Where do I go wrong………………..it was the first good thing that has happened to me in weeks.
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A swarm has arrived thank God!
I put this brood box on the roof of my garage and a large swarm arrived a few days ago. My biggest problem was getting it down! I suffer from the most appalling vertigo! I had put some lemon grass oil on the entrance as its supposed to attract them. I transferred them into a nuc and just about managed to get them down. Its not something I would want to do every day of the week. 7 frames in all, at least. I have fed them and they seem to be settling in, I really must cross my fingers to get them through the winter, I have had such a rotten time with the bees this past couple of years.
Trying to find the time
Since I have moved in I have been so busy I have hardly had time for any of my interests. However things are slowly improving. I am getting some ex bats at the end of the month, four in all. The slaughter date is the 29th of May. What a horrible term, it will be the luck of the draw whether each chicken lives or dies! I hope to get a couple more chickens next year, perhaps some blue egg layers to ring the changes.
On the bee front, I am bereft! My only colony moved out last summer at the same time as I was moving house! I felt so depressed! I simply cannot afford the £140 being asked for a nuke, I have set up a couple of baits in the garden and live in hope! I read that bees are attracted to lemon grass oil so am regularly putting some drops by the entrance. Trouble is there seem hardly any bees around here. My neighbour has some bumble bees in his garden but honey bees are in very short supply. I can always go out swarm catching but have the most terrible fear of heights, I get vertigo changing the lightbulb!
Most of my time recently has been trying to get the garden sorted. I have planted several strandard roses and some clematis. Its taken my since January just to knit one sock!
On the self sufficiency/natural dyeing front I havent spun any yarn for ages. However someone mentioned to me that the apple tree I have been given for firewood may yield some interesting colours. On top of that, I notice the elderflowers are out! Its a question of what I can fit in!
Beeless again
I went to see how the bees were coming along the other day. What did I find? Nothing, no bees, no brood, no stores …no sign of them replacing the queen, a completely empty hive. The problem is that because my hives were wiped out last winter I could only summon one colony. I was hoping to get them through the winter and divide them in the spring. A lesser woman would give up, it’s so depressing. Ill just have to focus on getting some swarms next summer and starting all over again…………I am going to ask for some support, I can hardly believe how much colony loss I am getting.The bee inspector was going to come to see how they were getting on. I am so depressed!
I have finally moved house!
After 4 buyers, and 3 sellers plus a month of homelessness I have finally moved in, thank God! I had planned to move into a buy to let I own but the tenants left it in a filthy state with a massive cockroach infestation, so I had to budge up with family and friends while the place was being cleaned out and refurbished. I am very pleased to see the end of that!
To fill in my time I went to the Oxford Records office to look into my family history, then off to Hertfordshire to do the same thing again. I must say genealogy is very interesting, I have learnt that my parents were never married, discovered a half brother I never knew existed, found out my great grandfather came from Glasgow was wealthy and had a woman and several children on the side, that my grandmother was 5 months pregnant when she got married, and that I had relatives in Ireland who went over with the Plantation.
On top of that I had an ancestor who died early as he was a zinc worker, a chimney sweep, God knows how many agricultural workers, an ancestor who took the Oath of Protestation just prior to the 1st Civil War, a straw hat maker, a guilder, a greengrocer and a female ancestor who was a ‘worker in White (made white leather gloves).
What a motley crew, and to think my parents were a ‘pillar of respectability’ ! Who said that it was the ‘good old days’ and people were more upstanding then! If I have learnt nothing else it is just how hypocritical society really was! At least we are more honest now.
I have not had a lot of time for hobbies for obvious reasons and I havent checked the bees in weeks. I had been feeding them a fancy feed which is supposed to build up their strength.The bee inspector wants to see them so hopefully I can go over in the next week to see how they are getting on if the weather is OK.
I have however managed to do a little bit of gardening recently, and have allocated a whole room for craft work.
The one fly in the ointment is that I have some neighbours who are bonkers. They have got it into their head that they own part of my land, they dont, but they keep moving my planters around as they dont like where I have put them.
The other day I delivered several hallo cards and one threat of litigation!I have only been here three weeks, why does everything seem to happen to me?
My new house does have a nice fireplace, being Victorian. All I need now is lots of wood!
At long last I have started to have some time for relaxation and went back to the Chilterns with a friend to watch the Red Kites. What beautiful birds. If only we could bring back all the wildlife we have hunted to extinction
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!
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.
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!
Honey Show and propolis
Wax rose and propolis tincture
I went to the National Honey Show yesterday and really enjoyed it. I didn’t manange to get to all the things I wanted because I overslept, but I still found it very worthwhile. I went to a workshop on making wax flowers…see my effort. Now to be honest with you I am busy enough as it is, I hardly have time to make wax flowers! Still I enjoyed it, I like trying my hand at something different. I wanted to go to a lecture on propolis but it was so packed that it was spilling out into the corridoor. C’est la vie. I have managed to extract some propolis and have started taking it, but need to get a lot more before I stand any chance of being able to take it regularly.
One of the most interesting books I have read recently is on propolis. It called, unsurpisingly ‘Bee Propolis Natural Healing from the Hive’ by James Fearnley. I have become interested in propolis as a succesor to antibiotics. If we dont stop overprescribing them we are heading for a disaster. I have included instructions on how to prepare propolis in alcohol. I will put up other preparations later. According to Fearnley it can be used as a tincture or as an internal remedy. Take a few drops a day to boost your immune system. Use externally for cuts, grazes etc( I am not sure the alcohol wouldnt sting, I havent tried it yet)
I also bought a book on making Mead. I did try some at a stall and liked it. I need more honey though if I am going to make Mead as well as sell some to pay the costs of beekeeping.
Propolis tincture recipe.
Remove any obvious contaminants for the propolis, such as wood, bees etc.
Cut into small pieces and put in a clean jar with a tight fitting lid. (I used a propolis screen which I put into the freezer for a few hours to make it brittle, it was much easier to remove)
Pour in commercial drinking grade alcohol, 70% proof produces the best results but ordinary spirits such as Vodka or Gin are perfectly acceptable.
To make a 25% alcohol extract you need 250 g of proplis plus 4 times that weight/volume in alcohol- i.e. approx 1 litre. I found that I was only making a very small amount and it worked out that it was just enough alcohol to barely cover the propolis.
Store in a warm dark place for at least a week and shake daily.Optimum extraction takes between ten to fourteen days.
Filter through a fine cloth or a coffee filter.
Place in the fridge for a couple of days and then filter again with the finest filter possible.
