Blogfromthebarn

If Summer comes can ... oh, it's gone again

I am, oh gentle reader, acutely aware of the responsibility I have to you, my adoring and adorable public and I've a few areas where, let's be honest, I owe you updates as we trip, you and I, hand in hand through this delightful, and much delayed Surrey summertime.

The delay of summer is key to this particular post, an update on the bee situation here at the barn. Despite struggling valiantly through the winter you will recall that our little chums fell foul of a false spring and shuffled in their thousands off this mortal coil. I took the opportunity to do some beehousekeeping and I cleaned, repaired and refurbished the hives with fresh foundation (the beeswax basis of their building and honey storage).

I've had a colony on order from some chaps in Gloucestershire but they were suffering, as we all were from the weather induced delays to the start of the serious beekeeping year. In the meantime I'd established a 'bait hive'.
I'd collected all the manky old frames and foundation in a hive base (a box basically) and stuck that up on the roof of one of the barns.


The thinking here is that if a wild colony or more likely another beekeeepers bees decide they're a bit overpopulated, or they need to refresh their queen then half the colony and the old queen skedaddle and look for a new place to live. Putting a smelly old hive in a high place makes it an easy bit of house hunting for the bee estate agents and much to my surprise my bait hive collected a swarm about a week before I was due to collect the new colony from Gloucestershire.

So, in short order I was making a precarious dusky ladder ascent and transferred an indeterminate number of bees, of unknown provenance and yet to be discovered temperament from the idyllic location they'd selected for themselves and moved them, despite their protestations, to a more convenient, for me, locale.

Then within a couple of days I delivered unto them their new neighbours, a thriving colony of rural bees of italian extraction. Thus far both hives seem to be responding well and thriving despite a hectic and stressful couple of weeks for your correspondent, still very much a tyro apiarist, acutely aware of how little I know and how much I need to.

Survival, likelihood of honey and all other considerations will depend on how well the ladies and I settle into our ongoing regime and how well they like their new waxy palaces, I'll keep you posted.

Labels: beekeeping, bees, blog from the barn, blogfromthebarn, chickens Stuffy Oakwood barn smallholding, colony collapse, honey, honeycomb

posted by Stuffy @ 4:54 pm 0 comments

A Springtime synopsis, colony collapse, cars and cubs, not necessarily in that order

So, my dear readers it is way past time for a bit of a catch up, I've been remiss for many reasons, all, if I could be bothered to explain them to you, would be both valid and understandable so just take my word for it ok?

Anyway, pull up a chair, open a bottle and let's run through the news from the barn.

We've sad news for my bee-keeping followers, it's been a horrible winter and a worse spring for the little honey monsters but they seemed to have coped until the recent false spring which triggered a colony collapse, despite my best efforts to supplement their foraging with sugar syrup and my desperate attempts to deliver 5000 failed attempts at resuscitation.
I've now cleaned the hives and burned all the existing frames, (and many, many tiny corpses) and have built new frames and moved the hives to a new location where they sit awaiting the delivery of two new colonies, one from my local chum Ian and one from a breeder in Gloucestershire. Let's hope for a bee-friendly summer.

Tennyson assured us that springtime triggers a young mans fancy toward love, mine, sadly, tends more to thinking about fixing the Land Rover. I've tried everything to prevent the constant overheating problem, well, everything except the solution prescribed by my friend (and ex-Land Rover project manager) Keith.



He advised replacing the radiator, but I, of course, being very wise, tried everything else, several times in many cases. Finally I bit the bullet, launched myself into the steamy bazaar of Land Rover spare parts one finds on eBay and sourced a "very similar to" from China by way of Dunstable.




The radiator sat in a box for a month as I manfully prevaricated but finally, spurred by the faint glimmers of sunshine through the trees I embarked on a couple of hours of sustained wriggling, spattering, hose coupling, draining, clipping, flushing, binning and bracing and the old girl is now running sweet as a nut and we're roaring about the farm on the first day of summer (official). I've also found that, as you can see in the photo, lowering the windscreen can triple the number of slow-reflexed flies trapped in my welcoming teeth and eyes.

The chickens and I, well, enjoyed isn't the right word but we've built a healthy loathing for our cunning near neighbours over a series of fox-related adventures recently.

We've repelled incursions, thwarted tunnels and as the girls snooze in snug if odiferous safety I've passed many an evening, shotgunned up, and wrapped around a glass or two, waiting for Brer Fox to slink into the designated combat zone.

Fortunate timing and a German-made fox-trap have promoted a couple of predators to vulpine heaven but I suspect that the German fox may be a good bit smaller than his Surrey cousin. Looking at the imagery from the infra-red camera it seems that our enormous UK based Wonder-Füchse are looking at the trap and thinking, "ooh dear, that looks a bit snug."

So the trap has been most effective at delivering square meals to the young cubs who disturb our repose nightly with their merry chorus of yipping and yapping.

Frankly they are too damn cute at the moment for me to do the sensible thing and dispatch them to foxy-purgatory. Six times now I've had to release a snarling but dewy eyed little bundle of grey cuteness. Foolish I admit but what can I do? as they get rangier and mangier I'll rescind my cub-friendly policy.


The mantra of 'build a better mousetrap' seems to be appropriate here so project big-fox-trap was launched last week.

