Latest Project Is In Parit Buntar, Perak !!!

A 3 years old BH with only one miserable nest.

The owner seems to be totally at a lost.

He sound like given up all hope and after meeting his vendor who supply chicken feed was advised to contact me.

I came to know the so call Vendor, about 1.5 years ago.

He stumbled onto by blog and invited me to have a good look at his 3 years old BH with about 500 nests.

After following my suggestions he saw improvements in his BH.

Only after that he dared to recommend me to take a look at the Parit Buntar BH.

"Pak Harry, this particular BH belongs to one of my customer and I think the owner needed your help.  I strongly recommended you to him and please help him."

I took a good look at the affected BH and as usual there were very little thing that meets my specification.

The entrance hole were wrongly done, very little external sound tweeters, no VIP room, very little internal sound tweeter and the worse was the very long flying path to be taken by those birds before entering the nesting room.

From my recent inspection of the BH I realized that there were plenty of bird shit markings on the walls of the monkey house roving room.

These markings are usually made by those birds that were fascinated with the external sound used.  Once they enter the monkey house they will usually spray their shit onto the walls as a kind of territorial marks.

The issue here was this weird problem.  How come they are not entering the nesting room?

With very careful examination I realized that the owner opened a door too far away from the roving point.

The distance from the entrance hole to this connecting door is about 35 feet.

That was not all the door was so hidden that even myself will have difficulties to find it.

To prove my theory I planned to shut the flying path to this particular door and open a new one which will eventually cut the distance from 35 feet to only about 18 feet.

A new challenge and I strongly feel that it will work.

The work started on Tuesday August 7th 2012 and I hope to finish the job within 10 days.

Beside opening a new door I have listed a few additional works as follows:

1) Install a hexagonal tweeter at the main entrance hole.

2) Open up the main entrance hole facing the evening flying path by at least 1 foot to the left and 2 feet downwards.

3) Open up the second entrance hole larger from 2 feet X 2.5 feet to 5 feet X 2.5 feet.

4) Add a number of power tweeters on the edge of those monkey house.

5) Re arrange the tweeters at the main and secondary entrance holes.

6) Arrange for additional power tweeters for my last tango system.

7) Block the light from polluting the nesting room by erecting a wall inside the nesting room.

8) Paint those areas that might reflect those sun light into the nesting room.

9) Erect a few more walls to create a VIP room.

10) Insert a number of wood crossings to make the current nesting planks more pleasurable to those young birds.

11) Install cluster woods for cluster tweeters installation.

12) Install at least 200 fake nests on selected spots.

13) Clean all those planks that are dirty.

14) Install waste wood corners on the perimeter nesting planks.

15) Install at least 180 pieces of internal sound tweeters.

16) Spray the BH with Mutiara Aroma for at least 5 days.

17) Use an auto sensor activator for two humidifiers to wet the nesting room.

Let see if these repair works helps to induce more of those wild birds to take up the offer to be the BH tenants.

I am very sure they will.

There will be a number of new things that I planned to add.

I hope within the next few days it will be ready for reopening of a new swiftlet hotel in Parit Buntar, Perak.

It will be one of the hot staff in town.

If any one who wanted to take a good look at the transformation please call 017 755 1318.

The visit fee is only 250 ringgit.

Dual Entries BH in Karak, Pahang !!!

The dual entries BH was officially launched about three to four months ago.

The owner cut down nearly all those trees and shrubs.  The whole area was also protected with cement walls about 6 feet tall.

I was impressed with the amount of money being put into getting the land cleared.

She now planted a number of durian trees.

Coming back to the BH, remember that this was the only BH that I erected using the dual entries concept.

My idea came from this unique idea on how to ensure that every swiftlet that visited this dual entries BH will have what they wish to enter.

I have this strange opinion that if a bird was hatched and raised in a top entry BH he or she will have difficulties to enter a BH that has the side entry entrance hole.

Likewise if a young bird was raised in a side entry type BH he or she will have difficulties to enter a BH with top entry type BH.

My main reason being:

Once they reached 45 days old they will take their maiden flight and will fly out of their house with their parent.

Since this is their first day to take flight they will get tired and will return home to rest.

This is how they will fly in and out of the entrance hole to get used to the flying pattern from their nest out and from outside into the BH.

They will memories the distance from the entrance hole to the door, from the first door to the second door and after entering the second door may be 45* to the left before reaching their nest where they were hatched.

