The importance of beeing a beekeeper -Part 2

We become beekeepers

Bright and early on Saturday 2nd May, we drove to Mann Lake UK near Canterbury in Kent, to collect our nucleus of bees. In my mind a nucleus is something quite small, maybe I'm thinking of atoms or something. But a nucleus  (or nuc) of bees is actually approximately 5000 of these amazing little creatures, shut inside something that looks not much bigger than a shoebox!

Mann Lake UK is a fascinating place to visit. The shop is tucked away at the end of a trading estate on farmland, in a big farm building, overlooking beautiful orchards. Inside is an Aladdin's cave, filled to the rafters (literally) with beekeeping paraphernalia.

I felt a little daunted, but Mr PB walked straight in, gripping a shopping list of essential items. We were greeted by some friendly members of staff, and explained we had come to collect our bees. While they went off to get our nuc, we picked up a red hive tool, a pack of sting wipes, some Pro-Sweet Invert Bee Syrup, a Boardman Entrance Feeder and a Jack's Scale honey colour grader (feeling optimistic!).

Another couple offered us some advice on transporting the bees in the car, we have a hatchback, and I really didn't fancy a car full of bees should anything untoward happen on the half hour drive home! Thankfully it was uneventful, there was just a constant low buzz coming from the back seat of the car.

Suiting Up!
Note the jeans tucked into the socks :)

I keep a safe distance

As soon as we were home, Mr PB donned his beekeepers jacket with integral hood and veil (purchased from ebay), and took the nuc box out to the Top Bar Hive at the end of our garden.

Now, we don't have a particularly large garden, approximately  13m x 13m, and I had some serious concerns about the bees and whether I'd still be able to garden during 'flying hours'. Was the garden going to be inundated by a plague of bees? Was I going to be chased and stung every time I ventured outside minding my own business? But it was too late, and Mr PB really wanted this, so I couldn't object too hard.

We'd bought a nuc box rather than a 'package', which is a box of loose bees. With a nuc, the bees and Queen are already populating five 'frames', the sort that fit a National or WBC hive, contained in a special cardboard box with a bung plugging the entrance. The fledgling colony use the wax foundation to squirrel away collected stores, and there is brood already developing in the brood cells. The idea being that you simply, and with as little stress to the bees as possible, pop the nuc frames straight into your hive. But normally bees for Top Bar Hives are purchased in a package, and the bees are treated a bit like a collected swarm, being shaken into the top of the hive and left to start building their own comb from scratch, which is obviously a lot of work for a young colony. The main reason for this is to do with the comb bees make when left to their own devices. Natural comb is a beautiful 'U' shape, the bees form themselves into daisy chains, one bee hanging from the one before. Imagine the shape a piece of string when it is held between two points. It drapes in a beautiful  curve... that's what the bees do too, I've seen it!

Release the bees!

Top Bar hives are trapezoidal in cross section, which echoes the natural shape of the comb, but manmade frames are rectangular ... probably because it's easier to manufacture! But trying to fit a rectangle into a similarly sized trapezoid doesn't work, the frame can't sit down deep enough in the hive. The only option is to be drastic, and cut the bottom corners off the frame, pry the bottom and side bars away from the foundation, and using a bread knife trim the foundation until the remaining bar rests perfectly on the side walls of the hive and the remaining foundation is able to hang perfectly vertical.

Making themselves at home

But Mr PB was concerned that the bees had endured a long car journey, and probably wouldn't be very impressed about a 'chop & crop' job (demonstrated here by Phil Chandler the Barefoot Beekeeper)! After removing the bung from the nuc box, Mr PB made a space in between the 'bars' of the hive, and positioned the entire box inside. The bees got the hang of the entrance location and within minutes they were taking off, circling to orientate themselves, and then zipping off into the big blue sky.

After just a few hours Mr PB realised that the nuc box would need to be removed and the frames installed into the hive properly, but that was a job for tomorrow...

Continued in Part 3

The Importance of Beeing a Beekeeper - part 1

Building the Top Bar Hive kit

For years now, Mr PB has been reading about and talking about beekeeping.

