so once the broods emerged you can remove and render the wax and give them a nice fresh foundation to work on, I’ve noticed my bees getting smaller in the older darker combs and they’re not as robust or prolific like they are with new combs in the brood chamber
Hmm interesting thoughts. Thanks! Right now I am just growing so fast I am having a hard time staying ahead of the bees with the equipment I have. But the queens do love laying in brand new recently drawn out frames.
Hearing that you need more equipment, I was thinking that you could maybe have a Rubbermaid box that the frames hang in. Uncap a box and just let the honey drip out overnight, before letting the bees clean the frames up. Do a box each night. Just a thought.
Yes. It is a great spot for early honey. I think there is a lot of clover around. My hives in other locations do pretty well but not tíos well early in the year.
Maybe put an add out for one or two local young peoples to come along with you and learn about bees, being a mentor and getting the help you need without costing the world, if it works out you’ve taught someone a valuable skill in return for some manual labour, it maybe something you should think about
Yes that is a good idea. There is a teenage kid that helped me out and saved me last year. He loves it. My son may also be able to help if available. Both of them are big strong younguns. I will not try to do it all alone though hopefully between this next strategy and a new trailer I just bought it will not be quite as physically taxing. We will see soon enough.
brucesbees same here but we brought a truck and a multione, unfortunately my dad who I keep with is having Heart problems recently so he’s taken a step back and I’m in remission from stage 4 blood cancer (I’m not supposed to be alive) it’s been 3 yrs now but I take each day as a bonus though I’m not the fittest I have damaged heart and lungs from chemo and a recent work related spine injury so the physically taxing part of beekeeping is hopefully mitigated with the mechanical help because neither of us are quite capable at the moment, I plan to buy/build a new extraction trailer next our friend has a setup I want to copy, it has an IBC of water and a 10kw generator on the truck that runs a hot water unit, decapper with wax extruder, 40 frame horizontal extractor, honey pump and hot water pressure washer. He has two custom made wheel barrow for holding the frames that clip into the extractor then you slide the frames in rotate the drum slide in another etc etc then slide them back on the barrow and back into the hives they came from, the back door on the trailer doubles as a ramp for loading the barrows and the honey is pumped straight into an IBC on the truck, all equipment is stainless or foodgrade and the trailer has a certificate for food safety. I like his idea except I’d change a few things to my liking the cost of the trailer is over 100k so I need to borrow or have a really really good year lol Beekeeping can get you seriously invested very quickly and I think the important thing is not to bite off more than you can chew and to keep it fun and interesting.
Bruce I don’t know if you watch him or not but Ian on YT “a Canadian Beekeeper’s blog” has over 1000 hives and he has used the Queen excluders and bee escapes for several years! If you haven’t watched him check out his videos! He’s pretty awesome too! Great job keeping up these hives buddy!
Yes he is one of my favorites. I think some of my ideas about how to do this have been formulated from watching him. But I watch and learn from a lot of people. Always learning. Thanks.
brucesbees exactly why we watch you! You are definitely in our top 3! And we watch probably 20 or so! Thanks again for all you do we have learned so much from you!
What would happen if you went with small cell foundation in your brood boxes only then queen excluders. I bet the workers would go through the excluder easier. And your number of bees would go up to.
brucesbees I just got my first hive Tuesday and since I was studying up so much trying to learn all I could that Don the fat bee man said that's all he uses. So I got all small cell foundation starting off. The smaller each cell is the more brood cells per frame and other benefits. But I'm wet behind the ears New so I'm still thinking out loud a lot. :) And thanks for your videos. I've watched a whole lot of them. Your extremely helpful. All of you beekeepers on TH-cam are helping a lot of people get into it. Thanks
Mountaineer Bees I actually put a small stick in the corner of the larger hives for a makeshift upper entrance and to hopefully improve ventilation. Thanks for checking in.
I am not sure at all what happens. Maybe it gives some kind of electromagnetic force or some kind of light or maybe it’s just the color/shape of the camera. Or maybe the bees if angry just think it is part of the invasive activity. Most of time no issues but sometimes they are crazy and attack the phone. 🤷♂️ Great question though.
