No dig diary, 13th May 2024

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

Rain, rain and more rain was the forecast for today, but I was able to get out early doors and finish spreading compost on the new flower bed and dump a couple of barrow loads on a veggie bed that isn’t quite ready yet. At last I now have an empty compost bay. I’ve already got stuff queuing up to go into it. I guess that’s one of tomorrow’s jobs.

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Memory Lane, 18th May 2023: Another one of those swarms

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

I was asked today if I could deal with a swarm that had turned up at a local church. Apparently it had been there a day or two and no-one had thought of me before. I got there and found it sitting nicely on the wall next to the main door.

I’d just got suited up and laid everything out to catch them when suddenly they all flew up into the air from the bivouac and disappeared off in a south-westerly direction. I’ve no idea where they went. Hopefully it won’t have been down someone’s chimney. All I was left with were small patches of wax on the wall.

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An empty apiary

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

With all the driving around I’ve done because of this bee swarm in the house, I thought I might as well drop off a bait hive at an apiary I had to empty a couple of weeks back. The water company needed to do some work very close to the hives and the workers were understandably uncomfortable about doing so with the bees present.

I’d had the impression from the owners that the facility was unused (possibly a miscommunication there), so when I move the bees back I’ll have to site them further away. Meantime it looks as though they’ve finished the work they were doing, so leaving a bait hive on site shouldn’t cause too much consternation.

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Bee Invasion, part 2

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

I’m not sure how many parts there are going to bee (ho ho) to this. Hopefully not many.

I went down to have a look at the swarm this morning and it’s not good. The hole the bees are using for access is rather larger than I expected. It has been used to run a cable into the house for an outside light, but the owner tells me that it has been there far longer than that. I really don’t think I can get the bees out.

It has been suggested that I use a joss stick to smoke them out, but I don’t fancy hot ash or embers dropping into a void when I have no idea what’s there. The last thing I need to do is to start a house fire. It would get rid of the bees, but it’s a little extreme.

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Memory Lane, 17th May 2023: Frankenstein’s greenhouse

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

I have decided that the solar greenhouse shall henceforth be known as “Frankenstein’s greenhouse” because it has been stitched together from bits I’ve dug up from all over the place, many of which bear no relation to each other.

I’ve now finished the majority of the construction work for the frame, just the glazing and cladding of the north-east wall to go I think. Then I can fill the twenty litre black jugs with water and away we go.

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Bee Invasion!

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

As I was about to sit down to dinner on Saturday evening, the owner of a farm where I have some hives turned up to tell me that a swarm (possibly or possibly not from one of my hives; I hope not) had moved into his house (which he is currently renting out) through a small hole in the wall and taken up residence in the ceiling void above the kitchen. Unfortunately they’re then using the gaps around the ceiling to get into the kitchen itself, upsetting the tenants.

I’m not sure there’s much I can do to help, but I’ll have a look tomorrow morning.

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Bee Inspections, 11th May 2024

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

Before heading off to the “Team Bees” apiary, I went through my hives at home. Nothing too exciting going on… One colony needed supers and another looks to be superseding. In another colony I found the queen, but most of her red paint spot has rubbed off. I trapped her in a marking cage and repainted the spot, then left her there whilst I inspected the other frames. By the time I put her frame back in the hive, workers had piled onto the top of the cage and almost wiped the paint spot off again! No big deal. It’s better than it was, so I let them get on with it.

My plan at the “Team Bees” apiary was to inspect the colony and replace undrawn frames with “fat dummies” as part of my experiment to run hives as “nine over nine” this year. When we got there it was clear that the queen had gone into overdrive and actually of the twenty-two frames in the double brood box nest, only four frames in the bottom box remained undrawn. That was sufficient to use the fat dummies, but I had to move two frames from the top box down to the bottom box to make room. The queen has been laying like crazy too. Quite a few frames in the top box were solid capped worker brood. I suspect it’s going to be a very busy hive soon. I’ll have to take some supers with me next week in case they’re needed.

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No dig diary, 11th May 2024

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

Thanks to my wife weeding yesterday I ended up with one more bed to spread compost on, alongside Frankenstein’s greenhouse. That didn’t take a huge amount however, so first I cleared the weeds from half of another bed and covered that, then collected cardboard and filled the trailer with compost to make a new flower bed where there’s an awkward space to mow on one of the lawns. I couldn’t quite finish that because a few weeds need clearing, but I’m starting to see the end of the compost in the bay I’m emptying now.

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Memory Lane, 7th May 2023: “Team Bees”

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

On behalf of a local charity that has been set up to grow and cook food for people who are unable to provide themselves with hot meals, I have been setting up a new apiary. There’s very little money available, so for the moment I shall be loaning kit and the work will rely on the services of volunteers. To provide the bees, we’re hoping to catch a swarm.

The first job therefore is to set up a bait hive. Here I have one containing mostly foundationless or starter strip frames, with one frame of really nasty old comb that I’ve had in the freezer for a few days.

Because I’m a bit short of kit thanks to so many swarms turning up this May, I used a pair of supers rather than a single brood box, on a floor of my own construction which has a 38mm hole for an entrance in one of the walls.

We were donated the posts and rails for the fence (as long as we removed them from their existing location). At this point the ground was very dry due to lack of rain and putting the posts in was slow and energy-sapping work.

Now we just have to see what happens with the bait hive…

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No dig diary, 10th May 2024

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

I’m now completely out of space in the compost bins. Most of the grass was mowed yesterday and the “active” one ended up heaped as high as it would go. I need to use up some of the compost in one of the other bins so I can start re-filling it. So, I press-ganged my wife into doing some weeding whilst I started spreading compost on any part of the beds that were available for it, even if it was just a few metres worth.

Unfortunately that didn’t use up anywhere near as much of it as I’d hoped, so I need to find other things to do.

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