It’s time for all the “old stuff” to come out of the veggie plot now and make way for this year’s plants. Onto the compost heap it all went. Up and up went the compost heap, up and up went the temperature. This one seems to be working very nicely now.
I was hoping to spend today in the veg plot, but the weather was back to its usual appalling self again today. I hid in the workshop and finished off my current set of fat dummies. First up was to trim down the last piece of insulation and fit it.
Still no blancmange flashbacks?
Then glue and nail the second side of the dummy into place.
I’ve done eight of these though I have sufficient top bars for another two — I just don’t have wood sized for the sides and bottoms yet. The eight will be sufficient for two colonies, as I’m moving them to “nine over nine” configuration this year — a little more brood space than brood-and-a-half, but a lot less of a pain in the bum.
Having made some underfloor entrances (UFEs) with solid floors, I thought I’d do the same thing with my mesh floors. There wasn’t a huge amount of difference between the two types other than the need to cut the mesh back to size.
The mesh floors also had sliders for trays, that weren’t a particularly snug fit. I cut down some Correx to replace the trays and sealed the gap at the back with draught excluder, so any wind blowing underneath during the winter shouldn’t now get into the brood boxes and cool them down.
After a full day inspecting bees I thought I might as well finish off by doing the next stage of my fat dummies, so I sliced some scrap 50mm PIR insulation board into 33mm-ish widths and fitted them into the dummies. The top slice needs cutting again, to around 40mm deep rather than 50mm. I’ll do that tomorrow.
Anyone thinking of 1970’s school blancmange yet? No? Just me?
In contrast to our recent weather Saturday was a really lovely day: warm, sunny, very few clouds. Proper shorts weather. So I did 🙂
Given the fact that it was so pleasant, first order of the day was to inspect the colonies in my home apiary. Nothing much too exciting to report there: one colony probably needs a super and another (one of the ones I moved from another apiary) looks as though it is intending to supersede the queen. I went through the frames twice and could only find a single queen cell down one edge of one frame so I’m going to assume it’s supersedure and I’ll leave them to it. They may swarm once the queen cell is capped, but there aren’t any scouts sniffing around my bait hive at the moment, so I hope not. If they do, with a bit of luck the bait hive will catch them.
After lunch I inspected the only hive at another apiary. They seemed to be building quite slowly last month, but in the two weeks since our last inspection (it was too cold and wet to do last Saturday) they’ve really taken off. We have them another brood box so there’s room to expand.
And finally I did some inspections at a local farm. A colony there was a swarm from last year that seemed to have done really well last year, but was now building very slowly. They were still in a brood box that I used for last year’s bait hives because I’d not had time to switch them when I caught Covid last Summer, so I’ve now put them in a “long term” brood box.
Some time this week I need to get some bait hives out. I suspect that if our weather improves as the Met Office says it will, there are going to be quite a few swarms about soon.
Today I attempted the next step in my attempt to rescue bees from the tree that was cut back last October. I opened up the cover that I’d fixed over the top of the cavity and put what is basically a bait hive over the top, but a bait hive with a difference. The floor of the hive has a huge hole in the middle and is screwed to the branch so it lines up with the top of the existing nest cavity.
I know bees tend to work downwards in the Spring and Summer, but I’m hoping that having the space above them and room to draw comb will entice them to move up gradually as their existing brood emerge.
Angela Leadsom was quoted today by the BBC, talking about the chap who won the election for the Tees Valley mayor.
This is all credit to a mayor who has done an absolutely brilliant job in a key part of the levelling up agenda for the government
She said. All credit to him. Ok, fair enough. Possibly that and the fact that he pretty much hid the fact that he was a Tory, too. Didn’t even wear a rosette on stage when the results were announced. That’s a weird thing, come to think of it. If you’re that ashamed of how the government has performed, why are you aligning yourself with them and then pretending that you’re not? Hypocritical, much?
Anyhow, when challenged on the issue that he hid his political affiliation, Leadsom went on to say the win was a
testament to the Conservative government
Now to me it seems that if the new mayor should have all the credit, it can’t be a testament to the government. That’s an oxymoron, surely? He could have some of the credit and the rest be a testament to the government, but if it’s all down to him, then the actions of the government don’t enter into it.
Roofs remade, brood boxes repaired, crown boards made, today was time to get started on some more (insulated) fat dummies, which also helps clear the large stack of ply in the workshop. So, first job: cut a load of rectangles of ply, 207mm deep by 356mm wide. I think there’s about twenty-three of them here. I just kept going until I had enough, then finished off the sheet I was cutting.
I had some strips of wood for the sides and bottoms left over from last time I made them, 34mm wide and 9mm thick, so I cut some into 207mm lengths.
Then glued them to the edges, using a few 15mm brads from the nailgun that I also use to make frames to hold them together until the glue sets.
The bottom piece is 338mm long. Also glued and fixed with brads, and there are a couple of brads holding the sides to the bottom, too.
And finally for the moment, fit the top bars that I glued together a couple of weeks ago. These are glued and stapled using 25mm staples through the top bars into the top edge of the sides (where the frame sidebar would normally go).
I managed to get seven done today before I ran out of the wood for the sides/bottoms. I’ve selected some more from the scrap pile that I can cut down for more, but I need to check how many glued top bars I have first. I don’t think it’s actually that many more.
Next I’ll cut and fit the insulation, then fix the second ply side in place and I’m done.
He’s quoted by the BBC as saying
I am focused completely on the job at hand – that’s delivery for people across the country
So will he be working for Just Eat, or Deliveroo?
Yesterday, in fact. The people were pleasant, the offices seemed ok and I thought that overall it went well enough.
But… My satnav lied, suggesting it would take far less than the two and a half hours I eventually took to get there. It’s only sixty-five miles and it isn’t in the middle of nowhere in Wales: it’s barely fifteen miles from the south coast between two relatively large and well-known coastal towns. It wasn’t as though I got held up in traffic either — it was a pretty clear trip in both directions.
The agent who contacted me about the job has suggested that whilst they actually want someone in the office as a general rule, perhaps they might have to be more relaxed in this instance, but two-and-a-half hours? Even if it’s just once a month say? And that’s on a good day. My current feeling is that it’s a non-starter. I don’t want to be in a position where it’s the middle of Winter, the weather is crap and it takes three hours or more to get into the office and there’s a full day’s work to be done whilst facing the prospect of similar (or worse) for the drive home. Much of the time, if not distance, is country roads, lots of 30mph or 40mph speed limits, demanding full concentration and yesterday I found it exhausting, frankly. I’d just get to hate it really quickly.
Add to that the fact that if I’m prepared to do hybrid work then I can get into central London just as quickly, and I’d be able to do something useful with the traveling time. Something enjoyable, even.