You may remember that we bought a Beepol Bumble Bee lodge from Dragonfli, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of having a Bumble Bee colony in the garden. They were fascinating!

We were devastated when the lodge became infested with Wax Moth larvae and we lost all the bees. It would appear that other people had experienced the same issues though, because the following year when we ordered another Beepol, Dragonfli had added some Wax Moth deterrents to their range.

We tried, we really did. We installed the special anti-Wax Moth door, but again, the colony were overcome by the horrid larvae and the crazy silky webs they create. Dragonfli have since introduced a Wax Moth Concentrated Repellent, which you dilute and spray all over the hive every 2-3 weeks for full protection. We haven't tried it, so can't comment on it's effectiveness.

This year, Mr PB decided he was going to put all his research into practice, and build himself a Top Bar Hive, a more natural method of keeping honeybees which is championed here in the UK by Phil Chandler, The Barefoot Beekeeper. I made contact with Phil via Twitter, and asked him if he felt there were any advantages to a Warre (pron: Wah rey) hive over a Horizontal Top Bar Hive. Phil was incredibly helpful, and we decided that we would stick with the horizontal type.



Hive on it's back, showing long bee entrance

Two ends on

After investigating the options and cost implications of either building from scratch, or building from a kit, Mr PB bought a cedar self assembly kit from Bees n Blossom on Ebay. It looked really good, but the instructions were absolutely impossible to follow, and building was a lengthy, sweary process!!



Mesh grille fitted to the bottom

             

Part of the ventilation underneath

These are some photos of the early stages, it took so long that I kind of lost interest (oops) and didn't bother to document any more than this.

Time was against us though, as this was the end of April (2015), and our bees were going to be ready for collection at the beginning of May!!

Eventually the darn thing was finished, and sited next to the greenhouse, it looked super!





Hive with legs on, showing the viewing panel on the front



Now on to Part 2...

Garden and Life Progress - Three years later - Mind the gap please!

It's almost 3 years since my last post, but so much has happened in that space of time.

Health:

I am not surprised I was feeling a little 'blah' about gardening when I wrote my last post. It turns out I was quite ill. I had been diagnosed with Endometriosis, but later I found out I also had Folate Deficiency Anaemia and Adenomyosis! Aren't I greedy! I was in constant, agonising pain, feeling dizzy and faint, and in a hormonal nightmare.

I'm 41 now, and never had any intention of having children, so after evaluating the risk factors, having a lot of discussion and a lot of soul searching I went into hospital in February this year, and had a total abdominal hysterectomy. It has taken a long time to recover, my 15cm scar can be quite sore at times and oddly numb, but I've pushed myself a little more each day, and six months later I can honestly say I have never felt so well. I don't need horribly strong painkillers or constant hot water bottles anymore. I'm on Hormone Replacement Therapy, and take a minute Folic Acid tablet to keep my Folate level up. No more pain, no more bleeding, no more fainting! Whoohoo!

Gardener's Society:

I decided to withdraw from the Gardener's Society in it's entirety. As my crafting and jewellery making flourished, and my involvement with the Society increased, my gardening time reduced and it became such a chore - that surely isn't the point of being a gardening society member. I get too involved in things too quickly and this was just the same. As a Committee member I felt obligated to go to every talk, every excursion, every meeting. It just wasn't for me. I'm delighted that my resignation had no detrimental affect on the Society and it continues without me.

The wall of green from our upstairs window

Garden:

Having repeatedly discussed the monumental Leylandii hedge, which was in our neighbour's garden, forming part of the boundary between our garden and theirs, both parties agreed that if we took responsibility for removing the trees, then we could have the land that they stood on. It was the full width of our garden, approximately 13 metres, and would add about 3 metres to the length. That may not sound much, but the trees overhung our garden so far and so densely that only half the garden would get wet when it rained. The trees constantly shed dead 'needles', turning the lovely soil mix in the raised beds into inhospitable acid, and the grass was parched and yellowing.

