No dig diary, 21st May 2024

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

I completed the last bit of outdoor weeding today, at long last. And in fact then completed the spreading of compost on the main veggie plot in the bed I had just weeded. I really should have got that done ages ago, but that’s how bad the weather has been. It feels like something of a milestone, anyhow. Hopefully there’ll be something to plant in it soon.

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Chicken hatching update

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

I weighed the trays of eggs in the incubators this morning and wasn’t happy with the results. They’d both lost twice as much weight as they should have. Investigation of the pump for the first incubator showed that the water tube had sealed itself together, so I replaced that and made sure it was working, raising the humidity inside at the same time to try to limit the weight loss a bit more. The other incubator is more basic, so I just added more water to the trays inside.

I then closed up the vents on each to further raise the humidity. Hopefully that will be sufficient to get things back on track. I’ll check again in two or three days.

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Spring Harvest

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

Today I dropped over to take supers off some of my hives that have been next to a field of oilseed rape. I’m a bit late with this and it may already have crystallised, but we’ll see.

It’s a quite unbalanced harvest. Clearly some colonies are doing much better than others. One had a full sealed super and had started on a second whereas another had nothing at all.

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Memory Lane, 14th June 2023: First new potatoes of the season

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

Harvested today, a variety I’ve not tried before but thought I might as well give a go because I’m struggling to get hold of any International Kidney. These are Red Duke of York.

They seem to be perfectly acceptable to me, but I’m not really sure they’re up to International Kidney as far as my wife is concerned.

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Well, that’s hornet!

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

I went to hunt for some kit in my bee shed today and as I turned around to close the door afterwards almost had my head taken off by a queen hornet leaving. I hung around for a while and she went back to a position under the ridge of the roof, behind a gusset that I added to give the roof more strength (presumably why I didn’t see her in the first place). I can’t have her setting up home there. She doesn’t seem to like the door being open, so I’ve propped it open for now and we’ll see what happens. If she doesn’t want to move on voluntarily then I might have to be a little more firm.

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More bait hive action

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

My concerns about one of my colonies potentially swarming were not helped today by far more action around my bait hive. I tried to follow the flight paths of the scouts though and they seem to be heading off the property to the north west so (crossed fingers) they’re not mine. I guess we’ll find out for sure soon.

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No dig diary, 20th May 2024

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

Well, I’ve run out of compost for sowing at the moment, but I can buy a little time perhaps. I’ve not sown carrots nor parsnips yet due to the weather, so today was time to get on with them. I was going to experiment with multiple sowings of parsnips, but it’s way too late for that now so they all went in together. There’s still time for more sowings of carrots though, so they didn’t 🙂

I also got a bit more weeding done and spread more woodchip on some of the paths that still need doing. I had something like eight dumpy bags full of woodchip when I started and now I’m down to the last two because so much needs redoing. The old stuff has just been swallowed up by the mud.

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Memory Lane, 10th June 2023: This is why you want a bait hive

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

Because if a swarm ends up somewhere like this, it gets expensive for someone.

I really couldn’t deal with this. At least some of the tiles would have to come off for a start and a few of them were already cracked and presumably couldn’t be put back. Neither am I a builder.

This one I had to leave to someone who knew how to make good again afterwards.

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An odd swarm call

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

I received a call about a swarm this afternoon, but it didn’t go quite the way I expected…

The caller wanted to know if I had a box he could use to keep a swarm that had arrived in his garden. Seems an odd request. Why would I be selling hives? Or perhaps he didn’t realise quite how much a hive costs and thought people just give them away? As it happens, until I get these brood boxes made up I have absolutely nothing anyhow. If I have a swarm arrive myself at the moment I shall be madly assembling kit in the workshop 😀

As the call went on it transpired that he knew absolutely nothing about bees or beekeeping. Now I’m all in favour of people taking beekeeping up as a hobby, but not if you have no clue what you’re actually doing. And it’s not like there isn’t a fair amount to know, even to just get started.

Somehow I don’t think this is going to end up the way he thought…

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Oilseed rape flowers are disappearing

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

And right next to some of my hives, too. Hopefully there’s at least some Spring honey there to be had, though if they’ve eaten it all on the days they couldn’t fly I shouldn’t be entirely surprised.

Anyhow, it means it’s time to go and put some clearer boards on and we’ll see what transpires.

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