Bulbs planted in the orchard

Bees stilling producing wax and honey in one of the hives

I have managed to plant 35 kilos of Daffodils, they are just for fun, and will give the orchard a spot of colour in the spring.

All the hives are doing well lots of bees and when its warm the bees are out and about. In fact in one of them the bees were still building wax and making and capping honey last week.

Beetle found while planting daffodils

Whilst planting the daffodils I saw loads of insects, and small mammals. All good for the environment and for the bio-diversity of the orchard.

Also the planting of the bulbs gave me a real chance to get a  real feel of the soil and I have to admit it has improved over the last couple of years.

I also visited Tatton Gardens and saw where they store the apples that they have picked over the past few months, it wasn't that impressive but interesting. At present I don't really store my fruit for long but will have to in the future.

I'll be sitting the next module exam for the BBKA soon and been having to grips with the study.

Started planting daffodils

Son eating apples

Orchard

Started to plant daffodils in the orchard. They should bring in more wildlife. They aren't really a bee friendly plant, but I have also planted a much smaller number of crocuses. More blub flowers will be planted over the next couple of weekends. We have also ordered other seed plants.
It been tough work I started on Friday and the ground was dry and very hard. I then continued on Saturday and as it had rained in the morning it was much easier to get them planted.

Checked on the Bees and have started to feed. Its been a strange September as they are still bringing in pollen and building up stores. I placed a 12.5Kg fondant block on one of them. The others have lots of food so they should be fine.

The most aggressive of my colonies was a little disappointing as I didn't see much brood in the hive, loads of bees, stores and pollen so will have to check on that again in the coming week.

The bees weren't happy with me going to the hive and I got stung a couple of times a while later, when I had removed the veil and returned to planting. One sting was below the eye and it now looks like I have a black eye.The swelling has started to go down and its been almost 24 hours.

Fondant block on hive

One of the nice things about working in an orchard is when your feeling peckish you can help yourself to a juicy apple, as my son demonstrates. He was helping with the daffodil planting and was having fun with his toy dragon. Still a number of apples in the trees and they are very refreshing after you have been planting very crisp.

My wife made a delicious black current and apple pie, with the fruit from the orchard of course, it was very yummy.

The weather over the weekend was lovely to get the blubs planted and the rest of the week seem wet lots of rain forecast.