Leylandii half felled

Getting the trees taken down by a tree surgeon was the easy part, taking one man a week and a half. The next challenge was getting the stump and roots out, so that we could drop the soil level down by about a metre to match our finished garden level. The stumps and roots were enormous! The fibres were so dense that they seemed to be fossilised. The trees had been planted on a spoil heap containing bricks, tiles, broken asbestos sheets and goodness knows what. It was impossible to get a stump grinder up to the top of the stump, the roots would not yield to encouragement from mechanical diggers, and chainsaws were instantly blunted by the detritus embedded in the roots. The tree surgeon, a second tree surgeon and our builder Fred (from Just Patios) all scratched their heads.

We'd started, so we had to finish! In desperation we went out and bought a jet washer and a chainsaw of our own.

This remaining stump was below the original ground level

They WILL come out!!

We  washed those stumps 'til the bark peeled off, the clay soil turned to pudding and I looked like I'd been dumped head first into a First World War trench. Every now and again we'd attack the mud with spades and hand trowels. The chainsaw and reciprocating saw nearly disassembled themselves trying to cut through the soaking wet, fibrous timber. Finally, after about 2 weeks of constant battle after work and at weekends, aided during the day by our builder and his brother Mark, the first stump fell! The sense of relief was enormous. During that week the builder, spurred on by our physical endeavour, managed to remove all the stumps - it was a hard-fought victory.

Fred begins the final stage of hard landscaping

Where the Leylandii tree stumps were

Fred progressed with the rest of the landscaping very quickly. Retaining walls, fences and patio were completed at the end of the garden, where the Leylandii had once stood. Fred took a little rest from us (probably in a darkened room!).


A note about Fred - He is awesome! He is fast, thorough, is very accurate with his time estimations for jobs, arrives when he says he will and works like a demon. Fred landscaped our first garden, front and back, and then we broke it to him that we had bought a plot of land to self-build on. He demolished the old building that stood on the plot, laid out and dug all the footings, unofficially project managed, sourced tradesmen, helped us lay out the under floor heating, fitted plasterboard throughout and landscaped the garden front and back - he is a machine! I'm sad that we've run out of jobs for him to do, because he is a brilliant, trust-worthy, devilishly witty contractor, and we miss him.

Perimeter fencing and raised beds done

When Fred returned, he built me two long raised brick beds and one taller square one. We bought in cubic metre bags of 20mm gravel, sand, compost and course-grade vermiculite. Weed suppressing membrane was laid at the bottom of each bed, a layer of gravel, then sand, and then a mix of compost and vermiculite were added. The square bed became home to a small apple tree on M27 rootstock, variety 'Scrumptious' from The Potted Garden, Bearsted. We then created a hedge around it in lavender 'Munstead' from Stone Green Nurseries, Pluckley.

 The two long raised beds became Square Foot Gardening beds, with the addition of wooden grids laid on the surface. Once Fred had completed the paving between the Square Foot beds, we took the opportunity to buy a beautiful Swallow Greenhouse and potting shed.

Square Foot veg beds planted up

I purchased some excellent vegetable plug plants from Victoriana Nursery, Challock for Autumn, mostly brassicas. All performed very well, and in fact, some are still in the ground. I also purchased Asparagus plants, Strawberry plants and over-wintering peas. The peas were not successful, but I put that down to me and the manky weather. The Asparagus and Strawberries are doing superbly well. The Asparagus may not crop for a year or two, but the strawberries have been delicious, even the little mouse that lives in the tree ivy thinks so!

That just left two major life goals to achieve...bees and chickens!

Swallow Potting Shed

Swallow Greenhouse

Was it all worth it? Panic Planting and the Gardening Year

The title of this post covers two points 1) The panic planting earlier in the month 2) The gardening year as a whole.

1) Planting the garden in September

We did do a lot of work to get the garden presentable for our guests last weekend, and we were supremely lucky that the weather on the Saturday was glorious, because the Friday and Sunday were not so!

I was terribly busy cooking and trying to be a gracious host, whilst my dad spent the day driving me bonkers and picking holes in everything. The guests all kept loitering in the kitchen while we were trying to organise the seating arrangements, juggle plates and carve joints of meat, so it was great to be able to throw open the French doors and thrust our guests out into the garden, knowing it looked the best it could.

