Day Lily
The first of our Day Lillies came out on Thursday – Nice to see a splash of brightness on a grey day.
Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
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...
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...
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...
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...
Our new Vango Icarus 600 6 man tent arrived on Friday. So, as is customary, we had to set it up in the garden over the weekend and sleep in it. We did so on Saturday which, also in customary style, turned out to be a wet and very windy night – Perfect tent testing...
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...
After a postponement on Monday, Tuesday was bright and sunny so Morgan’s school sports day was on. Morgan was very excited about it all this year, he had made it through to be selected for the relay race so would be doing that as well as the races that they all do: Sprints Obstacle Course...