Sun + rain = crazy growth

It’s summer in England and that means rain, sun, thunder, lightening, more sun, more rain. You get the picture.

It’s been very mixed this month. Very warm and muggy mixed with cool and windy, all watered down with lots of rain. The bees might hate it and blame me ( no I still haven’t managed a full inspection this month. More a dash in, do what I can and then a retreat to nurse my stings. The top inside of the leg and under the arm are both very sensitive to venom it seems!)
The plants however seem to love it.

Some parts of the garden now look like a jungle.

These self sown sunflower seedlings swamp a fuchsia.

Blackcurrants are covered by top growth and I have no idea whether they need cutting back to let in the sun to ripen or if to leave until after picking as usual.

White currants abound.

Grape and fig thrive on the side of the chicken run.

Hostas battle slugs and snails on a nightly basis.

The clematis on the summerhouse is a picture!

Autumn raspberries fruit early after I left a few canes from last year rather than cutting it all to the ground as you’re meant to. A rogue borage has sneaked into the row. It must know it has weeding immunity as the bees love it so much.

Best year ever for the blue hydrangea. Even a piece that accidentally broke off rooted after being pushed back into the soil underneath and covered with a coke bottle cloche.

The sweet corn experiment might be struggling. I think the corn is to close so the courgettes planted underneath are a bit swamped. Probably doesn’t help that I surrounded the corn by French beans that have gone crazy.

The poly tunnel is thriving. Not to hot yet which is helping.

I’ve planted the tomatoes in 2 rows with chillies in pots between but behind. Rocket and pak choi in the gaps. The cucumber is still in pots, still a bit slow but only sown less than a month ago. No idea where that will squeeze in. There’s still peppers and melons to come as well!

While taking mum supermarket shopping this week I brought these 3 little clematis for £1.77 each. Miss C then repotted them into these bigger pots for me. Clematis like to be planted deep so she placed them right to the bottom of these pots and refilled all up the length of the stem. I lost a gorgeous clematis to wilt during just one afternoon many years ago. Luckily it had been planted deep and a couple of years later it just suddenly appeared and is now growing a treat again. Hopefully by the autumn, when I have the space for them, these will be big healthy plants. A total bargain.

Mange tout. Note to self, better pea sticks needed next year.

Miss C grew a pumpkin seed at her Home Ed group. She has plans to carve the fruit so let’s hope we get at least one. If not perhaps I could smuggle one in later in the year. While she’s in bed perhaps!

Celery. Self blanching which is lucky as I have no space for earthing up.

The carrots, swede and turnips are a bit slow but perhaps that is normal.

Kale is to close but I think I’ll get something from it.

Leeks, next to the French marigolds. I planted lots of marigolds between rows but I have to keep taking them out to make space.

The onion tops fell over weeks ago when they were still quite small. I left them, even though the book said to lift, and so far am glad I did as they are already much bigger. They need weeding, it’s a constant battle.

Contribution to tonight’s tea. Not the wax obviously, that’s just to show off!

Talking of hive products. I helped the bee buddy today and he sent the chickens some left over drone comb. He said they would love it and he was right. They had a fine time picking all the larvae out to eat. Drone comb removal is a way of removing varroa from the hive so aiding hygiene.

The chickens don’t care about science they just like meat. I think they would eat each other if they could. I love them but they are mean, very mean.

I’ve got melons.

When we ordered the new poly tunnel a  fortnight ago I realised I only had tomatoes and chilli peppers to plant in it. I tried to buy pepper, cucumber and melon plants but couldn’t find any nice ones so quickly brought and sowed seed.

It was 2 weeks ago tomorrow so I am very pleased with the cucumbers, but the other 2 are a bit slower. Hence my melon happiness!

The poly tunnel is also a happy event. Last weekend we spent a day putting up all the metal work

Now the instructions said 2 people could do this in 2 days,  and although I guess that is true, they never mentioned the length of day and effort needed during those days.

Hubby is a measure twice, cut once sort of person. I’m slapdash. Hubby likes to know what he’s doing and what the end result might be. I’m still slapdash.
The frame was fairly simple after some long winded measuring and hole digging.

Hubby then spent a couple of evenings doing the wood work and door frames

The plastic was huge and unwieldy in such a small space. We managed it without mishap.

Tightening the sides went OK, and then we got to the ends. What ever they say about neat creases, all laying the same way is quite honestly not that easy.
Eventually after several attempts my slapdash mentality won the day. The folds are random, the result lacks finesse,  but its done and it’s tight (ish) and that’s good enough for me.

From the inside its a bit ‘ Heath Robinson’. But its all mine and I love it.

I now just have to get in the tomatoes

The chillies

The aubergine

The cucumber and the melons.
Not to mention all the other 101 things I want to grow.

Perhaps I should have had a bigger model!

1 – 0 to the bees.

Occasionally  the bees fight back and just do not want to be kept. Today was that day.

I had high hopes of removing honey, giving them more space and some extra work. They wanted to be left alone.

