Oxalic Acid.

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It's a pity they did not make a sequel film or three - there's lots of material in Patrick O'Brian's novels.

CVB

Unfortunately the b**gered up the whole thing by taking good bits from almost all the books - if you recall, the end of the world was one of the last in the series. They couldn't even do a 'Star Wars' stunt which started halfway through so they had to rewind!!
 
Unfortunately the b**gered up the whole thing by taking good bits from almost all the books - if you recall, the end of the world was one of the last in the series. They couldn't even do a 'Star Wars' stunt which started halfway through so they had to rewind!!

Yes, and they did not even touch on Maturin's role as an intelligence agent plus in the book, the enemy was the USA - not good for film rights in the US so they changed it to the French. Never mind, you can still enjoy the music from all of the books here

CVB
 
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For those unfortunate enough not to have seen the film Master and Commander, here's what we're on about - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l78VNe_dhAM

I put this on the forum on the spurious pretext that the character Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) who plays the cello in the film extract kept bees aboard HMS Surprise, in one of the books - that makes him a beekeeper!

CVB
 
For those unfortunate enough not to have seen the film Master and Commander, here's what we're on about - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l78VNe_dhAM

I put this on the forum on the spurious pretext that the character Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) who plays the cello in the film extract kept bees aboard HMS Surprise, in one of the books - that makes him a beekeeper!

CVB

How can you keep bees on a ship... :D
 
How can you keep bees on a ship... :D

An interesting question. How did they transport British bees by ship from the UK to Australia/New Zealand/America in the first place. The bees that were first sent to Tasmania by ship came from just outside Thirsk ....just down the road from me, so of interest..

The only way I can think they did it was to keep them confined and feed syrup to them. Voyages took around 2-3 months http://www.anmm.gov.au/Learn/Librar...alia-A-Comparison-of-Vessels-and-Journey-Time
 
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An interesting question. How did they transport British bees by ship from the UK to Australia/New Zealand/America in the first place. The bees that were first sent to Tasmania by ship came from just outside Thirsk ....just down the road from me, so of interest..

The only way I can think they did it was to keep them confined and feed syrup to them. Voyages took around 2-3 months http://www.anmm.gov.au/Learn/Librar...alia-A-Comparison-of-Vessels-and-Journey-Time
It was tongue in cheek what i mentioned , obviously they where shipped from here to there or there to here. the bees will have been shut up obviously. :spy:
 
Its a fascinating question. The first bees to Tasmania are reckoned to have been sent there about 1830's. Not sure what they would have used, guess skeps or early wooden hives.
It;s a case where an actual picture would paint a.......
 
How can you keep bees on a ship... :D

If memory serves, he was studying (he was a natural philosopher (naturalist)) how the bees would survive. They survived by drinking the officers' chocolate from the wardroom, which did not go down with the other officers. The Captain eventually told him to get rid of the bees at the first opportunity.

JMB will be along in a minute and tell us which book it was in. -[edit - just found it - it happened in Post Captain aboard HMS Lively and it was cocoa they drank, not chocolate]

CVB
 
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Surely they would have had to get there bearings every 10 seconds let alone the amount of unavailable sugar they must have gone trough..:rolleyes:

You have to realise that the ships them days sailed at a pace comparable to a drunken stroll home from the pub - in more ways than one as they seldom sailed in a straight line for long but tacked or weared regularly to progress in the vague direction they required. They had to have the wind coming from the side so they were almost always sailing in a different direction to the one they wanted!
 
If memory serves, he was studying (he was a natural philosopher (naturalist)) how the bees would survive. They survived by drinking the officers' chocolate from the wardroom, which did not go down with the other officers. The Captain eventually told him to get rid of the bees at the first opportunity.

JMB will be along in a minute and tell us which book it was in. -[edit - just found it - it happened in Post Captain aboard HMS Lively and it was cocoa they drank, not chocolate]

CVB

Chocolate is manufactured by boiling the cocoa bean in NaOH !
The cocoa the Officers would have drunk would have had plenty of cane sugar added.. as it is quitter bitter otherwise.

Cocoa powder from Liptons was 85% cane sugar, 10% cocoa bean and 5% flavorings, colourings ( Brown FK) and anti caulking agent ( probably Oxalic acid anhydride)... but do not quote me on that as one expects the formula was hush hush ( post war and all that stuff) and will by now be changed dramatically!

Yeghes da
 
Were you congratulating him on his good health, or, did you mean "quiEt"?

No, I meant he had kept well, up until this point, similar to milk in a fridge keeping well for a while, as opposed to milk that is not in a fridge, that turns... Rancid, much sooner.
 

Thnaks for that link.....seems they still aren't 100% sure how they were packed for the journey though they think skeps probably weren't used. ""Whoever it was that packed the bees for the long sea journey, they must have been expert apiarists, and, no doubt, they selected the most modern hives, so it is very doubtful that any of the old-fashioned thimble-shaped beehives, or "skeps" were
ever sent to Australia with bees in residence. Three years before the first bees had arrived in Australia, Robert Kerr, of Ayrshire, in 1819, had invented the Stewarton Octagonal hive, and an Englishman. Major Munn, in 1843, had patented a frame-hive.""

Loved the bit about 1000lbs of honey per hive.
 

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