A Simple Life of Luxury

Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means

Category: Hobbies & Pastimes

Feverfew 0

Beekeeping / Gardening

Feverfew

We weren’t sure whether or not to get rid of all the feverfew in our garden. It certainly grows like a weed here and self-seeds all over the place. On top of that it is supposed to be disliked by bees so not ideal in bee-friendly garden. It does look nice at times though and...

Poppy 0

Gardening / Photography

Poppy

Yet more garden flowers. Poppies self seed themselves all over the place, but the bees like them, they are easy to remove when they appear somewhere that we don’t want them and they certainly add some colour so we tend to leave them here and there.  

Marigold 0

Gardening / Photography

A Splash of Gold

More photos from the garden and a splash of gold thanks to the French Marigolds

Borth 0

Photography / Wales / Weather

Beach Photo Walk

You don’t get nicer mornings than this. Clear blue skies, no wind and not too hot. Oh, and a deserted beach backed by the Cambrian Mountains – Not a bad place to live.

Borage 0

Gardening / Photography / Weather

Garden Flowers

It’s another gorgeous day here, clear blue skies, a light breeze and currently 19ºC. Yesterday it reached 24.5ºC, which although it felt hot wasn’t the hottest day of the year so far as we hit 25.3ºC in June 3rd. It’s a shame we have to work on a day like this, but I have just...

Bees in the Hive 4

Beekeeping

A New Queen has Risen

Some good news on the bee front at last. The first of our colonies to swarm was the one from the hive we have called Leri. We lost the swarm so the queen from this hive disappeared over the horizon along with half the colony, leaving us with depleted numbers in the hive, no queen...

Early Morning Bees 0

Beekeeping

So, what are our bees doing now?

We had hoped that after catching and re-housing a swarm from one of our hives that things in the apiary would settle down. The colony in the strongest hive had now been split into three: A colony in the original hive with a queen cell An ‘artificially swarmed’ colony with queen cells in a nuc...

Triple Nuc Box 2

Beekeeping

Swarm Housed in a Triple Nuc Box

Another day and yet more beekeeping. Hopefully that’s all the intervention they’ll need for today though. After catching the swarm from Clettwr yesterday it was housed in a temporary plastic nuc box overnight. We have run out of suitable equipment to accommodate any more colonies so borrowed a triple nuc box contraption from Ann. Essentially...

The bees they are a swarming! 1

Beekeeping

The bees they are a swarming!

Clettwr, the hive that I performed an artificial swarm on last week in an attempt to prevent them from swarming has – you’ve guessed it – swarmed today. So much for the artificial swarm, I obviously didn’t do it right. Our neighbours phoned me just after 10am to say the bees were out and about...

Fresh from the garden 0

Gardening / Lifestyle / Nature

Strawberries from the garden

We’ve managed to beat the birds to some of the soft fruit from the garden at last! Anna bought a single strawberry plant a couple of years ago and it has gradually been spreading around a small area of the garden. We have had strawberries on them before but had only managed to eat one...