An update on the bees!

Well, the last colony just dwindled to nothing. The queen seemed to dissapear into thin air and the numbers dropped rapidly.

The last few months have been very depressing, after a great deal of effort I now have 1 very small colony, consisting of 3 frames!

I currently have them in a nuc and fed them today with a Vitagreen supplement which is supposed to build them up, they need something!

I am hoping I might be able to get a swarm from somewhere over the next few weeks, I really don’t want to go into the winter with only one colony!!

I put up some nucs with swarm bait, didn’t work , that’s the second year I have tried it. I keep living in hope. When I opened the hive up I found a visitor, the bait seemed to attract something else, and later I got a look at her, the LARGEST flying wasp thingy I have ever seen. I took a fuzzy pic of the nest, its not easy when you are wearing a bee suit. By opening the hive up I destroyed the nest, and went through a guilt trip about it, however I have since found out it was a European Hornet, which can sting five times! They are not native to these shores and are moving in because of climate change. That’s salved my conscience a bit! However, I have also since found out their numbers are declining in Europe because people think they are much more dangerous than they are, they will only sting when defending the nest, in fact it illegal to destroy a nest in Germany!! Oh dear! See URL for a pic, I have never seen one before….still perhaps she flew off and built another little nest?

just coming out to face the world

Hornets nest ( rather fuzzy)

http://www.whatsthatbug.com/2009/04/29/european-hornet-queen-perhaps/

Colony collapse disorder

Its ages since I put anything on my Blog.  Several reasons for this

1) I am selling my house!

I was all set to move when the stupid man who was buying pulled out at the point of exchange.  People kept saying it was because he was from South Africa that he gave me such a rotten time! I had spent weeks looking for another house and we were all rushing around like the Keystone Cops. I found a place with a large garden, suitable for bee-keeping, the right price and everything, all in six weeks and we were due to exchange. What a pillock ! I am sure anyone selling a house right now will feel some degree of empathy. Anyhow its now back under offer. In the meantime I am living out of boxes as this stupid ex buyer insisted he wanted to move in quickly!

2) there have been redundancies at work..so I have been busier than normal

and

3) I have been knackered!

I finally opened my bees up a week or so ago to discover that out of 3 hives in my garden one colony had died  from what looked like isolation starvation, despite my feeding them. The sudden low temperature and snow probably did it! A second colony when opened had not a bee in site! This Mary Celeste syndrome is most puzzling and not a little demoralising. I had three strong colonies and now I am down to one! To make matters worse my last remaining colony is very weak. There is a queen and she is laying but the whole colony only takes up two frames! I also noticed that the brood is in the super instead of the brood box. I contacted the Chairman of our local Beekeepers Association who told me that for some reason his bees were only laying in supers this year as well. He suggested that I feed them and take away the brood box so the bees dont have to go all the way through it to get to the brood. So the hive now consists of a super, floor etc!

I checked yesterday and she is still laying. Hopefully the nice weather recently may help. I have ordered a queen and optimistically set of a swarm bait nuc. You never know your luck………………

I watched a programme the other night about Colony Collapse Disorder ( AKA Mary Celeste Syndrome). The States seems more badly hit than us. I was some what appalled at the way the commercial beekeepers there transport those poor bees up and down the country. All that monoculture can’t possibly be good for nature, its no wonder the system is under stress. Miles and miles of a single crop, its totally unnatural.

I will keep you posted on the progress with my poor bees! I somehow dont think I will get much honey this year!

Springtime with the bees

I went to check my hives today, one of the colonies had died. I put some fondant in prior to the snow and the other two colonies survived but this one didnt. It was always the weakest colony. Its rather surpising that any of them got through the recent cold snap. I will put in a spring feed over the next few days. One of the colonies was clustered in the corner, although they do seem to be taking the fondant.
My life has been completely taken over by selling the house. I sold it quickly, about a fortnight, but now I have to spend every spare minute trying to find somewhere else I like. The garden is important of course.

very pretty but not too good for the bees at this time of year.

Report on the effect of echinacea and propolis.

If you remember I said that I was going down with apparent flu just before Xmas and I was going to take propolis and echinacea. Rather amazingly I got better and wasnt ill over Xmas! In fact this is the first time I have been well when everyone else around me has been down with the flu. Its hardly a statistical analysis but still……my Xmas wasn’t ruined. With the recent cold snap I am hoping that the flu epidemic might abate and I may possibly have got away with it.
On the UFO front I finished my knitted jacket and am just trying to finish a freestyle embroidery of the bayeaux tapestry ( only a segement I hasten to add!) I have been doing some silk painting and that has distracted me.
On another type of UFO, I see that up north there have been reports of ’strange lights in the sky’ followed by the news that a wind turbine has been damaged and some people are putting this down to a UFO crashing into it as there seems no logical explaination.
I do find it rather bizarre that any aliens can travel millions of miles of interplanatery space only to crash into a wind turbine?
It does seem somewhat prosaic…perhaps they had a learner driver.

A finished UFO!

Happy New Year.
I am on leave for the Xmas break. I always have so many things I plan to do, this year it was to ’sort out the house’ Instead I have lounged about doing craft work! I will make a derisory attempt at ’sorting the house out’ before I go back to work to asuage my guilt….
This is one of a set of towels I have been doing for at least a year. It is design by Rico in cross stitch. I tend to get carried away with getting sets of things, they look nice when they are finished but it gets boring doing three or four of the same design. I am pleased that I have finally finished this towel, not so pleased I have two more to go! By the time I finish the third one the first will have worn out!

Unfortunately it has not reduced my stash, true to form I bought some more towels to do! Perhaps I should work on a ’steady state’ rather than a reduction……….it may be more achievable. I nearly bought some more wool in the sales, but just managed to resist it! The next thing on my list to finish is a jacket that has been two years in the making……I bought the wool of Ebay, it was cheap because it was discontinued. Despite getting enough according to the pattern I ran out and could never find any more in the same colour. By some miracle it has come into fashion to have jackets with short sleeves. God must have taken pity on me!

One solitary towel ...er two to go.

A Xmas reflection

I hope you all had a Merry Xmas.
I wonder how many people in the UK watched  Mamhmood Ahmadinejads message yesterday?

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/the+alternative+christmas+message+/2892692

 

I found it very interesting. For some reason I have always liked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad although I was mortified to hear some of his comments about the Holocaust, and gays.
However, yesterday he went up in my estimation.
Now of course all of these things need to be balanced out, although I feel his message was at least theologically correct. I am very sure if Christ came to the world right now he would have some very strong things to say about the way we all behave.
America has had a very bad press the past few years, although on a personal level I have always found the American people to be much more pleasant than their country’s image would dictate. Islam has had a very bad press as well, which is hardly surprising when you look at the behaviour of extremisits. It is unfortunate that a whole people can be tarnished by the unpleasant behaviour of a few in any country of the world.
I have a strong belief in the liberating impact of education.
September the 11th was a terrible thing, the Holocaust one of the darkest periods in history. It is shocking that some people have murdered innocent people in terrorist attacks or sawn off their heads as a reprisal. How can any of these things ever be right? But it would be wrong to think of these views as anything other than a minority opinion.
Xmas is a time to refect on our behaviour and perhaps all of us should think carefully about the impact of our actions on others.
Personally I dont think its the American people who are at fault but the Multinationals and the drive for financial gain. Its wrong to cause poverty or oppress the poor. Its wrong that any living creature should be treated with cruelty, and its wrong to ruin our planet so that it is harmed for future generations. Every living creature, be it human or animal has a right to live its life in dignity, free from fear, pain or oppression. The misuse of power has caused untold misery in the world. Its ironic that Saddam Hussain showed the greatest dignity when facing the gallows. Stripped of all power he showed greater strength of character than at any other time in his life.
I am coming to the end of my life but I have a great faith in humanity. I do believe we are slowly improving, and better communnications are a great channel for change. The saddest epitaph any person could have was that their life was wasted. We may not all have the ability to make great decisions, but we do have the power to bring about improvement in the lives of others. The impact of the way we practice our religion, shop, treat other living creatures and show compassion has a cumulative effect that can only be measured by future generations. All we can do is our best to try to work for a better world. But then what more can anyone ask?

The acid test!

Now this is the acid test for the propolis. All around me everyone seems to have the flu. It happens every year. I am due to start my leave tomorrow for Xmas. Every year, without fail I get flu the minute I start my leave so that I am poorly all over Xmas. For the past three weeks everyone in my vicinity has been doing their best to pass their germs on….my grandaughter had the flu and spent the night sneezing all over me, my neighbours asked if I had had the flu yet as they had, everyone at work has the flu, in the shopping queue sneezes abound. Its not just that people have the flu but they seem utterly determined to pass it on to me in time for the festive season. People get into the lift and sneeze copiously, I spent three hours in a meeting on Weds and everyone died for the full three hours, consolling themselves that they would be better by Xmas, whenever I am standing anywhere people position themselves next to me and cough and sneeze in my direction. I have the air of a doomed woman. This year, determined not to let them win, I am drowning myself in a sea of Echinacea, Vitamin C and Propolis! Today, right on cue I started to develop a sore throat and a slight sniffle….so far I have lurched through the day going from cold crisis to cold crisis only for it to beat a retreat…..time will tell. I calculate if I go down now I will be at my worst on Xmas Day. Why break the habit of a lifetime? I will let you know my progress, its the acid test as to whether these herbal cures really work.
In the meantime I have treated myself to a niddy noddy. Here is my first skein, up until now its always had to be a ball. I have a definate feeling that I am going to end up getting a spinning wheel. I dont have long enough to live to do everything on a spindle!

I know its not much but its a start!

The serious single sock situation shows signs of significant subsidence.

I have finally finished my second pair of socks this year and have found two extra single socks to make two pairs, so I am now the proud possessor of 4 pairs of socks! These are the Nuro socks finished. Now I have never made exact pairs but when I bought them I was told that if you start your second sock from the inside yarn you get an exact pair. You can see the result, not an exact pair but an exact opposite in terms of the flow of colours. Interesting! I enjoyed knitting them but woe is me, I have now bought 6 more lots of sock wool! Anyone following this blog knows that this is not the desired effect! My stash has grown yet again. I do believe I am in a situation where I may not live long enough to finish knitting all my wool….seriously! Meanwhile my hands are cold! I have started another pair of socks with some Alpaca yarn and a hat and muff set with some fur lookalike…..except I have now lost the pattern for the hat and muff!

I suppose it could be considered some sort of progress!

I think this number of the Noro yarn was 180. I have bought some 188. But at this rate I wont be doing it until next year. I have so many UFOs and cold hands! So the great glove issue has now arisen alongside the horrible hatless head situation……! Is there no end to my problems in life?

quiet colours, I thought......

Another Bushism

I was amused to hear Bush describe America as the ‘worlds oldest democracy!’

Its that sort of arrogance that infuriates the rest of the world.

2000 years of European history just swept aside………………

for the record

Athens invented democracy……….

Iceland has the world’s oldest elected parliament, dating from 930 AD, however New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant universal adult suffrage in 1893, although the Isle of Man predated that.

In the UK we did have a little thing called the Magna Carta and a Civil war over the issue of Parliamentry supremacy…………………………..

Perhaps a history lesson may help to reduce the sense of self importance!

Doesnt he get any advisors?

Perhaps someone could suggest they go to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_democracy

I am sure the whole of Europe is grateful for the US ’s civilising influence!

A case of re writing history to suit!