No dig diary, 14th May 2024: Berries behind bars

Posted on May 14, 2024 by james

Last year our currants and gooseberries produced a reasonable amount of fruit, but we got to eat almost none of it: the deer and the birds ate almost everything as soon as it approached being ripe.

So, this year we have repurposed a fruit cage that I actually bought as a possible “bird flu winter home” for the chickens and turned out to be useless for that purpose. So the fruit cage is now installed over the top of the currant and gooseberry plants and we’ll see how that goes. The blackcurrants are already smelling wonderful even though the fruit are still green.

Also today I finally got around to planting out various brassicas — cabbages, romanesco cauliflowers and calabrese. They also need to be under nets to keep the pests off, but I ran out of time for that today.

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Smell that taste

Posted on May 14, 2024 by james

Back when I planted up the new strawberry beds I transferred the plants in the old bed to pots of compost and put them in Frankenstein’s greenhouse. It was quite late to transplant them, but it was potentially a better option than just throwing them into the compost. Most of the plants are doing pretty well and either flowering or producing fruit, but a few are really ahead of the game and had ripe fruit already, so obviously I wasn’t going to leave them.

They’re “Cambridge Favourite”, four year old plants now, but still smell lovely and taste great. Plenty more to come yet, too. The only real difficulty is keeping them sufficiently well watered.

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Memory Lane, 19th May 2023: Here comes another one!

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

Not my nineteenth nervous breakdown, though I feel I could be excused if it were.

I was called out this evening to have a look at this swarm that a couple had discovered entering their chimney and smoked back out again.

Well I tried and tried and tried, but I couldn’t get them to shift. Then I realised that the wall was buzzing and cleared lots of them out of the way.

I don’t reckon they’ll survive that long in there, but there’s very little I can do about them now.

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A swarm is announced

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

Or perhaps not. Lots of activity around my home bait hive, though I didn’t see (nor hear) them arrive.

But when I went to move them in the evening, there was no sign of them. I think I need to have a better look inside. There’s far too much activity for just scouts, and they’re no longer showing scout-like behaviour. And if there are bees in residence, I want to move them and put up a replacement bait hive.

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Let’s have a little jig

Posted on May 13, 2024 by james

One the rain started this morning, I retired to the workshop for the day.

I was casting around for things to do when I realised that I had sufficient bits to make two more fat dummies, so I got those done. Given that I’m using four per hive in the general case, taking the opportunity to add to my collection certainly can’t hurt.

I’m quite possibly going to need more super frames shortly, too. But making them is such a faff. So, as I already have a brood frame jig, I thought I’d make one for constructing the super frames (I use Manleys). I had a dig about in the scrap pile and turned up some bits of ply and pine that I thought should do the job. A bit of sawing, gluing and screwing later and I have this.

Obviously I had to take it for a test drive, so I grabbed twenty side bars and ran a bead of glue through the channel at the top.

And then slotted them into the jig, making sure they were all the right way around.

Top bars are put in place and gently seated with a mallet if required.

Then out comes the nailer/stapler and the top bars are stapled into place.

Turn the whole thing over

Fit one of the bottom bars in place and nail it.

Then pull out the retaining bars and they’re done.

If I were making the frames foundationless then I’d probably fit both bottom bars and staple them in place. For the moment though, I have foundation to use up.

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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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