You still have the box on the ground, those honey supers just make work for you, they fill em way too fast and you are forever swapping them out, I manage my bees differently to you, one sized box and one size frame, (I only use deeps), it gives me a little more breathing space between honey pulls, and the general rule is one empty box added to the hive below the escape, wait a few days then pull anything over the escape, in the summer the queen is generally in the lower boxes but occasionally she will be up top but you will soon see that in three days time, if there are still a lot of bees up top.
Hey thanks for checking in. I am getting at an age where physically I could not handle all deeps full of honey. I could do it for a few hives but when dealing with 30+ production hives I don’t think I could handle it. The box on the ground was my box. I manage these bees for a friend and every box he owns is on the hives. May need to get some more next year. Thanks for the thoughts and ideas. Good input.
@@brucesbees I am over 70, and I swap out one frame at a time, and I place them into a plastic tote box, on a pull truck, like a billy cart lol, my box lifting days are well and truly over, so I just break everything down to a more manageable size.
That is smart. I may have to resort to that in the future but will probably recruit some help. Last year I pulled the May harvest myself and it about killed me so I hired a young kid to help me out in June and August. Couldn’t have done it alone.
Yes Sentimental Bloke, Work smarter, not harder! When I saw the ladder... that’s one step away from a fall. Re think those 5-6 stacks. Time to decrease the stacks and get more bo
I don’t think so but not sure. Try to kind of stay out of the brood area during honey season though I may peek in occasionally, especially if I sense a problem. Thanks for checking in and thanks for watching!
You need more supers. It doesnt do any good having full capped supers above a excluder. Your asking for a swarm. And your wasting bloom time since they have no room to store nectar
Well I am maxed out on boxes. Any brood above the excluder will emerge and the bees will backfill it with honey. I harvested nearly 7 1/2 five gallon buckets off 5 hives this past weekend. Things seemed to work out ok, but I understand your point and appreciate the comment. Food for thought...
What do you think about this strategy of adding queen excluders and then using bees escapes as discussed in the video. Does anyone have experience with bee escapes? If so is there any particular type you like the best and is there any advice you could give me on their use? Will be using them soon!!!
Hey Bruce, great videos! I started the spring of 2017 and have 25-30 colonies. I've tried brushing, shaking, blowing, and fume boards to remove bees from honey frames. All those methods work to a certain degree, but not without drawbacks. Last year I tried the bee escape with the triangle maize on one bottom side. It seems to be the least invasive to the bees and worked pretty well. Depending on how many full supers you remove, you might replace them with and empty for bee space. I ordered more escapes from Dadant today, making a total of twelve. That's about all I can extract in one day. The only issue is if there is ANY BROOD on a honey frame, the bees will not leave. Moving any frame with brood as low as possible in the stack of supers takes care of the issue. The super with honey and brood is left behind for the bees. That brood will emerge, and the frame will hopefully be back-filled with goldenrod in the fall. I also tried the frame spacer in an 8 frame box down to 7 frames. Saw the first full one yesterday. The bees had drawn out the comb until it was touching each other and utterly full of honey. No more scratching cells too shallow the capping knife! My experience with queen excluders is mixed. It seems like some colonies practically refuse to go through it and back-fill the brood nest, others don't mind it at all. It does seem to make a difference if you put it on too early. So your approach to waiting until the bees are already in the supers makes sense.
I'm in the south Atlanta area and am experiencing a steady early flow as well. I have a few hives with 5-6 supers on already, and the top 3 are full and completely capped like yours. I plan on extracting the first round on April 2nd.
Jason JC’s bee’s has a video on ceracell bee escapes th-cam.com/video/hJHRO3pIBaA/w-d-xo.html
You can buy the metal escape covers on eBay or amazon and make your own clearer boards for under $10
When putting new foundation on a hive let them start drawing comb and putting honey then put your excluded on. They will not go through the excluder to new foundation. I use a leaf blower to get the bees out of the super, I turn the super up on its end near the front and blow using just enough power to get the bees out, it doesn't hurt the bees.
