Living with Bees
Bees Coming and Going
The bees that we have on loan seem to be happy. I’ve taken a look at the hive and there always seems to be a bit of activity around it and there are certainly more bees in the garden. The field behind us is full of clover at the moment too so hopefully they are finding plenty of food there as well.
The idea of having them on loan for 6 weeks is to see how they get on out here and how we get on with them in the garden. Anyone who reads this weblog will know that we like to keep the garden looking nice. We are also trying to create a wildlife friendly garden and grow some fruit, veg and herbs too. There can be some conflicts between things such as growing garden produce or keeping bees and having a nice garden for sitting and entertaining in. Often gorgeous show gardens and productive gardens don’t go hand in hand but we’re going to try to do both.
We aren’t going to extremes with either of the approaches so hopefully we’ll be able to find a perfect compromise and still have a nice looking garden that we can sit in and enjoy whilst also growing some veg and keeping bees.
Of course, the bees won’t like things such as mowers and strimmers so we may well have to keep part of the garden a little more unkempt and wild looking. If that is the case I already have a plan to separate that area of the garden off with a fence. This will not only compartmentlise the garden more (which I like) but will help keep me sane when it comes to garden maintenance and will provide yet more shelter for us and the bees.
Hive Entrance
So far our time with the bees has been fine. The hive doesn’t look out of place at the bottom of the garden, and we barely notice the bees. I’ve yet to mow or strim mind you so we’ll see how that goes soon and of course the area around the beehive has yet to get out of hand or overgrown so only time will tell if I can live with that!
We don’t know how the bees are doing yet either but they seem happy enough and hopefully in a month or so they will have a hive full of honey ready for harvesting and plenty of stores to get them through the winter.