This familiarization operation will take at least one to two days during the beginning part of their flying life.

So when they got used to the method to fly into their BH they might have difficulties to enter any new BH if they are not of similar configuration.

Those that were raised in a top entry type BH will have difficulties to enter a side entry type while those that were hatched and raised in a side entry type BH will have difficulties to enter a top entry type BH.

If this philosophy is right the best for option for you to adopt is to have both type of entries.  DUAL Entries.

Dual entries have another interesting benefit.

If there are two or three groups or colonies of birds.  They are very territorial and will fight until death to defend their house/cave.

How do you segregate them?

The answer is have two or more entrance holes.

You might not like the above explanation but just think about it and keep it in your mind.

The sound used was Pukau5

You can see a kind of elevated VIP room at the back.

Those swiftlet are all over

If you wish to talk more details please write to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com or call 0177551318

An Update On Those Insect Breeding Inside A BH !!!

Never a dull moment.

As if I am not busy enough with so many calls, BH visits, report preparation, conversion of shop houses into BH, revamp of semi finished BHs, organizing seminars, looking after visitors, setting up of insect barn, installation of mobile insect generating unit, update my blog, face book (harrykok) and many many more.

Today received a very interesting call from a BH owner who recently completed a four stories BH and each floor is about 14,000 square feet.

"Pak Harry, I need some help.  Can you arrange to meet me in Butterworth next week?  I need some professional advise on how to get my newly launched BH populated."

I look forward to meet him on Tuesday to see what I can help with his unusual problem with an unusual sized BH.

Anyway before I get more details about his interesting story let me show you something that I have been working on.

Been carrying out some tests on the insect generating powder in a BH in Kepong, Selangor.

The latest findings are as follows:





1) It is better to start the insect generation in stages.

When those insects are little in numbers you will find that the amount of insect generating powder might be too much.  Good example:  if you are about to start the insect breeding you purchased say 5 kg of the insect generating powder.  It is better for you to find a way to get those starter insects.  The method that i recently wrote to one of my client is as follows:

"Well I have been waiting for your mail about this matter.
What you need to do will be as follows:
Do not mix the insect powder yet.
Go to the wet market and see if you can buy a few (5-10 pieces) of a very ripe pineapple.  Yes the very ripe and those that the seller wanted to throw away.
One unit is about 50 cent.
get 10 of them.
Take them home and cut them into small pieces.
Put the cut pineapple into a resoanable size container and sprinkle with some water (about one litre plus).
Now get some yeast powder, about 200 grams, from any bakery shop or supermarket (making cakes section).
Sprinkle the yeast powder on the wet cut pineapples.
Now take this container to the back of your house and put it at one corner perhaps on a chair.
Let it be fermented and turn into wine.
While doing so come and see if there are any fruit fly coming from the air to drink those juicy wine and start to lay their eggs.
Continue until you see lots of these fly inside the container.
If I were you try to cover the container mouth with those see thru plastic and open some hole to allow these fruit fly to enter and lay their eggs.
Within a few days you will see more and more insects inside the container and at one time there will be lots of maggots inside the wine.
Once they are about 200 to 500 of these maggots plus the flying insect you are ready to start your insect generating mixing.
Can you try and see if it works.
The fruit fly comes from those drains or rubbish bins.
They help us to clear those rubbish.
Hope you will have a fun time.
Harry"

Once you have this done and there are lots of those fruit flies around you can now start mixing your insect powder.

Try to do it in stages.  The first batch about 1.5 - 2 kilograms and after the first 10 days you might want to increase to about 3-5 kilograms of those powder.

The reason being if there are little number of flies you will only waste those insect powder.

2) Those fruit flies have some kind preferences.

We don't actually know much about those fruit flies behaviours.

If seems that they do have a kind of preference in choosing which containers to lay their eggs.

If you have started one set you will see that some containers have more maggots than the others.

I am of the opinion that these fruit fly do have a kind of liking to those that are well fermented and with the right viscosity.

Beside the above the temperature and darkness do play some part in making their selection.

3) They tend to stand on their head.

If you bring a magnifying glass you might be able to see some interesting phenomena how these maggots eat the insect powder soup.

Most of them eat with their head down to the bottom.

Incredible eating upside down.

4) The wetness of the soup do affect those maggots.

There will be a few of those soup containers got dried faster than the rest.

As the got dried you might be able to see that those that are a little dry but not totally dried will have nothing much on the top layer.

