Fencing a good Plum and Damson harvest

I have finally started fencing of each and every tree. I have cut a micro climate fencing product and then staked it into the ground with a bamboo cane.

I had seen it at ryton organics in the orchard it looks nice lets hope it does the trick. Its going to take a couple of weeks to protect all the trees.

I have picked loads of plums and damsons this week. My wife even made me a plum crumble which was mmmmmmmmm.

Not sure what to do with the damsons yet. Any suggestions?

I have placed the order for cow manure and lots of it. It means lots of work for me.

This is the first blog entry I have made using my phone and the blogger app.

Extracting honey again this year.

I checked on the trees but was in a hurry so no time to linger. I had to get the extracting done. So it was a case of suit up and start removing the suppers. I collected all the suppers and then rushed home to get the extracting under way.

I had borrowed a larger extractor from a friend and wanted to get the extracting done this weekend. My friends extractor holds 9 frames, which makes the job faster and even the spinning was much easier than I had expected; previously I had used a much older device that belongs to my local association. I managed to get the extracting done and even some of the bottling done by Saturday evening but finished it on Sunday.

I have extracted close to 20 litres of honey and have bought some much larger jars to do the bottling. I have also have a couple of jars of honey with the comb as it seems people like it like that. To me it looks great.

Will I sell much I don't know. I hate selling it but my wife is more practical than me and I know I need to sell some just to meet the costs incurred running hives. This year I have sold enough to pay for the winter feeding and have ordered enough fondant that should last all winter and if more is require I will supply Sugar syrup.

Found a Girls dress

I was at the orchard on Saturday and found a young girls dress which was strange, it was the sort of thing my daughter wears but I was sure it wasn't hers. I took a picture and thought nothing more about it.

That evening I was at my dad's for a barbeque which was great. Anyway I told my dad and wife about the dress and my mum, wife and sister got me to report it to the police.

I also emailed in the pictures in them and they arranged a meeting the following morning to collect the dress. They did tell me that no children had been reported missing etc. So no crisis. It sort of snowballed, from nothing to the police coming down.

So I met the local officer a nice chap called Mike down at the orchard at 10:30 the following morning and we had a chat. His family have a strawberry and soft fruit farm and he has many of the same problems as me. People coming down and picking fruit, and the occasional bit of vandalism. He was aware of the bee hive being kicked last week as I had reported it to the police and he had visited the orchard in the week to make sure things we ok. I now have his police mobile number and that may be useful in the future.

We have lots of plums and damsons now on the orchard, which are ready to eat and they are tasty too. I collected a large bag full on Sunday morning and yesterday my wife collected more, with the kids.

The grass has been cut and the hay bailed it looks nice large rolls of hay on the land. The Manure still has not been delivered. I will have to check on that.

I am planning to extract more honey this weekend, I may miss some of the bramble honey but I'm not to worried about that. The timing of the extracting comes at a busy time, we have a couple of kids birthday parties to attend etc. Anyhow's I have arranged to borrow an extractor from Ming de Nasty. A fellow bee keeper.