No one really commented on the pretty bits of the garden, except MrPB's Summer House and the guinea pigs (which were much admired), the spoil heap and weeds covered by tarpaulin (which were not admired!), and the dirty great Leylandii...which were the subject of hot debate including lots of suggestions on which bits need sawing off.

I'm not disappointed that discussion revolved around the work-in-progress bits rather than the finished bits. People tend to be drawn to things that don't look quite right or out of place, whilst simply accepting those things that feel complete or harmonious. Maybe the 'incomplete' somehow 'jars' the mind and eye, and they need to understand what and why. (Oooh! nice unintentional rhyme!!)

2) The gardening year

 As a whole it's been a tricky one for me. I have sown no seeds, grown no produce, bar three tomatoes. I haven't visited the allotment, and have left the garden very much to its own devices. My heart has not been in it this year. The very wet Spring was followed by a wet, then bakingly hot Summer, in the middle of which I was quite quite poorly. Before I knew it, August was here and I had done nothing.

I only took part in the first Gardener's Society show of the year, and the results were a clear demonstration that all was not well.

My attention has definitely been focussed very heavily on my jewellery making, and commissions for the gift shop that stocks my pieces, and almost every evening has seen me working in my craftroom till late at night...it's not really any wonder that I was so unwell in July :-/

I have managed to shed some responsibilities during the course of the year, and my hope is that things will be different next year, and I will feel inspired by the possibilities of my little alloment and garden...they're not much, but they're mine xx

Garden Party and Panic Planting

We're having a family get together at the new house next Saturday, and I've been thinking about how things will look to our guests, most of whom have not seen the house in real life before.

I know the front garden doesn't look great, as it's really more of a Spring/Early Summer garden (before the trees have 'leafed-up'), but I thought the back would do me more credit...

Then I looked again, with fresh eyes...Oh dear!

So many garden jobs to do!

We still have half the garden as it was when the builders left, ie rubble and weeds. The fence needs replacing and there is still a pile of used Grow Bags waiting to be emptied into the raised beds. My answer to the weeds and rubble, was to pull a big tarp over the lot of it, the tarp is green, so hopefully it will camoflage the mess (cough cough).

I  knew the pretty side of the garden would cheer me up...oh...'x' has finished flowering and needs cutting back...so does 'y'...and 'z'...the slugs have massacred 'a'...and it looks like 'b' never grew at all. This is not good. The saddest loss is the big tree fern we bought last summer to replace the previous one that died. We've come to the conclusion that it must be something to do with the huge canopy of leylandii that overhang from our neighbours. The rain cannot penetrate it, and it sheds dead needles continuously to form a crispy, copper-coloured blanket over everything. The soil beneath, is just dust.

Urgent remedial action was required, so I went bonkers at the local DIY centre, and bought 2 trolley loads of flowering perrenials that should continue well into Autumn, things like Phlox and Pinks, and I also bought lots of Heuchera 'Palace Purple', which are such good doers, two Clematis to twine through the ivy on the fence, and a Fatsia Japonica to replace the tree fern. We've had one before, and know that it is pretty tough, so hopefully, once it gets it's roots down, it will be okay.

I had to do a surprising amount of clearing to make space for my new treasures, including uprooting and potting-up four or five nice Strawberry runners. The three clumps of Viola 'Rebecca' have had a bit of a haircut, and a slight repositioning. A lovely Heuchera, given to us by my God-Sister last May, had put on enough growth to be split into three decent plants. I love free plants!

The clump of Dahlia 'Dandy' which I grew from seed  a few years ago was looking really sad. I think again it is probably to do with the Leylandii. I decided that I would give the clump a haircut, and then changed my mind and dug it up, with the intention of throwing it away and starting again. However, the clump of tubers was enormous, and beautifully fat and healthy, so I instantly changed my plan, chopped off the top growth and split the clump into three. Hopefully this will reinvigorate the plants, and I'll get better flowers next year...fingers crossed.

After two evenings, working like a Navvie until it was too dark to see, the garden looks much more 'flowery'. The beds have been beefed up with the spent growbags and some manure, and if I keep diligently dead-heading, and watering, all should be well.