If you peel the top layer those maggots are hiding at the bottom. 

You might be able to see lots of those air vents for their breathing.

If you pour water on these semi harden cake, within a few minute you will see many maggots starts to gather at the wet area.

They are either thirsty or maybe wanted to breath some air.

5) Try not to throw away the used soup/cake.

Once the soup or cake have been in operation for about 40 days or more you might want to replace them with new soup.

My advise to you is not to throw away these food.

Try to place them into a bigger container that like a dustbin.

Put it inside the insect generating room and maybe wet them with water.

You will be surprised that within a few days there will be a lot of insect from these "waste" bin.

To us it might be a waste product but to those insects they are still food.

6) Provide the maggots with something to cling to.

When their time to be in maggots stage is up they need to craw out of the soup (usually) and find a dry place and cool place to transform into pupa.

You might see a lot of these pupa sacks at the base of your containers.

What I want to suggest is to consider putting something into the container example a pvc pipe about 1 foot long.

The pipe is for those maggot to migrate and transform.

7) Get some bucket of water.

I think it is proper to put about two to three buckets of water inside the insect generating room.

Those flying insect do need to drink.

If there is no water they might be thirsty and might fly away to some other place thus will not lay their eggs inside your newly prepared soup.

Hope you enjoy reading some of these discoveries and ideas !!!!

For more details write to harryswiftlet@yahoo.com or simply call 0177551318

Nests Foundation Markings Using Glue Bottle !!!

When ever there is an opportunity to try something new I usually will not miss this opportunity.

The best is when I have a newly renovated or revamped BHs.

For the recent BH located in Seremban I got this interesting idea about applying those nests foundation aroma using an empty glue bottle.

The aroma was actually bought from a BH accessories shop and it came in powder form.

All you need to do is to follow the given instructions where you mixed a small amount of the powder with warm water and let it be fermented for at least 5 days.

Once fermented you need to filter the water and use the liquid onto your nesting planks.

It was indicated that the powder is not those bird shit based so it is safe to apply onto your BH nesting planks.

The smell form the fermented liquid is a bit unusual, something like salted fish smell.

The normal way is to use those rubber stamp that was provided with the powder.

I came out with an interesting way of using an empty but clean glue bottle that you can buy from any stationary shops.

Remove the glue (water based) and clean the bottle properly.

Fill the bottle with the aroma juice and cover it up with the special cap that have a kind of sponge on it.

Once you BH is about to be put into operation you can now squeeze the bottle and wet the sponge on the bottle tip.

You can now start to make as many "U" shapes markings on those selected areas.

For some reference have a look at this pictures taken yesterday in Seremban.

The foundation made will attract those young birds to lock themselves onto the selected point and will start making their nests.

This was what the material supplier indicated.

An interesting idea that you might want to try.

For more details please contact harryswiftlet@yahoo.com or call 017 7551318 now.

Another Story About Those Insect Maggots !!!

What do you think these fruit fly maggots are made of?

The answer is protein.

Is protein good for you?

I am sure the answer is yes.

Let me show you the latest maggots in a number of containers that uses those insect generating powder in a BH.

There were a few thousands in just one container.

I am very happy with the output of insect and I can say that those birds seems to have notice that there are plenty of insect flying out of the entrance hole.

Those birds will visit this BH every morning and on a kind of periodic basis they will came close by to harvest those insects that tried to escape from the room.

Of many occasions a high percentage of those birds that came to east entered the entrance hole.

By doing this you will stand a higher chances to populate your BH.

What you really need is a scheduled of how many trays to be filled with those soup and how many times in a month they should be cleaned and refresh.

To those of you who have little idea on how to mobilize the insect generating system please call 0177551318.

Let me give you the total concept so that your BH will do better than your neighbours.

You will soon be a better swiftlet farmer.

Why We Age ?

An explanation on why we age.

It was due to the end of our chromosome caps (telomeres) that got shorter every time our cell divides.

Once there is no longer end caps we actually tend to be infected by diseases and get sick and die.

Let me share with you about this you tube clip:




This new discovery is interesting and I hope there will be some product on the shelf that can help to restore the end caps.

Who knows one day we might discover a tree from our forest that can be the cure of those shortening telomeres.

Try Not To Paint The Whole Wall !!!

If you scrutinize these pictures provided you will see that the walls are not fully painted to the top.

Why do you think the black pain was not painted until the whole walls and those ceiling beams are totally black.