I started well. Carefully unloading the equipment, cutting the long grass from along the path to fit the  barrow through, even the smoker lit first time and that’s not something that happens often. Then it all went downhill from there.

As soon as I opened the first hive it was clear they were not happy. The noise levels were amazing and bees rushed out in all directions. I persevered with going though the frames in the first super but by the time I had removed only a few, the bees from the other hives had joined the fray. To be fair the honey was not as far forward as I had expected and as it was not capped with wax I would not have taken it. However the bees clearly had no intention of letting me try.

My arms soon felt like pin cushions and this particular string really struck deep.
I’m a beekeeper not a masochist, I put the hive back together and beat a dignified retreat.

I had to drive all the way down the track with my windows open and get out and walk around, leaving the doors wide open for another 10 minutes before I got rid of the little demons.

Every dark mark on these gloves are bee stings. My boots look similar. It wasn’t quite how I intended making more room in the hive, but as every bee that stings dies, I’ve certainly reduced the population today.

These are field beans. I was able to take a good long look at them as I walked aimlessly about ‘ losing’ bees. There’s a lot of flowers there. I’d better try for that honey again really soon

Interestingly when I got home to check the records I was seen off on 15th June last year, 13th June in 2014 and 6th July in 2013. It’s becoming a bit of a tradition!

Summer craziness.

It’s been crazy in the apiary this season. I’ve extracted honey on 3 occasions already this year. The bees have been on the oil seed rape and if that isn’t removed instantly it sets in the frames and has to be melted out. That’s a job no one in their right mind can like!

I thought last week’s extraction would buy me a couple of weeks space. The rape is over and after initially intending to move the bees to another farm, to the mustard, I found a field of very young field beans just up the road from their present spot.  I decide to leave them where they were and let them go hungry for a week or two while it grew. They were never going to starve but clearing out stored rape honey would have made space for the new without it being tainted. Left over rape honey tends to seed any other stores, making them set hard as well. There was always the hawthorn blossom to keep them going.

Anyway, down I go the following week to find my lovely ’empty’ hives full to the brim with ripening honey. Now when I say full I mean full. I struggled to lift them. I quickly put some undrawn  super  frames in each hive just to give them some work but I just didn’t have the equipment with me to remove it.

On the way home I pulled into said field. The plants might only be a few inches tall but it’s in full flower. Looking up you could actually see the dark line of bees flying straight from hives to beans. Impressive.

Fast forward 3 busy days, I haven’t had time to revisit but have been giving it some thought. I don’t need the honey, the bees will swarm if they run out of room, I could split them but I don’t need more bees, what to do? The solution seems to be in reducing honey storage and creating room.

Now many of my brood frames are quite dark this year. I replace some each spring but with the damp winter and the queen laying for longer more than usual are looking old. One hive in particular is very black and it’s hard to see tiny eggs in tiny cells in the dark!

I’ve made a whole brood box full of new frames. It’s DIY and I’m not good at that. ( I’m less than not good, I’m really rubbish. Patience and attention to detail are not my trademarks.)

They come in pieces, you put them together. It’s not rocket science but does help if you put on the sides the right way round etc.

Then you pin all the joins to hold it together under the weight of the honey. This little tool probably has a proper name but I’ve forgotten it. I call it my ram pin and it’s a boom. Otherwise I use a small headed hammer and hit my fingers, the side, holes in the wax etc.

I always pin the top, after prizing so many out only for them to separate under the weight of honey and propolis.

I made a box full and a few more. I’m thinking I might remove the honey supers on one hive completely and place a brood box full of empty frames straight onto the brood and a half already there. Let them draw it all, hopefully having the queen use it, before removing all the old brood frames. I’ll put the rest into both other hives just in place of frames already there.

Will it work? Who knows with bees. They can be a law unto themselves or total darlings. I guess thats what’s said about all women!!

Summer? You must be joking

It  was  apparently the first day of summer Wednesday and like so many of my posts it was raining!!

Miss C spent some time doing her home ed diary but soon bored of that and pulled the ‘ all my friends are off school for half term so why should I work’ argument. She was only marginally right as she never spends 6 hours at her desk so is hardly over worked, but she had a point.

I was cold and overcast myself so we lit the fire, settled down on the sofa and caught up on all the Springwatch episodes we had so far missed. Miss C loves wildlife and nature so that isn’t learning!

We drank hot chocolate and got out this puzzle

It’s only 250 pieces so far to easy but the round shape gave her a challenge. The fact that it had belonged to my nanna made it even more historical. Learning about kings and queens is not home ed now is it!

I used the time to make more squares.
I belong to a local knitting for charity group which is very generous of me as I can’t knit and only agreed to go along initially because I’m a key holder for the building. Anyway I decided to use up all the wool the other ladies don’t want to make crochet granny squares.

I’m thinking they might go together something like this. It will never be as impressive as the amazing blankets, hats, gloves and jumpers that the other ladies make. It’s another hobby I just don’t have time for!