Extracted the honey and have been clearing out weeds.

I have extracted the honey. I had over 17 litres of honey from 2 bee hives and have jarred 64 jars with 250g of honey in each. I still have over a litre to be jarred. Two thirds were from the Orchard and the final third was from my garden.

I visited a local allotment open day on Sunday after being invited by a couple of local bee keepers, and allotment holders. I arrived about midday the open event had started at 11am and the bee keepers had put on a stand, showing actual bees in a closed glass frame and a virtual hive, they shared the stand with chicken owners which were selling eggs and showing different varieties of chickens. The Bee keepers had put up their excess honey for sale they had complete sold out by the time I arrived. They asked me and some other bee keepers if we had excess honey that we wanted to sell some. I and others gave them some honey which they sold. They sold 22 of my jars.

This is the first time I have sold honey and I found it really difficult. I am not as business minded as others, and on previous occasions I just gave it away, to friends, family, neighbours, work colleagues etc. The sale didn't feel right to me, the people that bought the honey will enjoying it and I am certain they will like it, its lovely. However I won't get the pleasure of knowing if they liked it personally and having that relationship with the consumer. It was a disappointment, however the money raised will go to getting some labels printed and feeding the bees perhaps later in the year. After handing over the honey I wanted to take it back, but financially I have to sell some just to help meet the costs. Also giving away the honey is not the best solution, as I want everyone to have my honey.

At the orchard I have started clearing out the weeds underneath the trees. Its a slow process, and I seem to get distracted very easily. Chris the guy who owns the stables wanted to chat about the hay, its not very tall and he was disappointed, by its growth this year. However we have lots of flowers and some hay which looks nice. Chris talked about the price of hay. He has sold a number of the horses and it seems like he is shrinking the size of his business.

Clearing weeds is taking time as they are mainly creeping thistle or stinging nettles. Both need gloves and I am trying to also get the roots. I am trying to compost them down with horse manure.I hope the manure will kind of burn them down as well.

The cherries have started to ripen. A couple had ripened and we tried a couple of the Black Oliver variety which have been the first to ripen, they were delicious. My daughter and son agree. In a couple of weeks the other fruits will ripen. I can see we will have a bumper amount of cherries, plums and apples, probably in that order. However again the pears have been a disappointment, they blossomed well but have not fruited. All the trees are growing well. I'll just have to wait and see about the pears, its still early days.

I have seen more pest damage, on some of the fruit. I have found some insects have eaten into the cherries and I have leaf damage all round.

The recent rain has helped and encouraged growth. The trees have not been affected by the recent very strong winds. Through I have seen some trees nearby which have suffered substantial damage.

One of the swarms is doing well I can see lots of eggs etc, the other is expanding, but slower. All of the original hives still haven't got laying queens, yet and I will have too see how things are this weekend before taking action. I really need to get to grips with record keeping, I now have a couple more hives and its getting harder to remember the situation of all the hives.

Found my 2 queens, and its getting busy

This weekend has been busy. My brother and I have cut the grass, not completely mind.

We have left lots of the ground uncut as it has flowers and various different types of grasses, which prior to the cut looked beautiful, it still looks beautiful but in a different way, more of a man made beauty, with paths and lanes. Previously you could almost see waves and ripples blow through the orchard as the wind brushed across it. What we have cut is still tall about 3 inches in height. It does make getting around the orchard much easier. We can also comfortably sit and have a picnic again. You can now walk around each tree with great ease. The mower also mulches so most of the grass has been shredded and will compost back into the ground.

We had a gap in the fence, which was originally used to bring horses and equipment in from the stables, it also meant guard dogs from the stables could get into the orchard, that gap has now been closed and fenced, the dogs were sightly mi-ft.

On Saturday I listening to music while cutting the grass, the headphones cut out the noise from mower which is very loud. Anyway one of the large rottweilers got in and got behind me. This particular dog could attack if your back is to it. I turn around and realised she was their and she scared the Hebe-gibes out of me. So the hole is now closed, just in case.

The cutting of the grass is time consuming and I had split the work up between me and my brother. We have put paths around so you can walk from one tree to another, and are able to walk all the way round the orchard.

While my brother was cutting the grass and he almost walked into a swarm that had settled on a tree. He was scared, very scared. I later found another swarm on another tree. So now in the orchard, we have four hives. I will be removing them within th

e week. My wife has a friend that wants bees in the garden, so he may be getting 1 of them, and the other will go to my parents garden. The bees at my parents have suffered from chalk brood this year. The bees going to my wife's friend will be looked after by me until he is trained up etc. In fact collecting the swarms was good experience. I enjoyed it and I have a video of me doing so, which may get posted.

Most of the trees that were planted December last year have a layer of course wood shavings around them so that the roots do not have to compete with anything else, the wood is untreated and should decompose down overtime, it may take some of the nitrogen out of the ground but over time it should be fine when in decomposes down. That's the theory.

Then on Sunday, we had some friends come over and walked around the orchard, some of the friends had helped to plant a number of the trees back in 2008. It was nice too see them and they seem to like how the trees have developed. I took some of them into the hives, to do the weekly checks. Still no eggs in the main hives. Lets see next week. Told you it was a busy week. This coming week I will have the extractor so I will be extracting the honey from the orchard within the next couple of days. So it's all go. I also have a number of trees where I have to clear the undergrowth, so the they do not compete with the trees. This job will take some time and gets started tonight.

