Bees

Here are some pictures from my weekly inspection of my bees.  At the moment I have two hives, one really strong colony and one very small colony which I have persevered with for two seasons but to no avail.  My bee keeping friend Tony gave me a virgin queen last week to re-queen this weak colony but as yet she hasn’t started to lay yet.  She needs to go on her nuptial flight with some of the boys (drones) to be fertilised, then hopefully she should start laying eggs.  The other hive (the really strong one) is doing really well.  At the moment I have two brood boxes on (the boxes where the eggs are laid and the young bees are reared) and 3 supers (the boxes where the honey is stored).  There are a LOT  of bees in this hive, literally thousands and luckily they are evenly tempered and don’t get too narky whilst I am looking through them.

This first picture is a frame of uncapped honey which is probably still being processed by the bees.

 

The next picture is of capped honey, sealed by beeswax.  This is ok to take off but I won’t be doing that for a few more weeks yet.  Each super if full normally holds about 20 pounds of honey.

The next picture is of the bottom brood box where most of the bees are, you can only see a fraction of the bees.

I have another hive of bees in the garden as well but these are Tony’s.

A chap who keeps a lot of bees locally is reducing the number of hives he keeps due to ill health and is selling them at a very reasonable price - £160 for a full colony of bees.  I have ordered two of these to try and increase my stock as usually I would have had a swarm by now but none have been forth coming.  The hives should be available middle of August.

Cake vicar?

These are a fun knit – easy, quick and uses minimal yarn - Cupcakes by Alison Hogg

Now off to google more cake patterns – makes you feel hungry doesn’t it?

Summer colour

I haven’t been blogging lately as this time of year is really hectic for us.  The gorgeous summer weather we have been having lately has had a terrific effect on the garden with everything bursting forth with growth but It has been a hard job keeping everything watered.  This year I have been using an organic peat free compost which has a lovely texture but seems to dry out really quickly.  At them moment I am growing a variety of tomato called Garden Pearl which has a tumbling type growth ideal for hanging baskets and tubs, but the tubs are drying out really quickly even with watering them twice a day so I went to the local garden centre to buy those plastic terracotta coloured saucer type dishes you put under the pots but was appalled at the price of them.  On looking round for an alternative I spied some brightly coloured trays that were being sold as cat litter trays.  Not only are these ideal for my tubs and have a huge capacity but I can use them for putting small pots of seedling in for easy watering and they were cheaper too!

 

On the yarn front I have been crocheting some covers for boring plastic coat hangers.  I used the pattern Granny Hangers from Sarah London.  I love how they have turned out.

Norfolk Broads Holiday

Last week we managed to grab a few days away on one of our own hire boats.  We chose Royall Oak as this is our favourite boat.  The weather was scorching and couldn’t be better. This was Raven’s first holiday afloat as Tillie is an old ‘sea dog’ already!  I hope you like the pictures.

 

                 Royall Oak moored at Coltishall                                 Raven cooling off in the long grass

                    Another boat of our fleet Royall Commander 2                      Approaching Horning

 

            Tillie & Raven looking out over Ludham marshes                                   Nigel sailing is gun punt ‘Shoveler’

A couple of examples of Norfolk drainage mills

                                    Approaching Barton Broad                                          Nigel relaxing at Barton Staithe

 

                           Exploring narrower waterways in Shoveler                              Hunsett Mill on the River Ant

               A boat ‘shooting’ the very low Potter Heigham Bridge                                Tillie & Raven in Shoveler

                                  Raven hoping to enjoy a pub lunch                              The Pleasure Boat Inn garden at Hickling

                                             Aboard Shoveler again                   Overlooking Herbert Woods Boatyard Potter Heigham at sunset

                                           The Norfolk Wherry ‘Albion’                                    Walking near South Walsham marshes

For a more detailed write up, Nigel has blogged about our holiday from the perspective of his boat ‘Shoveler’ over on the Royalls Boatyard Blog

Chicken coops and beehives

Yesterday saw the arrival of one of my birthday presents from Nigel. Here he is assembling all the pieces:

Yes it is my new ‘made from recycled plastic chicken coop’.  It is made by a company called Green Frog Designs.  I have been looking for a new chicken coop  but preferably not one made out of wood to cut down on maintenance and one that was more hygienic and easier to clean and also one that was easily moveable.  It didn’t take that long to put together and here is the finished article:

I think you will agree this is a vast improvement on my current wooden house pictured below:

Before, the chickens were in a permanent run, being let out on the grass but the temporary fencing had to be always linked up to the old run as my original house was built in situ and couldn’t be moved.  I had fun and games last night seeing if the chickens would put themselves to bed.  One persistent old girl kept escaping and heading off back to the old house, 2 had sensibly gone to bed by themselves in their new des res but the other four I chased round for ages to catch them and put them away.  I shut the pop hole up last night just so they would get used to being in there but usually I would have left it open.  I am well pleased with the new house and it will be nicer for the hens to be moved about on fresh grass in the summer.