I just got my first nuc of bees last week, so I'm not getting any honey this year, but I get excited when I see beekeepers like you grunting under the weight of a chock-full super of honey. I can't imagine what I'd do with 5 gallons of honey!
It will happen but it takes time! I hope your bees do well!
Northern Illinois here. I’ve used the triangle bee escape and it worked very well. I’ve also used the small escapes that fit into the oval opening in the top cover - that also worked, not as fast but certainly effective. Of my 4 hives last year, 2 crossed the excluder, 2 would not and backfilled - no explanation for that!🥴. Great looking honey for you! Thanks for videos, enjoy them very much. ❤️🐝🐝
Hey thanks for the input. Will see how it goes.
If your bees won't go thru excluder think about a separate top entrance. The excluder does slow your bees down.
Especially on such tall stacks.
Of course a separate entrance is not wanted because you are planning on harvesting soon, but during the flow they are helpful to have.
I put a stick in the corner of the larger hives to create a makeshift upper entrance and improve ventilation.
I wish I had your problem of too much honey - celebrate your success and find some boxes - if I lived closer I'd offer a few of mine. Great job.
Not really too much necessarily just too early lol! I was actually able to mices some boxes around on hives that weren’t quite as strong and give some hives some more space. These bees just amaze me. Will get the honey harvested ASAP and stack em back up. Maybe they can fill them up again. I frankly just wasn’t prepared this early. Everything seems 2 or more weeks early this year.
Thanks for checking in!
Bruce, it looks like you are going to have one sweet harvest!
I hope so. Looking great right now!
That is a huge amount of honey my friend. Great job . Love my Bees 🐝 👍
Yes it is. Great location. Thanks for checking in!
Wow!! I would surely love that kinda harvest. Its always best to harvest asap whenever you have that much so early in the season. Extraction and putting the frames back would allow them to continue right away.
Yes we have decided weather permitting to go ahead and harvest from this location this weekend if we are able to pull it together in time. Thanks for checking in!
@@brucesbees Love your videos. Watching all the way from Jamaica, in the Caribbean
looks good we haven't relay started here in east central Illinois we have pollen coming in not much nectar yet
It will be there soon! Just needs to warm up a bit.
Great video brother!! I think youre onto something. I get better honey production without the excluders. Adding them after will definitely solve brood in the super issues. I suspect it will also reduce the number of bees in supers at harvest.
We will see! I hope it works as planned.
Bees escapes work very well but you have to put an empty super below to give space.
Ok. Thanks for the input. I am basically out of supers. 🤔
Your boxes are stuffed! You could get a honey bound hive in April with 5 mediums on WOW!!! It is to bad you don't have the bee escapes, now you will have to lift those mediums off again and re-stack. That is a lot of honey. I like both of your ideas but in MN we are hoping to get a 60 F day more than once a week. I am jealous and happy for your problem. I'll be interested in which bee escape works best. Cericell (sp) looks cool and are probably the escape I plan on buying unless you show me different. Thanks Bruce.
Hey we went ahead and used the bee escapes and they worked well. I did videos on applying the escapes and removing the honey. Hope you will watch. If I could I probably would have bought the Ceracell escapes. I have one of them and will try it out. But I bought 30 of these escapes and that would have been out of my budget with the Pierco. You just can’t beat free shipping at Mann Lake.
@@brucesbees Yes I watched your video on the escapes and saw they worked well on all but one hive. I will have to order some.
Great and even that hive did ok. Not many bees in there when all was said and done.
A leaf blower works great to get the bees out of your supers... Only bliw from top of frames down and away from hives.
I have used those before and they do work well but gonna try the bee escapes this ho around. Less traumatic on the bees and the beekeeper. Who knows how it will work but we shall see. Thanks for checking in!
If you can’t extract right when you need to, get some plastic tubs with lids to store the frames in until you have enough to extract, freeing up hive bodies and space, I believe ceracell makes a decent bee escape but I don’t use them I stand the body up on its end and use a leaf blower to remove bees.
