Thank you Skeggley, well spotted. New glasses are in the pipeline.
I planted garlic over the past 2 weeks. None of them are sprouting. I found a new lot this morning from a different shop, some of them with green sprouts, so I’ll be replacing all the other ones this afternoon. The good thing about growing garlic is the ones that don’t sprout are still edible.
I harvested some pinkeye potatoes this morning. Some of them come out of the place where I buried the cane toads.
I have another cane toad to bury in the garden.
They are hard to kill, especially when you’re all suited up & away from home. I saw one sitting under a hive at one of my bee sites. I grabbed it but had no quick way to kill it as I was in a hurry. I had no bucket with a lid. I tried to shove it inside a disposable glove, the glove just tore. I had some compressed cardboard as smoker fuel plus some masking tape. What I did was quickly wrapped it to the cardboard with masking tape, then froze it after I got home.
cheers
It is good to see one suffering frost bite Jeff. There seems more about this time of year than in the past. Out at my apiary after dark you can hardly take a step without treading on one. as you say they are hard to kill. I used to practice my golf swing on them with a 2 iron, they would fly 35 meters, land and hop away. 
Still find the odd big one feeding at a hive entrance 50 cm’s up off the ground at night, wonder if it is the same I have killed dozens of times. 
Cheers mate
Hi Pete, while I was uploading the photos & answering a phone call, the outside of the skin thawed. As it turned out that yellowish color on the toad is that poison they exude behind the head. Yeah I’ll have to carry a bucket & lid in the future. However the masking tape was quick & did a good job. It’s that rubbish “paint & paper” brand tape from Bunnings. I only use it to light my smoker,… & the toad.
cheers
Another one bites the dust. Nice work using what was at hand, and a good story to start my Saturday morning in the garden, Jeff!
Another one went to sleep in my freezer. It was sitting directly under the entrance of a hive this morning. I like the compressed cardboard/packaging tape idea 
Lucky they don’t have this ability:
I thought I’d put this photo in the appropriate topic, then stay on topic.
There was 48 in the bin, I’ll see how much the numbers build up over the coming nights.
In reply: The numbers increased by 40 after last night’s effort. A bit more than I thought I had. I’ll see what tonight yields.
Surprisingly enough, I discovered that they stay still while I catch them with my granny grabber while using a white led light. However they hop away if I see them with the red light, & harder to catch. The white light on a low setting didn’t disturb the bees much. As long as I keep it away from the entrances.
Edit: Last night yielded only 10. It took 30 minutes to find #10. I was hoping for 12 to give me an even ton. However if I add the 4 I caught during the first day, that totals 102. I’ll give it a rest for a while now.
In reply to my comment in Nov '20. Roughly at the same time (on another thread), I mentioned how I buried about a hundred cane toads in between two rows of sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes are harvested, now I’m planting potatoes, kipflers to be precise.
I still had a stick to mark where I buried the cane toads. I had a bit of a dig, all I can find is clusters of bones & worms, as in this photo. There was a worm there, but it must have fell off between the garden & house.
As the bones break down, they’ll add more nutrition (calcium, I suspect) to the soil, which is exactly where I plan to put a row of spuds in the coming days.
In reply, I planted 2 rows of kipfler spuds adjacent to the row of cane toad remains, one each side. Here’s a pic of the first row I harvested.
I can’t give all the credit to the cane toads. I did use worm juice & castings as well as a product called “Organic Xtra”. I also use wax water in conjunction with worm juice as a liquid fertilizer.
As you can see the skin comes off easy when freshly harvested. That skin came off with the pressure of the hose. The skin rubs off easy with a pot scrubber in the first 24 hours. After that, it gets more challenging. Therefore I’ll deal with these spuds today.
cheers
Are they coming from a nearby pond? I would find the eggs and beach them. That would make the biggest impact.
Edit: this showed up as new. 
with no comments. 
cheers.
Hi Fred, sorry I missed your question until now, because I want to post a Cane Toad update.
They breed in all sorts of places, dams, creeks etc. especially during a lot of rain. There’s a small dam, plus a creek not far from where my bees are, maybe 150 meters away. After a lot of rain, I’m now seeing lots of tiny ones on the ground in that area, hopping around like little crickets.
That has prompted me to look again for adult ones that could be feasting on my bees, after some hot days which normally brings them out. I wasn’t disappointed.
Two nights ago I caught 20, which was challenging without a bee suit & wearing shorts & thongs. Last night, despite the heat, I was better prepared, suited up with boots. I haven’t counted them yet, but I’m guessing 40. I’ll upload some photos later, showing my catching technique.
Wilma said: “They’re revolting”. I guess I have to agree. The thing to consider is how many bees do they eat in order to grow to a substantial size, like in my photos?
The bottom photo shows my granny grabber - pick up stick, the perfect cane toad catching device. I keep the toads at arms length at all times. With an led torch, they sit still while I catch them. Then into a 20L bucket, with a 10L bucket on top to prevent them hopping out. The total for last night was 41. I don’t expect to catch that many tonight.
Around here we eat frog legs. They are pretty tasty. Wonder if them toads are delicious too. 
Here is a trap I found:
Cane Catcher - Cane Toad Catcher Trap - Humanely Protect Your Pets from Poisonous Cane Toads https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BRC6TYD/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_g_W24RKS7ABSRE5R2PP857
So after doing some light reading. Cane toad legs are a very healthy and delicious food option. I recommend trying them.
@JeffH I was advised to site my hive on a breeze block because of Cane toad’s in our area (Northern Rivers) but ended up using the base of a wrought iron chair (no back) as it was a bit higher.
However, tonight being a humid evening, I went to check on my bees (you kindly gave some advice about my bearding bees on an earlier post) to see if they had gone back into the hive and noticed a Cane toad, sat below the hive on the concrete plinth that the hive sits on. It hopped off into the bushes before I could get it, but I returned later and found a big one and the same on I’d seen before ! I wasn’t quick enough, but my daughter was and we are now on Cane toad patrol as I had no idea they could jump 50cm 
I already harassed a Water Dragon that was showing interest in my ladies 😵💫
Hi Sara, I went for the third night running to catch toads last night. Despite 20, 41, I caught a slow 21 last night. The size has dropped, I’ve caught all the big ones. They sit still under the light of an led torch, while I grab them with my device, which is about 2ft. long. Mostly I reach from over the back of the hives. Even while I face them head on, they seem to freeze under the led light.
I have 9 stands with roughly 45 hives on them. I slowly walked around each stand, picking them off as they appeared. They seemed to appear from nowhere.
I also have my hives elevated. I think the toads are mostly feasting on the old discarded bees, however they do have elastic sticky tongues, & they are known to piggy back each other in order to get closer to the bees, especially while the bees are bearding.
I’m noticing a lot of beards during these hot nights, which can’t be avoided because bees can’t collect water during the night, which results in some bearding, which is nothing to worry about, & not something that I would try to correct, except for maybe reducing the population slightly, in the case of a large beard
@JeffH Sounds like you’ve got a great idea with the granny grab, I’m going to try that tonight.
My bees haven’t bearded as bad at night, but early afternoon they have even though the picture I recently posted doesn’t show it.
Occasionally I notice a smell coming from the hive, haven’t smelt it before so it’s hard to describe, but I would say it smells a little fermented. By the next day, it’s gone, don’t suppose you have any ideas what that could be, oh wise one ?
