Horses have snacked on a couple of trees

Its been an interesting week. The trees are growing fast and lots of spurts of growth. It not all good news, 2 trees have had leaves eaten by the horses that are munching through the grass. Its not that bad I write optimistically. On one tree the damage in minor and on the other it is noticeable as the tree is about 10 foot high and from about 4ft - 7ft it no longer has leaves.
The horses should in a 10 meter x 30 meter pen which is fenced in via a movable electric fence. I have informed Chris the chap who owns the horses. He is taking care of it. What had happened was that the horses had managed to get out of the penned area.

Checked on the bees a couple of days ago with a chap from the Warwickshire bee keepers group. Bob Gilbert, who has been looking after bees 20 years +. I called him in as I have not seen any eggs or lavea. He found a new queen which may be a virgin. He has advised me to wait for a week and a half before manipulating the bees again. Then check to see if the new queen is laying eggs. I hope she will be. If not other steps will need to be made.

I have also been contacted my the Midshire Orchard Group, my local orchard group I joined last year. They also supplied most of the trees. They have informed me about a European Conservation Action Network. A project to meet people or are managing traditional orchards in mainland Europe. This would be a great opportunity for me. It would be difficult with work etc but they understand. I have applied and wait see if I will be joining this years interns. This would be a good opportunity, lets wait and see what happens.

The picture this week is one of my daughter. It was her birthday on Sunday and she has just turned 5. She usually comes with me to help.