The main purpose to pain you BH using those black coloured water based paint was to reduce the light reflection from one wall to the other.

Remember we need the nesting rooms to be as dark as you can.

My recommendation is to be as dark as possible until when you stand about 2 feet apart you cannot see the other person's face.

However you must not paint until the ceiling.

This is due to these swiftlet do need some light in the morning to find the entrance hole out.

If you paint every thing you will find that those birds will not want to start too far away from the entrance hole area.

Of course there are many other things that will cause those birds do not want to stay too far in.

If you BH is with a single entrance hole and this particular hole faces the west, the same thing will happen.

This is mainly due to the fact that the morning light tend to take a much longer minutes to get inside the nesting rooms.

Those birds will therefore prefer the area very closed to the bright areas.

You need to perhaps consider to open an additional hole facing the east.  This additional hole can be as big as 1'X1' just enough to allow the morning light to shine inside.

With this arrangement I can safely says that your VIP rooms that are located further away from the entrance window will stand a better chance to have some nests.

Trust me.

The main lesson you learn from this article is that:

1) Never paint all the walls up to the ceiling.

2) Allow about 1 to 1.5 feet of the wall ceiling downward to be a brighter colour (white).

3) If your entrance hole is not facing the east, try to open a second entrance hole.  A small window will do.

Those Fruit Flies Are Your Friend !!!

The type of insect that you easily breed in or outside your BH is normally Fruit Fly.

They can be obtain easily at any location that are wet and filled with rotting materials.

While reading the Star newspaper yesterday I saw this interesting article about how fruit fly help scientist to find the cure for cancer:

Fruit fly study offers clue to fight cancer

Efforts to fight breast cancer here have received a boost from scientists’ work with the fruit fly.

The team at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) have discovered that low levels of a gene called Socs5 could be linked to a higher risk of the cancer in people.

The scientists at A*Star’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology discovered the gene’s effect on the cancer by screening the fly.

Although different in many ways, the fly and human beings are similar in a remarkable two-thirds of their genomes. They also develop some cancers in the same way.

Previous studies have shown that about 75% of known human disease genes have a recognisable match in the fruit fly genome.

Doctors could check the level of the gene in patients and the research could also lead to more targeted treatment for cancers linked to the gene.

The team’s findings were published earlier this month in science journalGenes and Development. — The Straits Times / Asia News Network

Finally An Olympic Medal For Malaysia !!!

Taken from the star newspaper today. http://thestar.com.my/sports/olympics/story.aspx?file=/2012/8/3/olympics/20120803214254&sec=Olympics

LONDON: Datuk Lee Chong Wei has ensured that Malaysia returns home with a medal after he stormed into the final of the men’s badminton singles with a convincing 21-13, 21-14 win over China’s Chen Long at the Wembley Arena.

He will meet China's Lin Dan on Sunday. The top Chinese shuttler easily beat South Korea's Lee Hyun Il 21-12, 21-10 in the other semi-final.

Chong Wei won the silver medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 when he lost in the final to Lin Dan.

Then Chong Wei was the world number one while the Chinese at number two. This time the role is reversed with the Chinese having taken over as the number one in June.

His silver in Beijing was the only medal won by Malaysia in the 2008 Games.

With the silver medal in the bag, Chong Wei said that his aim is the gold.

“I treated tonight’s match as my last and went all out. I did not want to play for the bronze.

“My performance was a surprise to me too as I was able to stay in control and the match strategy worked well.

“I want to go for the gold medal. I have nothing to lose and I do not feel there is much pressure on me. I had promised to make the final and I have delivered.

“To the Malaysians I make this promise – I will do my very best to win that gold. Nothing else matters,” he said.

Chong Wei admitted that this was his best game in London and felt that all the hard work since coming back from an ankle injury was worth it.

“I always had the thought that my Olympic dream would be dashed at any time after the injury. But it is great to be back at my best. And even then I am only 50% of my old self.

“It does not matter who I play in the final. I want to win it. Chen Long was also under pressure to stop me and that is why his game suffered a little.

“But more importantly we knew what to do and I had worked it out with my coaches,” he said.

Chong Wei was in his element in the first set as he took control of the match from the first point. He stormed to a 6-0 lead before Chen Long took a point off him.

From then on Chong Wei build on his lead and to go 11-5 and 19-10. He allowed Chen Long to take two more points off him at 19-13.

