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.

RHS Wisley (September 2014)

Wisley Apple Orchard

I visited RHS Wisley over the weekend. They have wonderful orchards and its a nice time of the year to go. The gardens are always picturesque however with the sense of change in the air I enjoyed it more, just wish I had more time to linger.

I know and I can see and feel the seasonal changes occurring, you can see the trees reacting to them, the changes in colour, the dying back even the smells are of Autumn.

At Wisley they have loads of fruit still in the trees but you can smell the fermentation of the fruit. Its not the most pleasant smell but its a smell of autumn. The leaves of some of the fruit trees have started to fall this includes the cherries. Some of the apple, and pear trees have started to become dormant. The leaves are various colours and even the grass is starting to change colour.

Many of the flower beds are past thebest but it makes it easier to find plants that are bee friendly and you can see them whizzing around.

The orchards at Wisley are great and I hope that in time, mine will also be as productive and as beautiful.

Warwickshire County Honey Show

This weekend was the Warwickshire County Honey show held at Hatton Country World in Warwickshire. I contributed to a composition piece this year to do with the first world war.
My contribution was the candle show.

We didn't win. I thought it was rather good personally.

You needed a number of contributors to make up the composition I think we had at least 4. Then  all the pieces were judged. My candle got a 5 out of 10. The Poppies at the top of the piece are made from wax. We had the 1914 18 dates made from wax blocks. 1 jar of honey. 1 bottle of mead and a piece of cut comb.

Bee Travels Around The World - Monthly Lecture

Bernard Diaper gave an interesting talk titled "Bee Travels Around The World".

He gave an interesting talk with pictures of bee keeping trips he has made around the world. He has visited various countries and seen honey bees around the world.
He had some beautiful pictures of the "Apis Dorsata" large Asian honey bee. He has been to Nepal to see the Honey Collectors in practice. This is something I have also wanted to do.

He also showed us pictures of various other trips including trips the Oman and Saudi Arabia where we were surprised on amount of honey collected.

Samples of the bees he had collected and including of some very small bees Apis Florea were passed around for us to see exactly how small some of the bees were.

On one trip to Brasil to had found stingless bees that collected honey and would full the hair of potential aggressors. They had even been reported that the bees could pull eye lashes and if that didn't deter people they could get behind in person's eye and attack the veins located in the eye socket. Very scary.

Bernard gave and interesting and will lookout for his talks in the future. He was the Apiary Manager of my local association and is also a very respected bee keeper and honey show judge.

Managed to get the grass cut

I have managed to get the grass cut. The first cut of the year. I started about 1pm and finished about 5pm. I had a couple of breaks and managed to clock up 25000 steps on the pedometer for the day. 

The majority of the grass  has been cut at the orchard. It looks lovely. I did a fairly high cut and the plan is to do another shorter cut next week, its dependent on the weather and time. 

Once the second cut is done I will get loads of daffodils planted for the spring. I also need to get other plants that are bee friendly.

Update for the Summer

Apples on the trees

With the school holidays and my daughter getting ready for entrance exams, I haven't made any updates.

Brood on the comb

So here is whats been happening. I still haven't cut the grass, that's not even once this year. I plan too this weekend. I have bought a trailer to get the mower to the orchard, and back. Its all loaded and and ready to go, just need the weather and several hours.

Cobnuts eaten not by me

Black Berries

MAQ strips on one of the hives

Fruit, been a good year. lots of apples, pears plums and cherries. I have also had cobnuts and black berries. I have collected some, lots to still be collected, and some had ripened on the trees. Some damage from natural pests, as I am still not using chemicals to deter them.

Honey, productive year, I have extracted twice and I have left the honey on one hive. I also entered my local honey show and got second prize for one of my candles.

I have put the MAQ strips on all the hives, one of the queens went of lay but she is now back on.

So all in all a good year so far.

I also have huge heap of horse manure which is well rotted, that needs to get spread under the trees.

I also have 2 sackfuls of daffodils that need planting. I'm planing on getting some caolourful tulips also. So much work and so little time.

The diary entries should get more into line now.