Don’t forget to undersuper, don’t put foundation above honey they might not realise they’ve been given space, I think you should be removing their honey in the supers regularly and getting new combs drawn out even if you have to store the frames and extract it later.
Hey thanks for the advice. Good information. I try to use those strategies for the most part. Th biggest issue with storing frames is that if stored to long there could be hive beetle problems. Honey needs to be extracted pretty quickly once removed from the hives. Or at least that is what I try to do. These particular hives are not mine and I am using every piece of equipment the owner has. I will probably try to buy some more next year. Thanks again for checking in. I actually found some supers that I could move around a little to give the bees a little more space so I think things are going to work out well.
brucesbees yeah I’m hearing ya, I’ve only had beetles in one box of honey frames I left (forgot) for two weeks in the hot room they slimed the hell out of it, you can freeze the frames over night then store them in an airtight tub for however long you need without the worry of moths or shb.
While Inspecting brood boxes lift up dark or black combs to the super so once the broods emerged you can remove and render the wax and give them a nice fresh foundation to work on, I’ve noticed my bees getting smaller in the older darker combs and they’re not as robust or prolific like they are with new combs in the brood chamber
Hmm interesting thoughts. Thanks! Right now I am just growing so fast I am having a hard time staying ahead of the bees with the equipment I have. But the queens do love laying in brand new recently drawn out frames.
Hearing that you need more equipment, I was thinking that you could maybe have a Rubbermaid box that the frames hang in. Uncap a box and just let the honey drip out overnight, before letting the bees clean the frames up. Do a box each night. Just a thought.
Wow that’s a lot of honey already. I’m just now putting thirds on some hives here in Southeast Louisiana.
Yes. It is a great spot for early honey. I think there is a lot of clover around. My hives in other locations do pretty well but not tíos well early in the year.
Maybe put an add out for one or two local young peoples to come along with you and learn about bees, being a mentor and getting the help you need without costing the world, if it works out you’ve taught someone a valuable skill in return for some manual labour, it maybe something you should think about
Yes that is a good idea. There is a teenage kid that helped me out and saved me last year. He loves it. My son may also be able to help if available. Both of them are big strong younguns. I will not try to do it all alone though hopefully between this next strategy and a new trailer I just bought it will not be quite as physically taxing. We will see soon enough.
brucesbees same here but we brought a truck and a multione, unfortunately my dad who I keep with is having Heart problems recently so he’s taken a step back and I’m in remission from stage 4 blood cancer (I’m not supposed to be alive) it’s been 3 yrs now but I take each day as a bonus though I’m not the fittest I have damaged heart and lungs from chemo and a recent work related spine injury so the physically taxing part of beekeeping is hopefully mitigated with the mechanical help because neither of us are quite capable at the moment, I plan to buy/build a new extraction trailer next our friend has a setup I want to copy, it has an IBC of water and a 10kw generator on the truck that runs a hot water unit, decapper with wax extruder, 40 frame horizontal extractor, honey pump and hot water pressure washer.
He has two custom made wheel barrow for holding the frames that clip into the extractor then you slide the frames in rotate the drum slide in another etc etc then slide them back on the barrow and back into the hives they came from, the back door on the trailer doubles as a ramp for loading the barrows and the honey is pumped straight into an IBC on the truck, all equipment is stainless or foodgrade and the trailer has a certificate for food safety.
I like his idea except I’d change a few things to my liking the cost of the trailer is over 100k so I need to borrow or have a really really good year lol
Beekeeping can get you seriously invested very quickly and I think the important thing is not to bite off more than you can chew and to keep it fun and interesting.
great video sure is a lot of honey early
Yes it has been a good year so far. Thanks.
Bruce I don’t know if you watch him or not but Ian on YT “a Canadian Beekeeper’s blog” has over 1000 hives and he has used the Queen excluders and bee escapes for several years! If you haven’t watched him check out his videos! He’s pretty awesome too! Great job keeping up these hives buddy!
