Withy ring and home made rabbit guards

3 Ladybirds picture taken by my daughter

I helped mend the fencing and assist with the general apiaryclear up at the Sutton Coldfield branch apiary last weekend, in Sutton Park. Itwas great fun, and not as much hard work as I had envisioned as lots ofbeekeepers turned up to help.

I got a ride in the Rangers landrover going cross country tocollect some of the equipment and it was still icy and snowy so going crosscountry in the 2000 acre park was something most people don't get to do. Theyalso hold part of the RAC rally car championships through the park every coupleof years. So it was fun. Talking to ranger was also enlightening; the ranger whowas assisting has been working in the park for 30 years and is the only rangerthat hasn't got a degree in some related topic. He told me how things havechanged and some of the challenges that he faces, and it was his first time inthe Apiary area. I told him to come down in the summer on one of the Tuesday eveningsand come into one of the hives.

Witout the new guards

Later in the week I started putting up more of the rabbit guardsaround the fruit trees as some of the trees had suffered minor damage. Therabbit guards are larger and homemade; compare to the suff that was originally there.They are made from some plastic fencing that I have cut to fit around the treeswith the aid of a bamboo cane, let’s hope it works well. As its half term I hada helper my daughter.

I think she really enjoyed it this week I gave her the task to take some pictures and look for ladybirds. She took the picture of the tree ladybirds together. On that tree we found 5 ladybirds, not bad.

With new guard

We managed to get a fair few done, although it may take acouple more weekends to finish all the trees and in truth I started it sometime ago, before the manure arrived, and am only getting round to finish thework, so I have been a bit lacks about it.

I also have some rabbit guards that are higher but will combine them with the homemade one's just to add extra protection. The new guards are pretty basic and are higher than some of the original rabbit guards and should last for a while and give an extra bit of protection

Withy Willows

I also managed to plant a couple more willows, in the willowcircle "ring" I started a couple of years ago. I hadn't protectedthem well and the rabbits demolish most of them so this time I have protectedthem much better. I got a couple of large withy’s and have planted them and amhoping that they take, if they do, the in a couple of years I'll have a willow Stonehenge where I'm hoping kids,family and friends will be able to play, sit and relax, chat and watch theworld go by. I kind of want the willows to merge together so that all the treesmake a nice interwoven shelter, let’s hope it works.