Archive for the ‘Bees’ Category
Rum in happier times
We’ve had a bad start to the week. Yesterday, we decided to dispatch Rum, one of our Black Rock chickens. She hadn’t been well for the last week, and yesterday she could barely stand up. We gave her one last check over to make sure we hadn’t missed anything like a stuck egg or any swelling but found nothing, so decided to do the deed there and then. Read the rest of this entry »
This year's crop in the making
It’s been a busy few weeks. The start of spring means things are starting to happen in the garden, and there is a flurry of activity at the potting bench. The recent warm weather has seen shoots appear where they should and shouldn’t have. So it’s now the start of the battle against the weeds and slugs to make sure the garden is as productive as it can be. I usually start my morning rounds off now with a slug hunt, some of which are fed to the chickens, and the rest are given a salting. As long as I keep up the routine for the next few weeks I should be able to keep the worst of the slugs at bay. I’m also leaving a few strategic pieces of wood and rotten vegetables around the place, as the slugs will hide under the wood once the sun comes up, and also gravitate to the smell of the rotting vegetables so can usually be found in its vicinity. Read the rest of this entry »
Spring bee
What a difference a day makes. The sun is out and the bees are buzzing. The heather is in flower just outside our back door, and the bees are making the most of it. They’ll also be enjoying the crocuses that I noticed were in flower today.
Long may it last!
Seeds or bees?
The birds must really be struggling at the moment in the cold weather, as they have started to take a liking to the bees. The bird feeder was hung up near the bee hive, and despite being filled with seeds, the blue tits must have noticed (or heard) that there was something more exciting in the hive. We noticed that blue tits were hanging around the entrance of the bee hive, but didn’t think much of it. But then we saw one of them tapping on the hive, encouraging the bees to come out and investigate, and then getting snapped up by the waiting bird. Read the rest of this entry »
Trooping in
This weekend has been quite eventful on the bee front. At the moment, we’ve got just a single hive, cobbled together from various sources. The equipment’s pretty ropey, and there are gaps between some of the boxes that the local wasp contingent has been eyeing up.
After we moved to Wales nearly two years ago, we had great plans of having our own bees at the bottom of the garden, but after attending an auction in Pembrokeshire I rather went off the idea. The recent decline in the honeybee population, coupled with the sudden uptake in interest among the public, has driven up prices to a shocking degree. At the auction, bees were fetching £200+ for just 8 or 9 frames of bees, i.e. not even including the box let alone any other equipment! For a hobbyist beekeeper like myself, that’s an absurd amount to pay for bees. Read the rest of this entry »