The porter bee escape had almost worked. There were a few bees left in the super I wanted to take off, so I used a trick that works well for small scale hobby beekeepers who are only trying to take one super. I had a spare super with no frames in it in a wheelbarrow about 10m from the beehive, with a spare covering board over it. I removed the frames one by one from the super on the beehive, shook them to get the bees off, rushed them over to the barrow and put them in the empty box, then scarpered promptly with the barrow. I only had to evict one bee from the kitchen. Obviously if you are keeping bees on a commercial scale this is not tenable, but I believe professional beekeepers have other tools to help them, like chemical smoke to drive the bees down out of the supers.
I have just finished extracting the honey. It is dark and strong flavoured, as any crop here in later summer is. There are a couple of large chestnut trees in the wood, and chestnut honey is dark, so there's probably a fair bit of that in mine. I'm sure the honey was ready for harvest, as the bees had almost finished capping it, but after a day in the kitchen with the aga it was extremely runny, trickling down the outside of the comb as I cut the cappings off, and it went through the sieve almost like water, whereas the previous lot clogged the sieve and was slow to run through. This dark honey often stays liquid for a long time before granulating in the jar.
The inspection of the number two hive was inconclusive. There were two queen cells only, no eggs, and the bees had begun to store nectar in the brood area suggesting they aren't expecting more eggs to be laid any time soon. The bees were extremely buzzy, although they are normally placid, and I went through the brood box as briskly as I could while knowing the bees weren't going to give me the chance of a second look. I didn't see the queen and am not sure if she is still there, so I left the queen cells, as I don't want to drive this colony queenless. It was an inconlusive end to the swarming season, and shows how helpful the artificial swarming method would have been, if I hadn't messed it up last week.
The number three hive, that lost its queen over the winter and made a new one from eggs out of another colony, had built up strongly and urgently needed more space, whereas a couple of weeks ago they weren't using a third of the brood box. I went and fetched them a super, feeling very pleased with myself that I'd remembered a queen excluder to go with it, and then realised when I began a quick inspection of the frames that I was wearing the wrong glasses to see eggs easily. Fortunately it was good light and the hive has new clean frames, so I managed. The bees were very quiet throughout, which shows that the pissy behaviour of the number two hive was not just because it was a hot and fairly humid morning.
The swarm are still in their nuc box, and I gave them some more sugar. And that's the drama over for another summer. I can't do anything more to stop my own bees swarming without risking sending them queenless. I might pick up another swarm. There might be some more honey, depending on swarming, weather and nectar flow. But that's basically it for now. Next will be autumn feeding, varroa treatment and woodpecker-proofing, but that's not for a while.
In the garden I have been mostly cutting the lawn edges. There are a lot of edges in the back garden, just because it is a large garden. I keep them to a minimum by having a few big borders, not lots of little ones, and by keeping to clean sweeping lines and not niggly wiggly in-and-out ones. With everything else there's been to do, some edges had got very shaggy indeed, and as I trimmed I told myself I must cut them more regularly. It's a quicker job when they aren't too long. I use hand shears and not a strimmer, which no professional gardener would do, because I don't get on with strimmers. Can't start them, don't like the noise, don't want to risk chopping the legs off the toad population.
The treatment of the edges influences the mood of a garden. I try to keep clean lines, because curves that are pinched and wrong, and lines that are meant to be straight but wobble, are annoying. I'm not too worried if they get a little bit whiskery and romantic, because so is the lawn half the time. I don't mind a few shrubs growing out over the lawn and killing off bits of grass, as long as they don't impede circulation, because that looks relaxed and abundant whereas faced-up chopped off shrubs look depressing and car-parky. I remember being told at Writtle that in Regency gardens edges were deliberately left long (I haven't gone and checked that fact because it's late and I can't be bothered now). There was a garden in Essex, very fine in many ways but no longer open to the public due to the owner's ill-health, that had desperately sharp lawn edges. They were cut with scalpel precision and a neat gully carved between the lawn and border, and no plant was ever allowed to stray over the divide. It was a widely acclaimed garden done with skill and knowledge and with much to admire, but I didn't warm to it myself, and it was largely the edges that put me off. They were very...cold. I couldn't imagine walking around a corner and finding myself face-to-face with the god Pan in that garden.
Showing posts with label swarming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swarming. Show all posts
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
swarming
I rang the lettuce farm as promised straight after breakfast, and they said that the bees seemed to have gone. This is probably all for the best, as the description of the roof space they were in didn't sound promising, being plasterboard on lathes with a thick layer of insulation. Instead I went to see my own bees. (If you are not interested in beekeeping then if you skip a few paragraphs there is a bit about something else as well).
The number one hive has swarmed. I'm sure of it. There were fewer bees in the supers than there had been, and they had started storing honey in the brood nest instead of cleaning it for the queen to lay. There were several queen cells. I have heard our two local professional beekeepers get into a heated debate about how to deal with queen cells. One favoured the textbook approach, which is that you remove all except one. The books say that the first queen to emerge from her cell will destroy the other potential queens. However, if several queens emerge at much the same time some of them can leave with yet more of your bees in secondary swarms, which are called casts, and removing all except one new queen prevents this. The other beekeeper believed equally strongly that the bees knew better than any human which was the best new queen, and should be left to choose her themselves. My instinct is always not to mess the bees around more than I have to, so I shut them up and left them to it. I have had a crop off this hive already, so while I'd rather they hadn't swarmed it wasn't a complete failure.
My spirits lifted as I experimentally hefted the top super (see below if you have forgotten what this is) on the number two hive. It was very heavy, meaning that the bees probably hadn't swarmed yet, and that I was in with a good chance of harvesting that honey. I removed the supers and opened up the body of the beehive. The first frame had a sealed queen cell on it. The second frame didn't seem to have any queen cells. At that point I looked to one side, and there was a pile of bees on the grass about 2m away.
