Category: Hobbies & Pastimes

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Larvae Everywhere!

It seems as though my somewhat experimental preemptive artificial swarm technique has, at least to a certain extent, worked. With only one colony surviving the winter we wanted to ‘make increase’ this year. The fact that this colony had taken up residence in a hive next to the bedroom window also meant that there weren’t...

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Beehive Configuration

Despite my sore finger and the strong winds, I did manage to do some beekeeping at the weekend. We’d bought a new poly hive so I constructed that. It wasn’t much of a project really and only took about 5 minutes so instead I set to cleaning out a whole load of old brood frames...

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Summer 2023 Continues

Well, the weather seems to be showing no signs of breaking yet. Every day for the past 3 weeks has seen wall to wall sunshine. Strong NE winds blow all morning as well and often continue to blow all day until evening. We’re talking 30 knots plus all day long here in Ynyslas. Of course,...

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A Pond Update

It’s been a few weeks since we first built our pond. It seems to be maturing well and looks nice. There was a bit of an initial algal bloom, but that was expected and didn’t come to much. It’s now full of life and already looks fairly mature. The water is full of larvae of...

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Developing Garden

Anna came across a photo of the pergola in the garden when it was new the other day and laughed about the fact that it look ‘plonked’ in the middle of the garden. She did have a point I guess, but I did have a plan. As anyone who gardens will know, such things need...

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Bee-ing Prepared

It was something of a mixed bag over the winter for our bees. One colony that was huge in the autumn died off whilst the colony that had taken up residence in the hive near the bedroom window did quite well. This colony had continued to expand throughout the Spring and was now looking quite...

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Garden Tales

It’s been a bit dreary these last few days, but things are growing well in the garden. Here are a few photos from around the garden at the weekend. The blackcurrants are flowering well and should have lots of fruit later in the year. The comfrey looks good. The bluebells are putting on their usual...

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Project Pond – Part 3 – Planting

Before planting the pond, there were a few adjustments that needed to be made. The water level was a little lower than I wanted. The liner under the ‘jetty’ seemed to be the low point so the jetty needed raising a little. This was a fairly easy fix, Next stage was to continue with the...

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Project Pond – Part 2

Last weekend’s ‘Project Pond‘ had a bit of a hiatus thanks to a busy week at work, but with another bank holiday weekend to play with it was straight back to it on Friday evening. The liner and pond membrane I ordered had already arrived so it was time to make it look like a...

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Conifer Bonsai

Project Pond wasn’t my only garden project at the weekend. I also had a somewhat more relaxing project in the form of a bonsai tree. Whilst at Charlies Garden Centre in Aberystwyth I rescued a poorly looking fern and a frost-damaged conifer. They were reduced in price and needed some TLC. The Fern was planted...