Notes from the BBKA Spring Convention Lectures 2011

Lecture - Beekeeping for Poverty Alleviation by Pam Gregory

Pam recognised influences from John Atkinson from the Welsh National Bee Unit and John Holmes a Kenyan Bee Keeper,

She recommended using indigenous, bees, they are easier to obtain its better than shipping bees across the planet with possible unknown outcomes. Her program was aimed at rural communities / individuals. Bee keeping should not for bee keeping in large settlements or cities, where pollution, populations, and a lack of both nectar and pollen sources could pose problems, though not completely ruled out.

Beekeeping in rural settings can generate, cash income and locally it could be significant sums. Pam found that the honey itself was not eaten, but used as a medicine. The honey was having to be transported long distances, and packaging was a problem. However as honey does not deteriorate like other produce it wasn't ideal but manageable. The beekeepers could keep the produce for a while before going to market. Weight can be an issue moving large quantities, and supplying to some organisations can also be a problem. ie a customer may want 10 tonnes regularly, not happening.

Some of the advantages were that the bees don't compete for land. The bee keeper and the projects improved social status. She did make a comment about a bee keeper that had improved his status and now owned his own home, was respected by the village and was able to give back to his own community. It can destabilise existing hierarchy overtime I guess.

Extractors etc were not possible to obtain or to expensive for these projects, however the use of a Honey press was preferred. I was not familiar with a honey press, its just a method of using a force to push the honey out of the comb. Which seemed a waste as the bees would have to build more comb. Pam was happy with this and I guess its good for bee hygiene. Bee suits like those available in Britain were too expensive for these projects and a make your own from local materials was essential, Pam showed pictures of people wearing home made bee suits, from plastic. They seemed to do the trick.

She highlighted some negatives, to many hives in one apiary, and that disease and virus, can build up. In truth its a good project, one I would like to participate in.

Lecture - What is wrong with Modern Bee Keeping by Philip Chandler http://biobees.blogspot.com/

Philip Chandler's lecture was interesting and he seems to be controversial. He critised the BBKA and traditional practices. He actual read his entire lecture verbose from notes.

Bee keepers traditionally used bees as a beast of burden to collect Honey and Wax, they didn't care for these creatures themselves. He gave a quote from A Gilman dated 1928/29 "The Creator intended the bee for the comfort of man, as truly as he did the horse or the cow". He also stated that Traditional hives are designed by men for men. It was previously a domain for men and this is changing, but the traditional practices remain and are prevalent. Traditional hives are difficult to handle and can be heavy. He has a point.

He is an advocate of using a Top Bar Hive and gave advantages including the fact that the hive is stationary. Its easier to add additional frames for honey. He didn't talk much about problems. I wondered how he coped with swarms. Does he have 2 top bar hives at all his apiaries. He mentioned that he does not use api-guard or its equivalent commercial products to deal with varroa. He only uses icing sugar, to encourage the bees to clean themselves. The top bar hives don't have varora floors so does varroa build up ?

He also mentioned Bolivia and the 11 new rights of nature. Nature in Boliva now has the same rights as people. I have read about this but I don't recall if he mentioned what all 11 rights were.

After the lecture he had lots of people argue with his pre-notions. He did mention several other people these included Kirk Webster http://kirkwebster.com/

You can download the whole lecture in a podcast format from http://biobees.libsyn.com/

I'm missing 2 queens and now have no eggs

I checked on the Trees and the Bees last night. The trees have had lots of caterpillar damage I can see lots of fruit coming up. However as I haven't sprayed the organic pesticide this year, the pests have done more damage. I will be spraying the organic spray again next year. I had left it to the birds and other insects, but they haven't been as effective as I had hoped.

Also we have had rain now and a good couple of inches. I can see that some of the blossom had dried out, which probably means lets fruit. Its not good. Then its not the end of the world, if this were a commercial venture it would be a disaster. I can at least put it down to a some experience gained. Then again, if we get lots of rain soon it may be ok, in truth I'm not sure.

I checked the bee hives and I can see that the new queens have emerged, but still no eggs, in the frames. It can take a couple of weeks so I hoping that the queens have been mated and are getting ready to start laying. The sooner the better. I have honey at least 1 super full and may take it away next week, as much of it is from the rape seed.

This week its not good news but the tide can so quickly change.

Hot Cherry Swarms

Last weekend went and checked everything, all was fine. It does look like the bees have swarmed and they are busy just surviving. I have put a new supper on the hive and will have to see how things are going soon. I figure I will have to get the extractor from the association to extract honey in the next couple of weeks. Some of the honey will be from rape seed and that means that the honey hardens very quickly and even the bees can't use it.

The weather has been hot very hot and the trees need water. The cherries are looking very healthy and I should have a bumper crop again in a couple of weeks. I am not worried if birds get to them, but am hoping for a bowlful. It has been very windy though, I have taken some video of one of the trees really taking a beating as the wind blows.

I still haven't trimmed the grass, and am in t

wo minds to cut it. Leave it and let the insects have a field day. I also need to arrange the transport etc.

I have had more caterpillars and have remove as many as I could. One pooped and the poo was a very bright green.

In reality I have been lazy the last couple of weeks, we had the bank holiday and kids have been poorly, so I haven't got much done. But that is about to change.