It was a swarm that had landed on the ground, which was odd. Normally they like to hang from a branch. I never heard or saw them arrive. They had certainly not emerged from my hives while I was in the apiary. A swarm in flight is unmistakable, the air becoming thick with swirling bees like a miniaturised cloud of starlings, and the noise is stronger and more intense than the normal level of buzzing. I don't know if they had come out of my hives earlier, and been hanging in a tree before plopping on to the ground for some reason, or if they were just passing and smelt the honey because I had the hives open.
I shut the open hive down again rather quickly, remembering to put an excluder board (see below) under the full super. I would really like that honey if I can get it. Then I put the nuc box (see below) on the ground next to the pile of bees with its entrance towards them. Some went in, but there was no concerted move, and after a bit the ones that had gone in came out again. A different approach was clearly required, so I turned the box upside down and put it over the heap of bees, the floor temporarily acting as the roof. I watched them for a while, then decided that while I would like the swarm I wasn't prepared to spend the whole day watching them to follow them if they absconded, and left them to it. They were still there at lunchtime and as I'd hoped most had crawled up into the body of the nuc, so with care I inverted the box, put the lid on, and left them in the position I would like them to live if they stay. They didn't all hurry back to their original spot on the grass, so the queen must have been in the box by that stage. They were still in residence at 5pm, and were in the process of killing a wasp that must have been trying to invade their hive. This suggested a growing proprietorial feeling on their part, so I put the entrance block (see below) in to reduce the size of the entrance to a couple of centimetres, making it easier for them to defend against wasps, and gave them some sugar syrup. Swarms don't always stay, even after you have put them in a hive, but if they are still there by this time tomorrow I shall regard them as permanent residents.
A newly emerged swarm is normally docile, having eaten all the honey they can fly with before they start. However, a swarm that has been wandering around for a couple of days can be hungry and consequently bad tempered. Feeding them is a good idea in case they are hungry, and also to take advantage of their instinctive tendency to make new honeycomb. I gave this swarm new frames with flat sheets of beeswax foundation in it because that was all I had, but they should make beautiful new comb on the frames very quickly, as long as they have food to give them the energy to do it.
I didn't try to finish inspecting the number two hive, because with the excitement of a swarm in the apiary I thought it might all get too lively, but I shall have to do it tomorrow. Once the bees start trying to swarm it is a source of slight continuing anxiety until the situation has been resolved one way or another. Even if they end up swarming, alongside the disappointment that I didn't manage it better there will be a sort of creeping relief that now the misfortune I was trying to avert has come to pass I can stop worrying about it.
Beekeeping glossary
A super is a shallow box that sits on top of the beehive, which the queen cannot enter to lay eggs. The bees use it to store surplus honey, if there is any. Honey for human consumption is taken from the supers. An excluder board is a metal grid that the queen can't squeeze through, but the smaller worker bees can. It is used to keep the queen out of the super. A nuc box is a deep but narrow half-width beehive, which a queen lives in with a small colony. If the colony prospers it will be moved into a full-size hive in due course. An entrance block is a wooden bar with a small hole in it, that fits into the large opening at the bottom of the beehive to reduce the size of the entrance.
Meanwhile, I have passed up the chance to be nominated to be an Olympic torch bearer. A last-minute invitation to apply came from a charity I do some voluntary work for. I toyed with the idea, on the basis that life is more interesting if you say yes to new things unless there is a compelling reason to say no, but decided there was a good reason to say no, which was that it was just too silly. The website describing the day of an Olympic torch bearer is hilarious. This is what it said.
The number one hive has swarmed. I'm sure of it. There were fewer bees in the supers than there had been, and they had started storing honey in the brood nest instead of cleaning it for the queen to lay. There were several queen cells. I have heard our two local professional beekeepers get into a heated debate about how to deal with queen cells. One favoured the textbook approach, which is that you remove all except one. The books say that the first queen to emerge from her cell will destroy the other potential queens. However, if several queens emerge at much the same time some of them can leave with yet more of your bees in secondary swarms, which are called casts, and removing all except one new queen prevents this. The other beekeeper believed equally strongly that the bees knew better than any human which was the best new queen, and should be left to choose her themselves. My instinct is always not to mess the bees around more than I have to, so I shut them up and left them to it. I have had a crop off this hive already, so while I'd rather they hadn't swarmed it wasn't a complete failure.
My spirits lifted as I experimentally hefted the top super (see below if you have forgotten what this is) on the number two hive. It was very heavy, meaning that the bees probably hadn't swarmed yet, and that I was in with a good chance of harvesting that honey. I removed the supers and opened up the body of the beehive. The first frame had a sealed queen cell on it. The second frame didn't seem to have any queen cells. At that point I looked to one side, and there was a pile of bees on the grass about 2m away.
It was a swarm that had landed on the ground, which was odd. Normally they like to hang from a branch. I never heard or saw them arrive. They had certainly not emerged from my hives while I was in the apiary. A swarm in flight is unmistakable, the air becoming thick with swirling bees like a miniaturised cloud of starlings, and the noise is stronger and more intense than the normal level of buzzing. I don't know if they had come out of my hives earlier, and been hanging in a tree before plopping on to the ground for some reason, or if they were just passing and smelt the honey because I had the hives open.
I shut the open hive down again rather quickly, remembering to put an excluder board (see below) under the full super. I would really like that honey if I can get it. Then I put the nuc box (see below) on the ground next to the pile of bees with its entrance towards them. Some went in, but there was no concerted move, and after a bit the ones that had gone in came out again. A different approach was clearly required, so I turned the box upside down and put it over the heap of bees, the floor temporarily acting as the roof. I watched them for a while, then decided that while I would like the swarm I wasn't prepared to spend the whole day watching them to follow them if they absconded, and left them to it. They were still there at lunchtime and as I'd hoped most had crawled up into the body of the nuc, so with care I inverted the box, put the lid on, and left them in the position I would like them to live if they stay. They didn't all hurry back to their original spot on the grass, so the queen must have been in the box by that stage. They were still in residence at 5pm, and were in the process of killing a wasp that must have been trying to invade their hive. This suggested a growing proprietorial feeling on their part, so I put the entrance block (see below) in to reduce the size of the entrance to a couple of centimetres, making it easier for them to defend against wasps, and gave them some sugar syrup. Swarms don't always stay, even after you have put them in a hive, but if they are still there by this time tomorrow I shall regard them as permanent residents.
