Ralph Yamamoto's Blog - All Comments

RE: Bees in Oregon 2026

ralphjy — Sun, 03 May 2026 21:21:58 GMT

[mention:43d2c3e8825e4123967cacd2bb7a769b:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] thought you might like this video - Mason bees have been pretty active now the weather is dry and warmer (around 30C today).

[View:/cfs-file/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-74268e92-d081-417d-a555-5e07632cca17/Mason-Bees-2026.mp4:640:360]

My wife mentioned to me that they were buzzing her today while she was weeding, so I took the opportunity to get a video. My idea of using an IP camera to monitor the bees didn't pan out. I'm having some WiFi issues with the camera, so it's been hard to record streaming video. The motion detection also doesn't work well with the bees, but it does great with birds and squirrels [emoticon:752f32bcc91d4a448db162742a877a4a].

I did see a spider on the bee house. Not sure if it was causing problems but I cleared it out.

RE: Bees in Oregon 2026

ralphjy — Fri, 01 May 2026 23:39:46 GMT

Still trying to figure out the mystery of the bumblebee nest. Bumblebees don't dig their own nest cavities, so the question is what animal created this nest. Bumblebees frequently make their nests in abandoned rodent nests, so I suspected that this might have been one that was left by a Creeping Vole which is like a small field mouse and is known to inhabit this region in the Willamette Valley. The voles are also known to make nests in tree roots. Unfortunately, a vole tunnel normally has a larger diameter (20-25mm) compared to the 12-15mm hole that I found. I remember that we actually had voles in the lawn a few years ago and the holes were slightly larger. Vole holes do not have the .large mounds of dirt that you get with moles.

While I was pondering this thought, I was walking the dogs in a forested area about a mile from our house. I saw a bumblebee flying around the base of a large pine tree and when I went to check, I found a very similar hole in the ground.

Maybe one day I'll figure it out... In the meantime, I'll just enjoy the bumblebees like this one in the Azalea bush this afternoon.

RE: Bees in Oregon 2026

DAB — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:38:19 GMT

Nice update.

Everything in Ohio is about 3 weeks ahead of normal.

I have plants blooming, bees buzzing, I even put on shorts last week.

RE: Bees in Oregon 2026

beacon_dave — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 21:19:46 GMT

Have you checked under your bicycle saddle lately ?

"Swarm of 10,000 bees settles on bike outside Louvre in Paris"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70vjx99w2vo

RE: Bees in Oregon 2026

beacon_dave — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:20:47 GMT

Awesome find. What would you say the diameter of that nest entrance hole was ?

Apparently they quite often make use of abandoned mouse nests, however I've never spotted one of these either.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

beacon_dave — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:58:01 GMT

First bumblebee sightings of the year here today. One at work and another hard at work on the Hellebores in the back garden.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

beacon_dave — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 21:09:49 GMT

Are you planning on making any improvements to the garden this year ? Any garden tech projects ?

I picked up some thicker bamboo canes at the weekend to have another go at training some of the Salvia plants vertically to try and get them to knit into the bottom of the old Hawthorn hedge. They will grow to about 4 foot tall if well enough supported until established. Running out of horizontal space so need to expand vertically [emoticon:c4563cd7d5574777a71c318021cbbcc8]

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

DAB — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 19:25:08 GMT

Nice post.

Still winter where I am, but I have put in a new planting for my hydroponic garden.

The Basil and Dill are both up and several other seeds look like they are beginning to sprout.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

robogary — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:02:03 GMT

Nice flower pics.

Around my house we'd have to put an 8 foot barbed wire fence around them to keep the deer from destroying them.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

beacon_dave — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:44:57 GMT

"...bee activity in a patch of Heather (at least that's what my wife calls it)..."

I got three varieties of winter flowering bee-friendly heather toward the end of last year to try and extend the food supply further into the winter months.

One variety 'Furzey' is doing better than the rest. The 'Myretoun Ruby' is having a bit of a go but the Whitehall is really struggling.

I got some sulphur chips to try and adjust the pH of the soil in their favour but looks like they will need the soil temperature to increase for the microbes to start breaking them down to acidify the soil.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

scottiebabe — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:10:47 GMT

Still cold up here

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

beacon_dave — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:01:49 GMT

"...Good eye test to see if you can spot the honeybee in the next two pics..."

My four new Hellebores are in full flower but I've not seen any bee activity as yet this year.

Weather has been pretty wet and windy here so far.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

genebren — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 16:01:25 GMT

Crazy weather! We went from freezing to potential 80 degrees in less than a week here in Texas. I not sure all the plants and creatures can keep up with the changes.

RE: Premature Spring in Oregon 2026

veluv01 — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 08:16:45 GMT

I miss the spring.The hellebore and camellia look great. It's a carpenter bee on the last pic.

RE: Pynq on Ultra96v2

AYri — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 17:10:14 GMT

I'm currently working on a project that involves implementing an AI model on the DPU of the Ultra96v2. I'm using pyxir_dpu after quantizing the model and generating the .xmodel file with Vitis AI 2.5. However, I'm encountering an issue I can't solve: no matter how many times I re-quantize the model, I have the same problem, and attempting to reshape the input format crashes the kernel. Do you have any suggestions?