We bought my bees back from Ranworth on Tuesday night where they had been for the oil seed rape.   Both my hives are very weak this year and I wasn’t expecting any honey from the rape this year unlike last year where I got about 60lbs, but I thought visiting the rape fields may build them up a little.  One of the hives has built up nicely but the other one is still very small and my suspicions were confirmed when I opened them up yesterday and spotted the dreaded varroa mite.  As there are no honey supers on this hive I quickly put some thymol treatment in and hope I can catch it in time.  The varroa mite has had a major impact on bee keeping here in the UK and is becoming a huge problem especially as they are now becoming resistant to the treatment.  Later in the year I may get some honey off the strong colony I have, we shall just have to wait and see.  Tony, a fellow bee keeping friend who also took his bees to Ranworth managed to harvest 115lbs of honey – mind you he has been keeping bees for about 40 years and as I have only been doing it for about 8 years, I am still a novice.

All my beehives were built by Nigel, the first is a WBC style hive and the second is a Cottage style hive.

Exhausting work

For  popular greyhounds it is exhausting work meeting your adoring public so plenty of naps are in order between this busy life.

Starring in this photo shoot – top left photo Gemma & Zonda, top right Gemma & Zonda with Tillie on the left, bottom left on top of shelter Tillie 2 and bottom right Tillie again with Raven at the back.

9 miles from Aylsham to Wroxham

  

Yesterday saw us complete our 9 mile sponsored walk at the start of Greyhound Awareness Week and to raise money for Action for Greyhounds UK.

I had been keeping a careful eye on the weather for the last week and realised that Sunday was going to be a scorcher so we decided to delay the start until the afternoon.  After getting a lift from Annie from Action for Greyhounds in the back of her greyhound bus we arrived already hot and bothered in the sweltering heat in Aylsham at the Bure Valley Railway station.  We set off at 3.40pm with Annie, her little boy and two of her greyhounds for company until we hit the Cromer road where you take your life into your hands crossing the busy Sunday afternoon traffic heading for the coast.  This is the only grim bit of the public footpath, the railway line goes under the road through a tunnel and we often wonder why they didn’t make the tunnel wider and put the footpath under the road as well.  We waved goodbye to Annie and set off in earnest with Tillie and Raven plodding on ahead off lead.  The oil seed rape was out in brilliant yellow bloom and you could really smell the flowers.  The sun however was relentless and the two dogs soon became very hot and panting heavily.  After about a mile we sought refuge under a shady tree for drinks and a rest.  I think the temperature was in the high 20’s and there was not a breath of wind.  I was worried about doing the other 8 miles and contemplated turning back and attempting it on a cooler evening but Nigel said he would go on ahead as he thought there might be a cool stream up ahead and sure enough he returned very quickly and reported back that there was.  We quickly diverted off the track and down some steps to a bubbling clear stream that was shallow and with a pebbly bottom.  We all stood in the cooling waters and I soaked the dogs head to toe and thoroughly drenched them with water whereupon they immediately shook all over us.  After sitting on the bank with our legs dangling in the water to cool off, we eventually roused ourselves to continue the walk.  We have done this walk numerous times before and it normally takes us about 3 hours so at our present rate of knots of about 1 mile an hour it didn’t look like we would be home before midnight.  However the fierceness of the sun had now subsided and some clouds were scudding across the sky so we were able to plug on.  After several more short stops for drinks we reached Buxton station about half way and stopped properly for tea in the shade of a hedge by the side of a wheat field. 

Tillie and Raven enjoyed yet more drink and some biscuits and a lovely lie down in the cool long grass.  We had packed a carton of strawberries to eat and on retrieval from the rucksack, they had become a little squashed in transit and Nigel found himself covered in strawberry juice, however they were still delicious and very refreshing if a little flat.  We then proceeded on in the glorious evening sunlight and the miles soon fell behind, passing Coltishall station and then on to Coltishall St James. 

The wildflowers were out in abundance all along the walk with red poppies, red campion, stitchwort, buttercups, ox eye daisies all out in full bloom and the Hawthorn blossom was particularly beautiful. We didn’t see many other walkers but plenty of cyclists passed us on their way to either Wroxham or Aylsham and we only saw 2 trains heading back to Aylsham. 

Both Tillie & Raven would suddenly dart off at speed in front of us thinking there was something interesting to chase in front only to see a blackbird or pigeon take off and desultorily flap away. At last we approached Belaugh green level crossing and we knew we were on the homeward straight.  And after about 4½ hours we arrived , dusty, hungry and dishevelled back at Wroxham where Annie was there to meet us. 

After all their hard work we chauffeured Tillie & Raven homewards in the dayboat where they enjoyed a short river trip back home. 

After a well deserved tuna tea, we didn’t hear a peep out of either dogs until the morning!

Thank you to everyone that sponsored us on our walk and at the moment the total stands at £552 which you will agree is a massive amount.