A newly emerged swarm is normally docile, having eaten all the honey they can fly with before they start. However, a swarm that has been wandering around for a couple of days can be hungry and consequently bad tempered. Feeding them is a good idea in case they are hungry, and also to take advantage of their instinctive tendency to make new honeycomb. I gave this swarm new frames with flat sheets of beeswax foundation in it because that was all I had, but they should make beautiful new comb on the frames very quickly, as long as they have food to give them the energy to do it.
I didn't try to finish inspecting the number two hive, because with the excitement of a swarm in the apiary I thought it might all get too lively, but I shall have to do it tomorrow. Once the bees start trying to swarm it is a source of slight continuing anxiety until the situation has been resolved one way or another. Even if they end up swarming, alongside the disappointment that I didn't manage it better there will be a sort of creeping relief that now the misfortune I was trying to avert has come to pass I can stop worrying about it.
Beekeeping glossary
A super is a shallow box that sits on top of the beehive, which the queen cannot enter to lay eggs. The bees use it to store surplus honey, if there is any. Honey for human consumption is taken from the supers. An excluder board is a metal grid that the queen can't squeeze through, but the smaller worker bees can. It is used to keep the queen out of the super. A nuc box is a deep but narrow half-width beehive, which a queen lives in with a small colony. If the colony prospers it will be moved into a full-size hive in due course. An entrance block is a wooden bar with a small hole in it, that fits into the large opening at the bottom of the beehive to reduce the size of the entrance.
Meanwhile, I have passed up the chance to be nominated to be an Olympic torch bearer. A last-minute invitation to apply came from a charity I do some voluntary work for. I toyed with the idea, on the basis that life is more interesting if you say yes to new things unless there is a compelling reason to say no, but decided there was a good reason to say no, which was that it was just too silly. The website describing the day of an Olympic torch bearer is hilarious. This is what it said.
A day in the life of a Torchbearer
Carrying the Olympic Flame will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The Torchbearers will help to shine a light on the best of their communities, as well as having their own moment to shine... Here's a typical day in the life of a Torchbearer...
You wake up in the morning and you’re excited: today’s the day. You have your uniform, you know your position, you’ve told all your friends and family. You leave early so you have plenty of time to reach your pick up location. With closest family and friends alongside, you head off for an experience you will never forget.
As you near the pick up location, you see the other Torchbearers milling around – you start to feel nervous. There are media interviewing people, and the Torch Relay crew are making sure everything runs smoothly.
You easily spot the Torchbearer shuttle bus and get on. As it sets off, the briefing session starts and helps to relax you: the details about how to handle the Torch and how the whole Relay works are pretty straightforward.
Then you’re given the Torch you’ll be carrying. You’ve seen others carrying it in the coverage of the Relay on TV… now you’ve got your own.
You get chatting to some of the other Torchbearers, they’ve got some amazing stories to tell. You tell them what taking part in the Relay means to you too.
Before you know it, you have arrived at your allocated position. You get off the bus and wait. The crowd is excited to see you – they’ve read about you on the website and know you’re something special. They chat to you and want to have their photos taken with you. A motorcyclist appears and helps you into position.
A Torchbearer appears and is moving towards you. As they approach you feel the excitement building…your Flames meet… your Torch is alight.
It is your moment to shine.
You set off with the Flame, with your escort runners beside you. You can hear the cheers of the crowd – it’s overwhelming…
There is a vehicle up ahead – it seems like a hundred cameras are filming you. After a while you start to relax and enjoy the experience. Up ahead you can see your family waving excitedly. Another Torchbearer is waiting for you – they look as nervous as you were when you started. You exchange the Flame and cheer them on. Without realising, someone gently guides you off the road (so the convoy behind doesn’t run you over).
After greeting your family you are picked up again by the shuttle bus. As the rest of the Torchbearers get on the bus you can’t wait to exchange stories about your experience.
You arrive back at the original pick up point, everyone disperses and make their way to the evening celebration site. You want to be with the people that have shared that incredible moment with you. You just want that exhilarating feeling to last forever. You have a story to tell – of a most precious moment in history…
I don't like uniforms, or queues, or being photographed, or sport. I don't like the sound of escort runners at all as I hate running, and I almost never watch television. That seemed enough reasons to be going on with not to ask to be nominated. They probably wouldn't have chosen me anyway, and then my feelings would have been hurt. I tried in vain to imagine my family and friends cheering and waving excitedly, and failed utterly. The sight of me clutching a giant inflammable cheese grater before a sports fest that neither of us intend to watch would not stir the Systems Administrator, who likes rugby union, cricket and Cheltenham, with a nod to the Grand Prix and the Tour de France, none of which are Olympic events.
I did find the hyper tone of the description of the day in the life of an Olympic torch bearer extremely funny, and after a bit realised that it reminded me of Mitch Benn's splendid song parodying a day in the life of a talent show contestant Sing Like an Angel. Check it out, it's a hoot.
As you near the pick up location, you see the other Torchbearers milling around – you start to feel nervous. There are media interviewing people, and the Torch Relay crew are making sure everything runs smoothly.
You easily spot the Torchbearer shuttle bus and get on. As it sets off, the briefing session starts and helps to relax you: the details about how to handle the Torch and how the whole Relay works are pretty straightforward.
Then you’re given the Torch you’ll be carrying. You’ve seen others carrying it in the coverage of the Relay on TV… now you’ve got your own.
