Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Alan, Anna & Morgan live in West Wales and attempt to make the most out of life. Alan is a freelance website designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband. Anna works at Aberystwyth University and is a full time Mum & wife.
We’ve done it again… Gone away on Thursday and Friday which means that when we return late on Friday evening with a weekend before us, it feels as though we’ve already had a weekend away. Whilst away we had a whistle-stop tour of North Wales. Geocaches around Dolgellau and Blaneau on the way up, a...
Read more »Whilst Morgan and I were out on our geocaching walk on Tuesday I received a phonecall from someone at a nearby up-market hotel. They had a swarm of bees and wanted to know what they could do about it. I obviously offered to go around and collect them later that evening. It was all a bit...
Read more »Those of you who follow our beekeeping exploits here on the edge of where beekeeping is a sensible pursuit will know that things are never easy. Conditions aren’t ideal for bees in our back garden simply due to the strong winds and the lack of available forage so we have decided to move most of...
Read more »After a wet start to the day and some geocaching around Llanafan, the sun was shining brightly by the time we met the rest of the Aberystwyth Beekeepers at the village hall in Llanafan. We were all heading out for an ‘apiary safari’ for the afternoon where we visit other peoples apiary and take a...
Read more »With summer in full swing, the bees are getting busy. I had a phone call the other day about a swarm in Borth so went off to collect it. Catching swarms is one of my favourite things in beekeeping. Not only do I get free bees, but it’s always quite exciting and the onlookers have...
Read more »Just as we thought the bees in our out apiary were doing well, we get this EFB Disease alert from the National Bee Unit. The bees and survived well over the winter and we were pleased with the fact that we had been able to split them early to hopefully pre-empt any swarming. They have loads...
Read more »We managed to inspect our bees in our out apiary at the weekend. It was a little too cold with a keen Easterly wind here at the coast, but it was better in the hills so we took a quick look. It was nice to see so much blackthorn flowering around the hive and the bees...
Read more »Unfortunately the news from the out apiary isn’t quite so good… The larger of the two colonies seems OK. I didn’t check them properly but there were definitely bees in there so I gave them a good feed and left them to it. The smaller hive that we had to move here over the winter didn’t look promising though...
Read more »At last, the temperature made it into double figures this morning although it has dropped again now to 9.7ºC. I have loads to do in the garden and just about managed to squeeze in some time out there today. The first job was to dig out the compost bins and bag up the compost ready for...
Read more »Fame for Morgan with a nice mention in the Spring edition of the Welsh Beekeeper Magazine. He could have at least tucked his ‘T’-shirt in!
Read more »After a morning of training on Sunday, we had to move a couple of our beehives. The out Apiary in Llandre where we had been keeping them was due to have some building work nearby and the bank that they were on needed some stabilising work carried out in order to allow access to the building...
Read more »We went to the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association Christmas Social on Tuesday evening. Held in Waunfawr Community Hall it was an ‘American Supper’ where everyone brings along a plate or two of food, a Christmas decoration for the tables and eat, drink and chat together. There was loads of food to go around and everyone seemed to...
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