Category: Hobbies & Pastimes

Bee Pool Party 1

Bee Pool Party

The bees seem to be loving the new garden pond. There were literally hundreds of them all lined up along the edges at the weekend. We had a hedgehog visitor at the weekend too, and there was a cool photo of a stoat on top of a fence post in the dunes here posted on...

Calathea 1

Houseplant Obsession

Long-time readers of this blog will know I get into projects for a while and go all out on them! I usually keep them going in the background afterwards but don’t necessarily blog about them or invest quite so much energy into them after a while. My latest obsession is houseplants! Don’t worry, I won’t...

Pretty Border 1

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...

2023 1

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...

Hoverfly 0

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...

Chives 0

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...