A leaping smash by Chong Wei gave him the set point. And another Chen Long blunder at the baseline gave the Malaysian first set at 21-13 in 23 minutes.

Chong Wei used his drop shot and base line to good effect and was helped by the mistakes from Chen Long

In the second set Chong Wei again started off leading and was 6-3 when the Chinese caught up with him.

Chong Wei then reeled off three points to keep his lead and soon moved to 10-7.

From then it was a game of chase as Chong Wei was forced to work hard to keep ahead of Chen Long.

Chong Wei extended his career wining record over Chen Long to 7-4 and then never looked back as he winning 28 eight minutes in 21-14.

Finished And Ready For Operation !!!

The renovated shop house in Seremban was finally completed and will be launched by the owner on this Sunday.

He must have the "Fung Shui" date given by his Sifu.

The two upper floors renovation took me my worker about 2.5 weeks to complete.

Main time consuming part was the installation of the top most floor wooden ceiling.

The owner insisted to use those nesting planks as the ceiling.  Very tough and we managed to get it done as per his request.

The next toughest job was to install the nesting planks on the two floors.  It takes a lot effort to make sure that they were lined properly and cut to the right size.

My experience worker make it looks easy.

I took some time to install personally installed all the fake nests, about 200 pieces, to make the VIP rooms more attractive to those swiftlet.

Have a good look at these pictures and I think you will never find another BH with such a large number of gadgets.

The sound system consisted of

   Internal sound :  Each floor was provided with a dedicated amplifier that will allow the sound volume be controlled for the left and right side VIP rooms.

  External sound :  Two amplifiers too.  One to run the morning sound and the other the evening sound.

 Last Tango  :  The last tango was installed using about 8 pieces of power tweeters on the air vent structure and the main entrance hole.

Tested for about 30 minutes and the birds seems to like the two external and the internal sound.

The moment the two were put in play about 30 birds rushed into the air vent area (monkey house).

A few went straight to the VIP rooms upstairs.

I think this BH will have her first nest within 3 months after starting.

The location of the shop house is below the flying path and you can easily draw them to the tweeters if you play the right sound and the right volume.

I have advised the owner to shut the BH off for about 3 months once we put it into operation this Sunday August 5th 2012.

Best of luck to him and to those who wanted something similar please call 017 7551318.

If you wish to copy the installation shown in the pictures provided please go ahead.

Make sure you push your contractor to follow the exact method.

If he cannot do it call Pak Harry.

The main entrance hole about 2.5'X3'.

The opening for those swiftlet to enter the top most floor.  About 3 feet X 5 feet.

The humidifier in operation controlled by Nikkodo H-911

The ventilation cabin where air from the window can be drawn inside.

The wooden ceiling and the nesting planks with cluster tweeters and fake nests.

Closer look at the nesting planks arrangement on the 1st floor.

We have the kite tweeter too.

Another view of the kite tweeter

Aluminium fake nests applied with fermented raw nest ready to draw birds to its location.

Look at the chandelier tweeter in operation.

The installation of cemara (pine) tree fake nests.

Another beautiful view of a nicely done BH. No one will do this intricate arrangement for your BH.

Only Pak Harry is willing to do these interesting things as if he is doing it for his own BH.

A New Idea On The Use Of Nesting Wood Laced With Raw Nest or Markings !!!

While browsing the internet I discovered this interesting idea of using used wood with nest and swiftlet saliva markings to lure more tenant into a new BH.

 I have long ago wrote my idea on this similar idea.

 That time I was talking about using used nesting planks from a BH that was forced to shut down by say local authorities or the owner decided to shut it down.

 Those planks that have lots of swiftlet nests marking will be a valuable asset.

 All you need is to install a few of these planks in your VIP rooms.

 Just imagine if every VIP room have about 2 -3 nesting planks that have nests markings on them.

 The smell generated will make any new birds that entered your new BH will feel as if this BH is safe to stay and start my family.

"How come I never know that there is a BH with tenant before?" the new swiftlet must be wondering why/ I am of the opinion,

I might be wrong, this strange but genius idea can and will work.

 Recently I took some time to glue real nests onto those card board and install into a BH in operation.

 This might be another interesting idea that is simpler as compared to getting those nesting planks with markings in the market.

 If these idea works than we can adopt this idea to lure more birds into our new BH.

 You might want to think of other methods but similar to this idea.

 I leave it to you to think of those better or improved version of my simple findings.

 Best of luck to all who are innovative and creative. I hope you all like this idea !!!!