Author Archives: james

First beehive roof repair finished

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 … Continue reading

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

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 … Continue reading

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First roof replacement

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 … Continue reading

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

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, … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 7th January 2023: More smoked cheese

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 … Continue reading

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Second harvest of the asparagus

There were about eight decent spears ready to harvest, so my wife had them all with boiled eggs for lunch today. I can live with missing out this time around. She’s away next week, so I’ll have them all to … Continue reading

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Calling “Time” on the PSB

I want to use the space and there’s very little actual broccoli left on the plants (in fact the bees have done a pretty good job of pollinating most of them by the looks of it), so today I decided … Continue reading

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Oh the irony

A quote in the papers today from the Barcelona football team goalkeeper: There’s so much money in this world and there’s no money for what’s most important. What is he talking about? Child poverty? Dealing with famine? Climate change? Stopping … Continue reading

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Memory Lane, 7th January 2023: A candle “spoon”

One of the awkward things about the smoke generator for my smoker is that it’s quite awkward to get the tea light in and out to get it burning. One workaround is to put a screw through the side of … Continue reading

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Busy as a bee(keeper)

After getting through other stuff today I thought I’d push on with a few things in the workshop to try to clear a bit more space. First up was turning some old frames from which I’d recovered the wax ages … Continue reading

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