Memory Lane, 23rd February 2023: Winter salads are still going

Posted on April 25, 2024 by james

Straight from the polytunnel. Not quite as much as we’d like perhaps, but it’s just enough for three people and it’s lovely to be eating something so fresh and colourful at this time of the year.

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Second hive roof “repair”

Posted on April 25, 2024 by james

Despite the “excitement” of the morning, I was able to get a little done in the workshop today, planing down the timber for the sides of another roof, building it and fitting the internal battens. Didn’t quite get as far as nailing on the roof, but that’s a five-minute job tomorrow.

Two down, three to go.

Internal battens held in place with lumps of lead here, waiting for the glue to go off.

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Move, bees! Move!

Posted on April 25, 2024 by james

I received a message this morning that the hives in one apiary site were in the way of the water company, who needed to get access so they could dig a large hole in an attempt to find out why one of their water mains is leaking. Today is Thursday. They’d like to start on Monday. Eeek!

I discussed it with the engineer and the landowner, who thought it might be possible to move the hives little-by-little until they weren’t in the way. I was doubtful, but went to have a look anyhow. After I had been standing next to a hive for a minute or two, cogitating, a single bee flew out and made it quite plain that she didn’t want me there. Not even when I started to walk away. I got perhaps ten metres before she went straight for my face and stung me on the left cheekbone. Fortunately I rid shot of her and the sting pretty sharp-ish and whilst there was a bit of a red mark for half an hour or so there’s no obvious sign of it now. I suspect that because it was quite a dull day there wasn’t so much forage coming in and the guard bees were a bit tetchy.

That pretty much convinced me that the hives will have to be moved away from the site.

I have a site almost three miles away they could go to. This is like some sort of comedy of errors. Unfortunately there’s a tree collapsed across the entrance and the landowner believes the dead tree is now occupied by nesting blackbirds, so they must be left alone. I may risk moving them to home as we’re still two miles away. Two weeks ago I could have put both hives in the car, but one is now double-brood and has a super so quite possibly won’t even fit in the car. That’s not a problem. I have a trailer. But the trailer is full of stuff that I don’t really have anywhere else to put 😀

Anyhow, I need to get it all worked out over the weekend. As well as all the other stuff I planned to do 😀

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Memory Lane, 14th February 2023: My secret cardboard stash

Posted on April 24, 2024 by james

No secret any more, I guess 😀

Over the Winter I’ve been collecting all our cardboard boxes (no way are the recyclers getting their hands on these!) so I can make more no dig beds this year. I’m really not sure I have enough yet, but I’ll keep piling stuff up whenever it’s available.

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Beehive dead-out collection

Posted on April 24, 2024 by james

I collected the kit from my dead-out tree colony this afternoon. As I lifted the roof off its sides fell off. It all felt a bit Laurel and Hardy 😀 I’d used some fairly tired hive parts though as the site was right next to a road and clearly visible, so if it did go missing I wasn’t going to lose much. That’s another roof into the workshop for repair then, though I suspect the only thing worth saving in this case might be the metal cover.

Inside I found a live mouse which presumably must have climbed the cavity of the tree to get to the top. It was sufficiently scared to go for a big dive off the floor from about four feet up to escape though.

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First beehive roof repair finished

Posted on April 24, 2024 by james

Not really a repair, more a complete rebuild given that the metal cover and the sheet of plywood underneath it were the only things that were worth keeping, but this morning I finished gluing/nailing it all together so now there’s one more usable roof in the store.

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Memory Lane, 14th February 2023: Bees love the Sun

Posted on April 23, 2024 by james

It may only be scraping 5°C outdoors, but the Sun is shining and bees are on the move, foraging for water in the condensation on the tank we use to catch rain from the roof of my father-in-law’s greenhouse.

And on a Viburnum.

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First roof replacement

Posted on April 23, 2024 by james

This evening I finished gluing together the new sides of the first of four beehive roofs that I have to repair.

It doesn’t look too bad I think, considering the lump of scrap that I started with.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get it all reassembled.

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Visiting the last of my beehives for the first time this Spring

Posted on April 23, 2024 by james

The closure of a local bridge to, well, almost anywhere really, meant that the shortest two alternative routes (at least for small vehicles) took be past almost all of the hives that I hadn’t yet visited so far this Spring, so it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

Most of the colonies seem to be doing well, but sadly there was one disappointment. The colony that I tried to rescue from a cavity in a tree branch that had been cut down didn’t make it through the Winter. Not the most enormous surprise as it was very awkward trying to get them to leave the cavity, but it’s a shame I couldn’t have done better with them.

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Memory Lane, 7th January 2023: More smoked cheese

Posted on April 22, 2024 by james

Lidl’s finestcheapest this time around, as an experiment to see how it comes out. Mature and “normal”. It feels a bit “rubbery”, but perhaps that will change once the cheese is smoked and has had a bit of time for the flavour to develop.

As it went into the smoker:

And after three-ish hours:

I’ll give it 24 hours wrapped in greaseproof paper, then vacuum seal it and leave it for five weeks for the flavour to develop.

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