You get chatting to some of the other Torchbearers, they’ve got some amazing stories to tell. You tell them what taking part in the Relay means to you too.
Before you know it, you have arrived at your allocated position. You get off the bus and wait. The crowd is excited to see you – they’ve read about you on the website and know you’re something special. They chat to you and want to have their photos taken with you. A motorcyclist appears and helps you into position.
A Torchbearer appears and is moving towards you. As they approach you feel the excitement building…your Flames meet… your Torch is alight.
It is your moment to shine.
You set off with the Flame, with your escort runners beside you. You can hear the cheers of the crowd – it’s overwhelming…
There is a vehicle up ahead – it seems like a hundred cameras are filming you. After a while you start to relax and enjoy the experience. Up ahead you can see your family waving excitedly. Another Torchbearer is waiting for you – they look as nervous as you were when you started. You exchange the Flame and cheer them on. Without realising, someone gently guides you off the road (so the convoy behind doesn’t run you over).
After greeting your family you are picked up again by the shuttle bus. As the rest of the Torchbearers get on the bus you can’t wait to exchange stories about your experience.
You arrive back at the original pick up point, everyone disperses and make their way to the evening celebration site. You want to be with the people that have shared that incredible moment with you. You just want that exhilarating feeling to last forever. You have a story to tell – of a most precious moment in history…
I don't like uniforms, or queues, or being photographed, or sport. I don't like the sound of escort runners at all as I hate running, and I almost never watch television. That seemed enough reasons to be going on with not to ask to be nominated. They probably wouldn't have chosen me anyway, and then my feelings would have been hurt. I tried in vain to imagine my family and friends cheering and waving excitedly, and failed utterly. The sight of me clutching a giant inflammable cheese grater before a sports fest that neither of us intend to watch would not stir the Systems Administrator, who likes rugby union, cricket and Cheltenham, with a nod to the Grand Prix and the Tour de France, none of which are Olympic events.
I did find the hyper tone of the description of the day in the life of an Olympic torch bearer extremely funny, and after a bit realised that it reminded me of Mitch Benn's splendid song parodying a day in the life of a talent show contestant Sing Like an Angel. Check it out, it's a hoot.
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
luxury cat food and other delicacies
We have done something we said we would never do, and admitted luxury cat food on to the premises. With five cats to support, whose combined weight must be pushing 30 kilos, we had been concealing the existence of Sheba from them. It's bad enough buying that amount of ordinary cat food. Only our ginger is really overweight, and the grey tabby is borderline skinny. They are all large cats. A fully grown Maine Coon tom can stand on his hind legs and comfortably rest his chin on a normal height table, when he has the mind to do so.
The luxury cat food purchase came about to tempt the invalid to eat. As it has been hot, and all he has to do all day is lie around the study or, for a change of scene, lie about the sitting room, he doesn't have much of an appetite. It doesn't help that all of them decided to go off fish flavours, especially haddock, just as we'd bought two dozen tins of it. So the black cat was shut in the privacy of the study and a special pouch of luxury food opened for him, which it turned out he liked very much. The other cats knew something better than tinned haddock was in the offing and queued outside the study door. When they manage to get in before the invalid has finished they polish it off, so now they have all had a taste of the stuff. If the big tabby were a human being he would definitely be one of those hospital visitors who while they are there absent-mindedly finishes off the patient's grapes. However, I don't think luxury cat food is simply a con to play on the sensibilities of owners who want to pamper their pets. It does actually seem to taste nicer to cats, alas.
Sometimes I feel guilty about the environmental impact of having so many cats, but not very guilty and not very often. I don't suppose the bits of haddock that end up in a tin of cat food are from any part of the fish that a human being in the developed world would consent to eat.
For human consumption I have just finished making blackcurrant jelly, but the jam thermometer seems to have broken, because I boiled it until it looked and behaved like jelly and it never got to within five degrees of jam temperature according to the thermomemeter. As downbeat starts to a day go, having to tip half a dozen jars of fruit soup back into the jam pan that you washed once already after making the fruit soup, then wash all the jars again, before reboiling and rebottling it and washing the pan again, scores quite highly on the pointless scale, so I hope it has set. Besides, we have other plans for tomorrow morning. Somebody from the lettuce farm called round this afternoon to say that bees had taken up residence in the loft over their office and could I remove them? I was not able to help at that minute, because I had an appointment elsewhere in an hour's time, and anyway didn't think the middle of a thunderstorm was a good moment to disturb them, but I promised to ring in the morning. He said they were flying in and out through the light fittings, and mentioned a lot of insulation. I am not optimistic that this will be straightforward. They could be my bees. I was planning on inspecting mine tomorrow once the thunderstorms had blown through. If neither hive has managed to smuggle a queen cell through my last inspections and abscond since last week then I shall be very pleasantly surprised.
The luxury cat food purchase came about to tempt the invalid to eat. As it has been hot, and all he has to do all day is lie around the study or, for a change of scene, lie about the sitting room, he doesn't have much of an appetite. It doesn't help that all of them decided to go off fish flavours, especially haddock, just as we'd bought two dozen tins of it. So the black cat was shut in the privacy of the study and a special pouch of luxury food opened for him, which it turned out he liked very much. The other cats knew something better than tinned haddock was in the offing and queued outside the study door. When they manage to get in before the invalid has finished they polish it off, so now they have all had a taste of the stuff. If the big tabby were a human being he would definitely be one of those hospital visitors who while they are there absent-mindedly finishes off the patient's grapes. However, I don't think luxury cat food is simply a con to play on the sensibilities of owners who want to pamper their pets. It does actually seem to taste nicer to cats, alas.
Sometimes I feel guilty about the environmental impact of having so many cats, but not very guilty and not very often. I don't suppose the bits of haddock that end up in a tin of cat food are from any part of the fish that a human being in the developed world would consent to eat.
