New Mars Forums

Official discussion forum of The Mars Society and MarsNews.com

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Announcement: As a reader of NewMars forum, we have opportunities for you to assist with technical discussions in several initiatives underway. NewMars needs volunteers with appropriate education, skills, talent, motivation and generosity of spirit as a highly valued member. Write to newmarsmember * gmail.com to tell us about your ability's to help contribute to NewMars and become a registered member.

#1 2020-04-12 10:16:07

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
Website

Flow honey - better be

Flow Hive

flowinghoney-BeesnBargains2019-text4257-text4262.gif

Here's a brilliant idea! Don't dismantle the behive to harvest honey. Frames have partially assembled cells, bees finish with wax and fill with honey. When you want to harvest, turn the handle. It splits the cells, left half up, right half down. The honey then drains out. So just turn a handle.

There are companies that "rent" behives. An 18-wheel semi-truck with beehives (technically apiaries) are delivered to pollinate a field. When done the bees are put back with smoke, their hives sealed and loaded on the truck to take them to the next farm. We could do the same on a smaller scale. Move a beehive from greenhouse to greenhouse. But again, this "flow hive" sounds great.

Explanation video:
ARA_7_Harvest_1500px_72dpi-text4286.jpg

Offline

#2 2020-04-12 10:51:06

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Flow honey - better be

For RobertDyck re this interesting new topic!

Thanks for the topic (a) and (b) for this (surprising to me) launch!

Best wishes for a long run. Everyone (presumably) in the forum can participate in raising bees, either directly on their own property, or indirectly by supporting others.  It is even possible to support bee hives in public places.

The local government has officially supported a local bee specialist, by providing space on government grounds for a decent sized bee hive cluster.

The connection to Mars seems quite reasonable (from my perspective).

(th)

Offline

#3 2020-04-12 11:41:28

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
Website

Re: Flow honey - better be

This guy has some warnings about Flowhive. (click image for video)

mqdefault_6s.webp?du=3000&sqp=CM_6zPQF&rs=AOn4CLB2IawkZ5QPanW9L_jjP3vdQLOmpg

::Edit:: A couple issues raised in this video. Different types of honey in the same frame, and harvesting honey releases all honey in the one frame. You get whatever the bees put there, possibly from different plants. The other issue is honey from some plants is not liquid, so the cells will not "split". But on Mars we will have closed greenhouses, so we will know exactly what plants the bees are collecting.

Offline

#4 2020-04-12 11:55:38

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
Website

Re: Flow honey - better be

Hmm. How to check whether the frame is capped without removing it? A modification of the flow frame; with a channel to allow a stick with a cellphone camera. The channel would have to be sealed to keep bees out, but transparent so the camera can see through. The flow frame splits vertically, so you can't install a channel horizontally. That would block the cells from splitting. Vertical channels peridically down the frame. You would have to remove the roof, but keep the lid in place. Holes in the lid that align with channels in the frames. So you can stick a camera stick as down to look at the opposite facing frame. The camera stick would have to be a lot smaller than a selfie-stick; again I'm thinking of a cellphone camera. Lens on the camera should be "fisheye" to see a significant amount of the facing frame, and optimized for short focal length. Battery and in the stick handle and Bluetooth? So you can use Bluetooth to connect to your smartphone to view the video.

Offline

#5 2020-04-13 11:30:26

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Flow honey - better be

For RobertDyck ... thanks again for your recent posts about bees.

This next item seems most applicable to the Live support topic, but it might fit elsewhere as well:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/settle-mars- … 00934.html

The article at the link above describes the use of nanoscale wires to provide a scaffolding for bacteria which (apparently) can use photons to make useful molecules. 

(th)

Offline

#6 2020-04-13 13:00:46

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
Website

Re: Flow honey - better be

Some plants have been genetically modified to produce useful things. For example, cotton has been modified to produce polyester. So the fibre is a cotton/polyester blend as it's harvested from the field, no post-processing required. Some bacteria have been developed to grow like yeast in a vat, and produce various chemicals from the human body that can be sold as pharmaceuticals. For example, human growth hormone. It used to be the only way to get that was to harvest pituitary glands from the brain of human cadavers. It took many pituitary glands to produce enough growth hormone for one treatment. But now a bacteria can be grown in a vat, feeding it water and sugar.

I don't see what role the nanoscale wires do. Cyanobacteria are the original single cell organism to develop a double photosystem. Chloroplasts are organelles in leaf cells; photosynthesis happens there. Chloroplasts are enslaved cyanobacteria; each chloroplast has a single plasmid with 85% of the DNA of cyanobacteria. You can grow cyanobacteria in a vat or a transparent plastic bag. Spirulina is a mass of a certain variety of cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria used to be called blue-green algae, although today cyanobacteria is recognized as a bacterium, while algae is eukaryotic. My point is, why the wires?

Offline

#7 2020-04-13 17:41:50

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 16,756

Re: Flow honey - better be

For RobertDyck re #6

Thank you for taking a look at the article in Post #5, and asking what seems (to me at least) a quite reasonable question.

The professor who did the work could probably answer the question, but all we have available right now is the translation through the mind of the reporter:

Popular Mechanics   
Caroline Delbert
,Popular Mechanics•April 13, 2020

I have selected a particularly interesting (to me anyway) bit of text:

A frame made of nanowires draws in electrons that serve as food for the vital bacteria attached to the frame, and these bacteria convert the electrons into acetate molecules.

Electrons serve as food for bacteria?

That way of phrasing whatever the professor actually said looks fishy to me, at best.

If someone already a member of the forum has an insight into what the professor actually might have said, and is willing to post a comment, I'd appreciate it.

If a forum reader who is NOT already a member has some insight, please register and post a comment to help out.

(th)

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB