Swarms in unusual places

We had a call about bees just entering the space above a porch

 The bees had already moved in but the owners allowed me to remove the side of the porch roof
We constructed a device from a snow shovel a piece of carpet and a sheet.  I slid it under the bees and used another construction of a telescopic paint pad with cardboard taped to it to dislodge the bees.

 Gingerly pulling the snow shovel covered in bees out.

 About one third of the bees were on the sheet

The bees climbed up into the basket.and the basket was propped on a ladder near where the bees were entering the roof.  The queen must have been in the basket as the bees flowed out of the roof down into the basket.
After an hour most of the bees were in the basket and were covered in a sheet and transported to their new site.   They were introduced to a hive the next morning as it was late by the time I got them home.
They are doing well and will be passed to a new beekeeper just beginning in beekeeping.

Broody hens everywhere

Yes our hens are going broody left right and centre (must be the hot weather).  Two of the sitting hens have hatched so far but with disappointing results so far with four chicks each (out of 8 and 11 eggs ) don't know if our cockerel is a bit past it or its the weather (again!) here is a picture of the coup ready for the next hopeful mother.  The coup is filled with earth to make a nest which will keep the eggs in the right humidity.

Desert Gardening

We are now entering our third month with no significant rain!  The garden is looking amazingly good considering but given our resolve not to use mains water to water the garden with we are very dependant on the well we dug out.
   The techniques  we use for dealing with this climate are evolving:  

• Planting in the autumn and early spring under protection - plastic cloches, polythene and fleece is essential and not expensive if you use recycled materials.
• Mulching everywhere makes a huge difference - we use grass cuttings supplied by a few professional gardeners who are keen to have an alternative to the recycling centre for them. Because they cut the grass regularly we get little problem with seed in the cuttings.
• Learning which plants can cope and need little watering is also essential - for instance leeks are able to survive on very little but squashes need the water.
• Every drop of water from the house is used either by pouring it from the bowls onto the plants or via the reed bed and of course we harvest all the rainwater we can if it does rain.
• We use deep beds and add lots (and I mean lots) of compost and rotted horse manure to the beds.
• We pray for rain!!!

Recycled polycarbonate sheeting is great!!

We have just eaten our first courgette and peas of the season thanks to recycled polycarbonate cloches and old glass doors;

Peas in a glass door cloche (overwintered with a row of carrots)

Polycarbonate cloche

First courgette from a plant in a polycarbonate cloche

Queen Rearing update

The first weeks efforts was a failure due to the queen from the breeding stock hive managing to end up in the (supposedly!) queen-less hive with the grafted queen cups (don't ask how!!) Have now made a second attempt to do the same process.  Else where the drought is worrying me, I am using the well we opened up last year to water where needed and we still have stocks of rainwater from the winter.  We watered the (over 200!) new trees in the wood yesterday with rainwater from home (the soil there was still remarkably moist under the mulch of leaves.  We have our first tomato flowers in the solar greenhouse and baby courgettes on the outdoor (under cloches) courgettes.  Loving it!!

Queen rearing

Today (on the last warm day of this week!) I am starting my queen rearing process.  I confined the queen in the hive I want to breed from in a part of her hive (with a frame made from queen excluder plastic) and today I hope to take the comb of hatching eggs (she should have laid!!!) and make strips  of comb with eggs in to put into a queen-less hive, I will rub out two cells out of every three in a row to make more room for the bees to make the (larger) queen cells .  I am hoping the bees will make these remaining cells into queen cells.  If all goes well I will put the sealed queen cells into some mini hives (stocked with a cup full of bees each!!) and hope to have a supply of mated queens in about a month to use when needed.  Lots of things could go wrong so wish me luck!!

I love spring

Twenty One degrees yesterday!  My first beekeeping day of 2011 - I went through the 13 hives that went into the winter and the results were better than I had hoped for.  Eleven hives with a brood laying queen, one hive with bees but no queen or brood (I put a comb of eggs into the hive to give them a chance of making a queen cell) one hive dead - lots of food cause of death unknown.
Also the first broody hen - our bantam (a good reliable mother) now sitting on eight eggs.  And (would you believe it!!) our first courgette flower; on a plant under a large cloche made from recycled polycarbonate.   The tomato plants in the greenhouse and polytunnel are up to a foot tall and there is blossom everywhere, I love spring.