For human consumption I have just finished making blackcurrant jelly, but the jam thermometer seems to have broken, because I boiled it until it looked and behaved like jelly and it never got to within five degrees of jam temperature according to the thermomemeter. As downbeat starts to a day go, having to tip half a dozen jars of fruit soup back into the jam pan that you washed once already after making the fruit soup, then wash all the jars again, before reboiling and rebottling it and washing the pan again, scores quite highly on the pointless scale, so I hope it has set. Besides, we have other plans for tomorrow morning. Somebody from the lettuce farm called round this afternoon to say that bees had taken up residence in the loft over their office and could I remove them? I was not able to help at that minute, because I had an appointment elsewhere in an hour's time, and anyway didn't think the middle of a thunderstorm was a good moment to disturb them, but I promised to ring in the morning. He said they were flying in and out through the light fittings, and mentioned a lot of insulation. I am not optimistic that this will be straightforward. They could be my bees. I was planning on inspecting mine tomorrow once the thunderstorms had blown through. If neither hive has managed to smuggle a queen cell through my last inspections and abscond since last week then I shall be very pleasantly surprised.
Friday, 24 June 2011
a curate's egg
My visit to the bees today was almost a textbook example of artificial swarming, except that it wasn't. Non-beekeepers may want to skip the rest of this section and go straight on to the visit to the art gallery afterwards. Beekeepers, or people who like thrillers better if they have a great deal of technical detail, may wish to stick with me.
It was a beautiful sunny calm morning, the sort of day that is perfect for doing an inspection. The lettuce workers weren't working too close. I opened hive number two, the one with golden bees in it that is always good tempered. On the second frame in I thought I saw the queen. But then I couldn't see her again, even after looking very carefully. I put the frame to one side in the spare box and went through the rest of the hive. There were eggs, so I knew they weren't planning on swarming immediately, but there were some queen cells. I didn't find the queen. The bees began to get lively, as they had been open for a long time, so I decided that my chances of finding the queen were now low and that I'd better destroy the queen cells as the next best method of swarm control. Finally I took the second frame out of the spare box where I'd put it, and there was the queen, plain as anything. But by then I'd destroyed the queen cells. Or possibly not. I could have missed one or two and they could still swarm.
It so nearly went perfectly, but didn't. Lessons to be learnt as follows. I should mark my queens. I should have concentrated harder when I thought I saw her on the second frame, then I would not have been in any doubt that I did see her. I should have trusted my instincts that I had seen her and not tried to doublecheck. I should have checked the spare frame periodically while going through the rest of the hive given my initial hunch that it had the queen on it. Given that I had removed the queen from the colony it isn't surprising that they became so restless after a short while.
Fingers crossed they do not swarm, and I get to keep the two supers of honey that have filled since the weather turned a bit damper, and are not quite ready to take yet. Fingers crossed I keep all my bees, since they are particularly nice ones. A slight doubt crosses my mind, suppose they are trying to supercede and not swarming?
That 's enough about bees. The rest of you can come out from behind the sofa now. In the afternoon I went to Saffron Walden to visit the the Fry Art Gallery. This is a lovely little Victorian purpose built gallery founded by a philanthropic local businessman, which houses a significant collection of works by artists associated with Essex, including Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. I'd been meaning to go for a couple of years, ever since I discovered it existed, and the planned visit gained a sense of urgency when I saw in the papers that they had got the loan of 18 Ravilious watercolours until 14 August. I persuaded a friend from work to come along, and planned a scenic route that took in her house and avoided the A120 and the A12.
The gallery is really worth seeing. It isn't very big, and each year they mount an exhibition for the entire season, which runs from Easter Sunday until the last Sunday in October, and use the smaller of their two main rooms for a series of temporary exhibitions, which is where the 18 watercolours fitted in. The bits of the permanent collection we saw today were excellent, absolutely first class, assuming you are a fan of mid twentieth century graphic art, which I am. I was particularly taken by some bold Edward Bawden linocuts, and a set of Ravilious coloured lithographs of submarines. There are also some examples of woodcuts shown with the wooden printing blocks, and a cabinet of Ravilious designed china. Some of the watercolours, both the temporary loans and from the collection, are exquisite. The Fry Gallery is a registered charity, staffed by volunteers who style themselves invigilators, and it conveys a delightful air of enthusiastic tranquility. I recommend it highly as an experience.
The Essex-Suffolk borders were looking very pretty as we trundled to Saffron Walden and back, and we saw a few extra bits as I got mildy lost. It was a pity that a mystery light on the car dashboard lit up part way back. On getting home I discovered that it meant an electrical fault, and that my brake lights were stuck on. The Systems Administrator has had to remove the fuse for the night. Heigh ho. The pictures were fantastic, even if the rest of the day didn't go so well.
It was a beautiful sunny calm morning, the sort of day that is perfect for doing an inspection. The lettuce workers weren't working too close. I opened hive number two, the one with golden bees in it that is always good tempered. On the second frame in I thought I saw the queen. But then I couldn't see her again, even after looking very carefully. I put the frame to one side in the spare box and went through the rest of the hive. There were eggs, so I knew they weren't planning on swarming immediately, but there were some queen cells. I didn't find the queen. The bees began to get lively, as they had been open for a long time, so I decided that my chances of finding the queen were now low and that I'd better destroy the queen cells as the next best method of swarm control. Finally I took the second frame out of the spare box where I'd put it, and there was the queen, plain as anything. But by then I'd destroyed the queen cells. Or possibly not. I could have missed one or two and they could still swarm.
It so nearly went perfectly, but didn't. Lessons to be learnt as follows. I should mark my queens. I should have concentrated harder when I thought I saw her on the second frame, then I would not have been in any doubt that I did see her. I should have trusted my instincts that I had seen her and not tried to doublecheck. I should have checked the spare frame periodically while going through the rest of the hive given my initial hunch that it had the queen on it. Given that I had removed the queen from the colony it isn't surprising that they became so restless after a short while.
