Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Despite the high winds and very autumnal weather we’re having, the garden is still producing for us. The herbs are all still doing well and so is the veg. We dug up our last crop of potatoes recently and have been gradually munching our way through the beetroots. There are some onions that look just...
Now that we’ve taken the honey off our bees, it’s time to give something back. I guess we’ve been giving lots back to the bees all along simply by having them and trying to nurture them in our back garden, but the aim now is to get them built up with enough stores to get...
Hooray, We’ve got honey from our bees! We knew we wouldn’t get much and weren’t really expecting to get any in our first year, but one of the hives (Leri) had a super with about four frames of honey in it so we decided to extract it so that we could see what it tasted...
In addition to our recent Nosema test and checks for Varroa in our bee hives, we also had Helen, our Mentor, pop around for a quick inspection of the hives so that she could give us her opinion on their strength, or weakness. 3 colonies or 2? We were fairly confident that Leri, the stronger...
As well as our recent test for Nosema in our bee colonies, another important aspect of beekeepeing at this time of year is to assess the levels of Varroa infestation in the hives. Varroa Varroa Mites are a very common, almost universal parasite of Honey Bees. The mite itself, Varroa destructor, attaches itself to the body...
It seems a shame to be thinking about winter already, but it isn’t far off and in order to make sure our bees are happy and healthy going into winter we need to start taking action now. At this time of year the beekeeper should be removing any honey that he/she can, checking the bees...
I’ve just come across a photo of the water feature in our garden from November 2010 so thought I’d take a photo of it today for comparison. Strange to think that in just 90 days it could go from what it is now to the slightly colder looking version on the right. I guess that...
The garden has been coming on well this year. It took a while to get going following the big freeze that was winter 2010-2011 but most things seemed to have pulled through in the end and some things are doing well. We could do with a bit more height here and there in the garden,...
Despite our best efforts to prevent it, a couple of our hives looked as though they were being robbed of their stores. In fact, ever since I caught a swarm from Clettwr and re-housed it nearby there seem to have been bees happily drifting between the two hives. Recent inspections have shown both hives to...
I came across a cool little idea yesterday on a website called ‘Dear Photograph‘. It’s a simple idea where you take a photograph of a photograph. The photograph comes from the past but you overlay it in the same position in the present so that you end up with a photograph of the past in...
Fitness / Technology / Triathlon
Fixing the Altimeter on my Garmin Forerunner 910XT
Monday, March 17th, 2014
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