The front garden hasn't escaped this drastic action though - ooooh no! The block paved drive had begun to look like a hayfield, and we could literally have run the lawn mower over it. We decided that as this was the first impression our guests would have of the house, we needed to weed. So armed with a knife each and a bucket, we spent the best part of 3 days cutting out the weeds from between the cracks - whose idea was it to use 'rustic' paviours :-/

The effort was well worth it though, as it does look super. We also bought some low willow effect hurdles along the front of the short bed at the end of the drive, in front of the hedge. This means that we've been able to increase the soil level without it washing onto the drive in the first rain, and to put in some more new plants, including: 2 hebes, 3 Cottage Pinks, a dwarf Pink Echinacea and 2 Euonymous. That sounds like a lot of plants, but it looked a bit bare when I laid everything out in position, so I added 2 Heuchera 'Chocolate Ruffles' (split from a plant in another bed, and some 2 year old Hellebore seedlings.

I'm really pleased with what we've achieved, though we were dog-tired by Sunday evening ...now there is just the house itself to worry about!! :D .

Another Gardening Confession time - It's So Embarassing ...

What have I achieved in the garden?

Here we are, 2nd July,
And I cannot tell you a lie
I haven't sown any seeds at all
Have I hit the gardening 'wall'?

Okay, enough of the dreadful poetry, but it's true, it's 2 months since my last post, and I don't feel much further on than I was then.

But I suppose I have done some things... the weather has been absolutely dreadful, which hasn't helped matters, but I know my heart hasn't been in it so far this year :-(

So what have I done?

My kind neighbour gave me a stack of seedlings, flowers and vegetables, and I've planted most of these out in the garden (please don't mention the lottie :o! ). So I have now got some sweet peas and french beans flowering.

A little bonus I discovered yesterday, is that an unpicked Achocha fruit, from last years plants, has seeded itself into the raised bed, so I've got at least three plants appeared, and they look nice and healthy.

Flowers

The summer bulbs I planted in the 'woodland' garden are starting to pop up and look super, especially the lillies and anemonies. It would be lovely if I had some looking good for the Summer Show.

MiL is moving house this week (sad, but very sensible), and I managed to dig up a couple of particularly pretty Aqueligia from her old garden. It's kind of nice, because now there will always be a little bit of 'Longfield' (my OH's childhood home) here in our garden.

I managed to plant up the hanging basket and window baskets at the front of the house, and they are filling out really well.

I took some cuttings from a nice Dianthus at our old house, and they have taken root and put on new growth, so I've popped them in the garden here at the new house.

I've clipped the hedges back a bit, but the rain has really encouraged them to bounce back, so I have to keep revisiting it.

The delphiniums have flowered quite well (not as well as someone I know), but they do suffer from being under the neighbours monsterous leylandii trees.

I have Hollyhocks about to start flowering - the first ones I've ever managed, so I'm really excited to see them do their thing.

Summer Fruit

I've got lots of summer raspberries forming, which is really exciting, as my little wood mouse has eaten every single strawberry, just before it's been ripe enough to pick - little monkey! So, today I've bought some plastic bell cloches online, and hopefully they will protect the last fruits for me to enjoy.

So...actually, that's quite a lot ... I don't feel so bad now :-)

I'll add some piccies soon.

Gardening confession time

I started the year with such good gardening intentions.

I took my seed collection out of the cupboard two months ago and reorganised it. I took out all the March seeds, and put them in a big pile on the kitchen table, so I was ready to go. They stayed there for a week or so, 'til I got fed up looking at them. They got put in a big plastic bag ...and shoved back in the cupboard.

Since then, I have been heavily involved in my crafting (www.hollysfriends.co.uk), working on commissions and orders, which must take priority. The weather has ranged from snow, hail, rain, wind and sun - often in the same half hour, so going outside has been less than appealing.

We've also rescued a third Guinea Pig, now called
Pudding, who is so absorbing, she may actually have caused a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, so much so, that I am devastated to find it is the last day of April already and I haven't sewn a single seed.

There is nothing I can do to change this state of affairs however, it just means I've got an horrendous amount of catching up to do. Wish me luck, I shall need it :-)