Fingers crossed they do not swarm, and I get to keep the two supers of honey that have filled since the weather turned a bit damper, and are not quite ready to take yet. Fingers crossed I keep all my bees, since they are particularly nice ones. A slight doubt crosses my mind, suppose they are trying to supercede and not swarming?
That 's enough about bees. The rest of you can come out from behind the sofa now. In the afternoon I went to Saffron Walden to visit the the Fry Art Gallery. This is a lovely little Victorian purpose built gallery founded by a philanthropic local businessman, which houses a significant collection of works by artists associated with Essex, including Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. I'd been meaning to go for a couple of years, ever since I discovered it existed, and the planned visit gained a sense of urgency when I saw in the papers that they had got the loan of 18 Ravilious watercolours until 14 August. I persuaded a friend from work to come along, and planned a scenic route that took in her house and avoided the A120 and the A12.
The gallery is really worth seeing. It isn't very big, and each year they mount an exhibition for the entire season, which runs from Easter Sunday until the last Sunday in October, and use the smaller of their two main rooms for a series of temporary exhibitions, which is where the 18 watercolours fitted in. The bits of the permanent collection we saw today were excellent, absolutely first class, assuming you are a fan of mid twentieth century graphic art, which I am. I was particularly taken by some bold Edward Bawden linocuts, and a set of Ravilious coloured lithographs of submarines. There are also some examples of woodcuts shown with the wooden printing blocks, and a cabinet of Ravilious designed china. Some of the watercolours, both the temporary loans and from the collection, are exquisite. The Fry Gallery is a registered charity, staffed by volunteers who style themselves invigilators, and it conveys a delightful air of enthusiastic tranquility. I recommend it highly as an experience.
The Essex-Suffolk borders were looking very pretty as we trundled to Saffron Walden and back, and we saw a few extra bits as I got mildy lost. It was a pity that a mystery light on the car dashboard lit up part way back. On getting home I discovered that it meant an electrical fault, and that my brake lights were stuck on. The Systems Administrator has had to remove the fuse for the night. Heigh ho. The pictures were fantastic, even if the rest of the day didn't go so well.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
first catch your hare
We took the cat to the vet for his post-operative check-up. She probed and prodded around his leg, and seemed satisfied with his progress. He has lost a bit of weight but not enough to worry about, so long as he gains it back. She gave us another three days' worth of painkillers, and told us to ring her on Friday to discuss if he seemed OK or if he needed more drugs. It is difficult to tell whether a cat is in pain, as they are pretty stoical animals, but there are times when he sits with his leg stuck out even further than usual and looks anxious, when I think it does hurt quite a lot. The bad news is that given his age his expected recovery time is eight to twelve weeks before he can be safely let outside, which is another two or three months of having to let the other cats in and out of the house as and when they want to enter or leave. So far he hasn't shown any signs of wanting to go out, except for his one panic attack, and I think he knows he wouldn't be safe by himself. Curled up in his usual spot in the meadow he could easily be fox food.
I paid an inconclusive visit to the bees. It wasn't ideal weather for a bee inspection, being humid and windy, which make them irritable, with bad light, which makes it hard for me to see what's going on. However, yesterday had been even worse, it was now eight days since the last inspection, and I was sure they were trying to swarm. I knew what I had to do to prevent them from swarming, which was to find the queen and put her in a new beehive on the site of the old beehive, moving the old beehive to a fresh site in the apiary. The flying bees would then return to the site of the old hive, find the queen there but with no brood and plenty of space, and be satisfied that they had already swarmed (even if they couldn't remember a thing about it). Meanwhile in the old beehive the house bees would look after the brood, bees that hatched after the hive was moved would naturally return to the new site, and a new queen would emerge from the queen cells to lead the colony. I would still have all of my bees, albeit now divided into two colonies, and my honey.
That is the theory. The catch lies in the phrase 'find the queen'. I did not find the queen, so getting my comeuppance for having unmarked queens. I went through the hive three times, while the bees got more and more agitated. Farm workers appeared midway through to re-lay the irrigation pipes in the next door lettuce field, which has just been ploughed and replanted with a fresh crop. The only thing to do was destroy all the queen cells and close the hive down, then try again another day, preferably when the weather was better and there weren't people working in the field next to me.
That's what I attempted to do. The catch this time lies in the phrase 'destroy all the queen cells'. I destroyed as many as I could find, but it's difficult to be sure you have spotted all of them. They are the size of a smallish person's little finger, and can easily be hidden under the bees. In theory you can shake the combs to get all the bees off, or at least most of them, but I though the bees were getting agitated enough as it was, without shaking them. I closed the hive up and went back to the house, with several bees following me for quite a few minutes. I don't normally get followers as they are generally nice bees, but I had razzed them up a lot.
I didn't like to open the other hive while there was an atmosphere of panic in the apiary and people too close by, but they didn't look as close to swarming anyway at the last inspection. With any luck it will be quieter weather tomorrow, when this system has blown through, and maybe the farm workers will have finished doing whatever they have to do next door. It would be helpful to know when they are planning to work on that field, then I could organise inspections around them, but it would be unwise to ask, as they would never remember to tell me and I would just have implanted the idea that the bees could be dangerous.
We had lunch, and then the rain showers arrived. It's 14.25pm, and I don't feel as though I have achieved anything yet today.
I paid an inconclusive visit to the bees. It wasn't ideal weather for a bee inspection, being humid and windy, which make them irritable, with bad light, which makes it hard for me to see what's going on. However, yesterday had been even worse, it was now eight days since the last inspection, and I was sure they were trying to swarm. I knew what I had to do to prevent them from swarming, which was to find the queen and put her in a new beehive on the site of the old beehive, moving the old beehive to a fresh site in the apiary. The flying bees would then return to the site of the old hive, find the queen there but with no brood and plenty of space, and be satisfied that they had already swarmed (even if they couldn't remember a thing about it). Meanwhile in the old beehive the house bees would look after the brood, bees that hatched after the hive was moved would naturally return to the new site, and a new queen would emerge from the queen cells to lead the colony. I would still have all of my bees, albeit now divided into two colonies, and my honey.