Yes he is one of my favorites. I think some of my ideas about how to do this have been formulated from watching him. But I watch and learn from a lot of people. Always learning. Thanks.
brucesbees exactly why we watch you! You are definitely in our top 3! And we watch probably 20 or so! Thanks again for all you do we have learned so much from you!
What would happen if you went with small cell foundation in your brood boxes only then queen excluders. I bet the workers would go through the excluder easier. And your number of bees would go up to.
I have no idea. Interesting thought though. Thanks for the input.
Have never used small cell foundation.
brucesbees I just got my first hive Tuesday and since I was studying up so much trying to learn all I could that Don the fat bee man said that's all he uses. So I got all small cell foundation starting off. The smaller each cell is the more brood cells per frame and other benefits. But I'm wet behind the ears New so I'm still thinking out loud a lot. :) And thanks for your videos. I've watched a whole lot of them. Your extremely helpful. All of you beekeepers on TH-cam are helping a lot of people get into it. Thanks
Lol that's a good problem to have. It has been a great year so far. Do you put top entrance on at some point with that many boxes? Great video.
Mountaineer Bees I actually put a small stick in the corner of the larger hives for a makeshift upper entrance and to hopefully improve ventilation. Thanks for checking in.
Hey Bruce, why do bees always attack video cameras. Is it because of the motor?
I am not sure at all what happens. Maybe it gives some kind of electromagnetic force or some kind of light or maybe it’s just the color/shape of the camera. Or maybe the bees if angry just think it is part of the invasive activity. Most of time no issues but sometimes they are crazy and attack the phone. 🤷♂️ Great question though.
What is the place? What country are you from?
Alabama, USA
@@brucesbees as I thought. The first place that's occured to me was Alabama). I'm from Ukraine. Like and subscription)
Great thanks!
You still have the box on the ground, those honey supers just make work for you, they fill em way too fast and you are forever swapping them out, I manage my bees differently to you, one sized box and one size frame, (I only use deeps), it gives me a little more breathing space between honey pulls, and the general rule is one empty box added to the hive below the escape, wait a few days then pull anything over the escape, in the summer the queen is generally in the lower boxes but occasionally she will be up top but you will soon see that in three days time, if there are still a lot of bees up top.
Hey thanks for checking in. I am getting at an age where physically I could not handle all deeps full of honey. I could do it for a few hives but when dealing with 30+ production hives I don’t think I could handle it. The box on the ground was my box. I manage these bees for a friend and every box he owns is on the hives. May need to get some more next year. Thanks for the thoughts and ideas. Good input.
@@brucesbees I am over 70, and I swap out one frame at a time, and I place them into a plastic tote box, on a pull truck, like a billy cart lol, my box lifting days are well and truly over, so I just break everything down to a more manageable size.
That is smart. I may have to resort to that in the future but will probably recruit some help. Last year I pulled the May harvest myself and it about killed me so I hired a young kid to help me out in June and August. Couldn’t have done it alone.
Hopefully I will still be able to do it at 70.
Yes Sentimental Bloke, Work smarter, not harder! When I saw the ladder... that’s one step away from a fall. Re think those 5-6 stacks. Time to decrease the stacks and get more bo
Some of those hives probaly already swarmed I bet lol keep after em
I don’t think so but not sure. Try to kind of stay out of the brood area during honey season though I may peek in occasionally, especially if I sense a problem. Thanks for checking in and thanks for watching!
Oh, please don’t tell me you just threw that honey burr on the ground after crapping it off the frames?? Tell me it isn’t true!
Why not? The bees will clean it up. So yes I guess it’s true. Sorry.
You need more supers. It doesnt do any good having full capped supers above a excluder. Your asking for a swarm. And your wasting bloom time since they have no room to store nectar
Well I am maxed out on boxes. Any brood above the excluder will emerge and the bees will backfill it with honey. I harvested nearly 7 1/2 five gallon buckets off 5 hives this past weekend. Things seemed to work out ok, but I understand your point and appreciate the comment. Food for thought...