That is the theory. The catch lies in the phrase 'find the queen'. I did not find the queen, so getting my comeuppance for having unmarked queens. I went through the hive three times, while the bees got more and more agitated. Farm workers appeared midway through to re-lay the irrigation pipes in the next door lettuce field, which has just been ploughed and replanted with a fresh crop. The only thing to do was destroy all the queen cells and close the hive down, then try again another day, preferably when the weather was better and there weren't people working in the field next to me.
That's what I attempted to do. The catch this time lies in the phrase 'destroy all the queen cells'. I destroyed as many as I could find, but it's difficult to be sure you have spotted all of them. They are the size of a smallish person's little finger, and can easily be hidden under the bees. In theory you can shake the combs to get all the bees off, or at least most of them, but I though the bees were getting agitated enough as it was, without shaking them. I closed the hive up and went back to the house, with several bees following me for quite a few minutes. I don't normally get followers as they are generally nice bees, but I had razzed them up a lot.
I didn't like to open the other hive while there was an atmosphere of panic in the apiary and people too close by, but they didn't look as close to swarming anyway at the last inspection. With any luck it will be quieter weather tomorrow, when this system has blown through, and maybe the farm workers will have finished doing whatever they have to do next door. It would be helpful to know when they are planning to work on that field, then I could organise inspections around them, but it would be unwise to ask, as they would never remember to tell me and I would just have implanted the idea that the bees could be dangerous.
We had lunch, and then the rain showers arrived. It's 14.25pm, and I don't feel as though I have achieved anything yet today.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
a reassuring bee inspection
I went to inspect the bees first thing after breakfast. I should really have done them by yesterday at the latest, since that was ten days since the previous inspection. In theory, if they had decided to swarm immediately after the last time I looked at them, then by yesterday they could have had a new queen sealed inside her cell waiting to hatch, leaving the old queen free to abscond with half the bees and the honey. However, I was out yesterday and on Tuesday, and working over the weekend, when it was far too windy anyway. It was a bit cool, breezy and dull this morning, but the forecast was for it to get worse rather than better through the day, so there didn't seem anything to be gained by hanging around. The best placed people to be beekeepers must be those who are fully retired or work from home, and have no pre-arranged social life, who would be entirely free to stick to their ten day inspection limit, and pick their weather window.
Fate was smiling on me. There were eggs in the two main hives, showing that the queens had been laying at least until very recently, and no queen cells, showing that they had not yet begun to swarm. I even saw the queen in one of them, on a day when I didn't especially need to, striding around purposefully on the comb in one of the middle frames. I made sure I put that one back very carefully. The sub-optimal weather had made them a bit grumpy, but not dangerously vile. The third hive had managed to go queenless over the winter, and on 8 April I gave them a frame from one of the other hives containing fresh eggs. The textbooks say that they should use these to rear a new queen. I hadn't been right through that hive since, on the grounds that if they hadn't managed to make a queen then I'd give them a queen cell at the point when the others started to swarm. I had a quick look today, to see if they had sorted themselves out, and saw uncapped brood, demonstrating that they have made a queen, and that she has successfully gone out and got mated without coming to any mishap like being eaten by a bird. I shut them up again without looking at the other frames, given that I'd found out what I wanted to know, and the weather was iffy.
Neither of the big hives had put much new honey or nectar in the supers in the past eleven days, which makes me think that the dry weather really is affecting the nectar flow. I'd better feed the small colony, as after their queenless hiatus they will be short of workers. They won't do anything useful this year, but if they build up to a size where they can survive the winter then they might give me a crop next year. Unfortunately, the big colony I used to give them the frame from which they reared their new queen has turned out to be not as good as the other, less productive and not as placid, so it's unlucky I didn't use the better one.
I wore my beesuit into the house, and stood in the kitchen for a few minutes before taking it off, listening for buzzing. I retrieved two bees from the window, and one from the door of the fridge. I think as many beekeepers get stung after they've finished opening the hives, at the point where they take off their protective clothes, as during the inspection.
One of the friends at yesterday's lunch is the secretary of our local beekeepers' association, who gets the phone calls from the public about swarms. She says there have been very few so far this year, though she has had a lot of calls about bumble bees and wasps.
Fate was smiling on me. There were eggs in the two main hives, showing that the queens had been laying at least until very recently, and no queen cells, showing that they had not yet begun to swarm. I even saw the queen in one of them, on a day when I didn't especially need to, striding around purposefully on the comb in one of the middle frames. I made sure I put that one back very carefully. The sub-optimal weather had made them a bit grumpy, but not dangerously vile. The third hive had managed to go queenless over the winter, and on 8 April I gave them a frame from one of the other hives containing fresh eggs. The textbooks say that they should use these to rear a new queen. I hadn't been right through that hive since, on the grounds that if they hadn't managed to make a queen then I'd give them a queen cell at the point when the others started to swarm. I had a quick look today, to see if they had sorted themselves out, and saw uncapped brood, demonstrating that they have made a queen, and that she has successfully gone out and got mated without coming to any mishap like being eaten by a bird. I shut them up again without looking at the other frames, given that I'd found out what I wanted to know, and the weather was iffy.
Neither of the big hives had put much new honey or nectar in the supers in the past eleven days, which makes me think that the dry weather really is affecting the nectar flow. I'd better feed the small colony, as after their queenless hiatus they will be short of workers. They won't do anything useful this year, but if they build up to a size where they can survive the winter then they might give me a crop next year. Unfortunately, the big colony I used to give them the frame from which they reared their new queen has turned out to be not as good as the other, less productive and not as placid, so it's unlucky I didn't use the better one.
I wore my beesuit into the house, and stood in the kitchen for a few minutes before taking it off, listening for buzzing. I retrieved two bees from the window, and one from the door of the fridge. I think as many beekeepers get stung after they've finished opening the hives, at the point where they take off their protective clothes, as during the inspection.
One of the friends at yesterday's lunch is the secretary of our local beekeepers' association, who gets the phone calls from the public about swarms. She says there have been very few so far this year, though she has had a lot of calls about bumble bees and wasps.
Monday, 9 May 2011
it's day three in the plant centre
Most of today's excitements were provided by the assorted pets and livestock. The dog became very eager to get at whatever was underneath the low shelf we store multipurpose compost on. While watering inside the little greenhouse at the back of the shop I heard furious growls and squeals from the dog, mixed with vexed cries from the gardener, who was at that moment trying to top the pile up with extra bags. The situation didn't seem to be resolving itself, so I went outside to help. The gardener said that there was a hedgehog under the shelf. I considered whether to jet the dog with the hose, or pick her up. I thought that coming between a terrier and her chosen prey I ran the risk of getting bitten, on the other hand the dog and I have alwas enjoyed good relations, and setting the hose on her would escalate the level of violence. I decided she would probably not bite me, seized her firmly, and carried her up to the office. She managed to rip open several bags of compost in the stramash.
Later on there was a swarm of bees in the plant centre. I recognised the sound instantly, and saw them swirling around inconveniently close to the loos, but luckily they moved on. It is a waste not to hive a swarm, but they aren't something you want hanging around for the day where there are customers about. I don't carry my bee suit with me in the car, so I couldn't have done anything about them. I don't know if the owners rang the beekeeper who has some hives in the arboretum. If the swarm didn't settle there wouldn't be a lot of point. They may not have been his anyway. My bees at home were still not showing any signs of preparing to swarm when I inspected them on Friday, before my working weekend, but I can't believe that will last.
The dog escaped from the house and returned to the fray with the hedgehog, this time managing to get under the shelf. I think the second time the manager did flush her out with a jet of cold water, and I saw her being carried by the scruff of the neck back up to the house. I don't think he is especially fond of dogs.
The peachick was sent to a new home. In the end the gamekeeper's wife escaped being lumbered with him, as somebody who came on a recent guided walk around the garden wanted a peacock. He had been looking a bit lost in the plant centre anyway, since in the past couple of weeks his mummy completely lost interest in him. He was lured into the chicken house with food last night, caught and penned, and taken away this afternoon in a large cardboard box.
We were discussing on Saturday whether, if a famous person came into the plant centre, it was polite to recognise them, or whether they should be granted the illusion of anonymity when they weren't working. This came up because the designer Tom Stuart Smith was in. I love his work, and would cheerfully have said so if I'd encountered him, but I didn't. Today it was the turn of one of the editors of Hortus. I didn't recognise the face, but the manager told me who he was. Apparently he was doing an advance recce for a group he is bringing to visit next month. He bought a few plants and some pots, and apologised for keeping me after closing time, which was considerate of him, so I told him that we were there until six so up to that point I was entirely tranquil, and said that I really liked his garden when I'd seen it in magazines. He told me that the iris orchard was looking spectacular, and it was about to feature in the Telegraph magazine and Country Living. You have to be a very odd keen gardener not to be pleased when people say they like your garden.
Back home, the robin's nest in the greenhouse is empty. The anti-cat netting was in place across the door, and there was no sign of a struggle, so unless a very efficient magpie got in through the roof vent and out again I think the young probably fledged successfully. I wish them well, but it will be a relief to be able to use the greenhouse normally again without feeling guilty.
Later on there was a swarm of bees in the plant centre. I recognised the sound instantly, and saw them swirling around inconveniently close to the loos, but luckily they moved on. It is a waste not to hive a swarm, but they aren't something you want hanging around for the day where there are customers about. I don't carry my bee suit with me in the car, so I couldn't have done anything about them. I don't know if the owners rang the beekeeper who has some hives in the arboretum. If the swarm didn't settle there wouldn't be a lot of point. They may not have been his anyway. My bees at home were still not showing any signs of preparing to swarm when I inspected them on Friday, before my working weekend, but I can't believe that will last.
The dog escaped from the house and returned to the fray with the hedgehog, this time managing to get under the shelf. I think the second time the manager did flush her out with a jet of cold water, and I saw her being carried by the scruff of the neck back up to the house. I don't think he is especially fond of dogs.
The peachick was sent to a new home. In the end the gamekeeper's wife escaped being lumbered with him, as somebody who came on a recent guided walk around the garden wanted a peacock. He had been looking a bit lost in the plant centre anyway, since in the past couple of weeks his mummy completely lost interest in him. He was lured into the chicken house with food last night, caught and penned, and taken away this afternoon in a large cardboard box.
We were discussing on Saturday whether, if a famous person came into the plant centre, it was polite to recognise them, or whether they should be granted the illusion of anonymity when they weren't working. This came up because the designer Tom Stuart Smith was in. I love his work, and would cheerfully have said so if I'd encountered him, but I didn't. Today it was the turn of one of the editors of Hortus. I didn't recognise the face, but the manager told me who he was. Apparently he was doing an advance recce for a group he is bringing to visit next month. He bought a few plants and some pots, and apologised for keeping me after closing time, which was considerate of him, so I told him that we were there until six so up to that point I was entirely tranquil, and said that I really liked his garden when I'd seen it in magazines. He told me that the iris orchard was looking spectacular, and it was about to feature in the Telegraph magazine and Country Living. You have to be a very odd keen gardener not to be pleased when people say they like your garden.
Back home, the robin's nest in the greenhouse is empty. The anti-cat netting was in place across the door, and there was no sign of a struggle, so unless a very efficient magpie got in through the roof vent and out again I think the young probably fledged successfully. I wish them well, but it will be a relief to be able to use the greenhouse normally again without feeling guilty.
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