I've been converting a large dog cage (for transporting pooches to vet and show) into a state of the art fox-box. A weekend with angle-grinder, cable-ties, bike gear cables and a 250 piece Meccano set (thanks again eBay) has resulted in the production of a home-made varmint trap which now sits in the wood awaiting its first not-so-lucky visitor.


So that's you all caught up dear reader. I'm penning this on the second day of sunshine this year, really penning it too, sitting in the sun with paper and pen, how terribly retro.

As the unfamiliar yellow orb in the sky beats down on my milky-white extremities and bronzes them to a livid summer pink I wish you all well.


Roll on Summertime...

Labels: barn, beekeeping, bees, blog from the barn, chickens, colony collapse, fox, fox trap, land rover, Oakwood, poultry, radiator, Stuffy

posted by Stuffy @ 5:44 pm 0 comments

Four candles, well, fourteen actually

I've made candles on and off for many years. Buying wax in bulk, wicks, fragrances, colouring on-line and maintaining a variety of jar, 3-wick and votive candles for our domestic consumption. I love the barn on these dreary autumn evenings, lights low, the fire ablaze, candles throughout the place, the scent of vanilla, sandalwood, ginger and spices mixing with the woodsmoke. 


We're currently burning our way through a couple of apple trees that fell in the heavy wind and rain, it burns really well and is very aromatic. The scents of flame and fire mix with whatever I'm cooking up for supper and, for me is one of the real upsides of this season. 

This weekend I had the urge to make some candles but for the first time I've also made candles from our own beeswax, a by-product of this years honey harvest. 

The wax recovered during the honey extraction has been enough to make eight candles and I'm sure they'll add a little mellow honeyed ambiance to any upcoming repast with chums.

Labels: barn, beekeeping, bees, blog from the barn, blogfromthebarn, candles, Oakwood, Stuffy

posted by Stuffy @ 6:05 pm 0 comments

Bee update, honey, health and Her Majesty's inspectorate of beekeepers...

It has, gentle reader, been too long, do I have excuses for my lack of blogging, of course I do, are they credible, do you care? Probably not, so, in the style of an ineffectual liberal democrat party leader I shall simply, and sincerely, apologise, and get on with the job at hand. 

Today we shall be talking about honey, yes indeed the hardworking team in the Oakwood hives have, bless their little yellow and black socks, been industrious (which does kind of go with the job description 'bee') and surprisingly productive. 

Why surprising? 

Well it's been a bad summer for bees generally, lots of rain, occasional cold, minimal sunlight, very little blossom staying in place in storm-wracked orchards. My girls however seem to have thrived. I was planning on leaving them alone, to weather the summer and winter as best they could but beekeeping and cycling chum Ian suggested that it might be worth having a look, he's very wise, sure enough, 10 frames of capped, golden honey ready for the thieving. 


Now, the extraction process is not a complicated one but there are a number of things that can make it easier. The caps that the bees place over each morsel of honey are cut off, the frames are loaded in pairs into a bucket fitted with an ingenious manually operated  spinning mechanism which, in theory, with a lot of effort from the beekeeper, spins the golden harvest toward the walls collecting in a pool of sweet goodness at the bottom. You then take out the frames with the beeswax and cells intact and jar up the honey.

Simples yes? No. That only works if you've used the right sort of foundation, thus giving the bees a strong wired base on which to construct their honey stores. If, like me. you made the mistake of putting unwired foundation in, you end up with a waxy, honey melange as the spinning throws everything out of the frames. It's not the end of the world but it is the start of a three stage, very messy, filtering process which covers the floor, the very helpful brother, the walls, some of the ceiling, much of the conservatory, any passing family or animals and all furniture within 20 metres with sticky, stubborn goodness. 

Despite the tough lessons learned and the rivers of honey wasted through my incompetence, mischance and the sheer bad design of much beekeeping equipment we did manage to extract about 25 lbs of some rather lovely honey, to be given to family and friends as presents, and to flavour my occasional toast and porage. 

I do owe an enormous debt of gratitude (and a couple of jars of honig) to mein deutsch bruder Chris who ably assisted me through the whole honey extraction process, to, as they say, a very sticky end.


I was contacted shortly after this glutinous marathon by a lady from the government who'd spotted my hives whilst checking up on a neighbouring farm and was looking to inspect my girls to ensure an absence of horrible bee diseases. Having just done the extraction I was pretty sure they were in good shape but despite my general antipathy to any form of governmental interference I arranged a visit and a very nice lady turned up. 

She was obviously very experienced and, suited up, the pair of us went through the process of checking the health of the bees, the good news is that my little apiary is home to a very health load of bees, she was very helpful and full of advice but she did get stung once and I naturally enquired "how often does that happen"? apparently "pretty much every day," good grief get another job woman!

So despite the weather, it's been a good year for the Oakwood bees, the more healthy hives there are the better for our fruit and veg health and emboldened by success (truthfully it's all down to the bees, Ian the bee man, Chris the honey king and a little bit of me) I've just ordered a new queen and starter colony for next spring to populate my third hive. 



I'll keep you posted. ...

Labels: beekeeping, bees, blog from the barn, blogfromthebarn, chickens Stuffy Oakwood barn smallholding, defra, honey

posted by Stuffy @ 10:50 pm 0 comments

To Bee, or, maybe not, ... sorry

Things we've achieved, me and the girls

We've split the original hive into two and grown new queens, one of whom promptly and a little unkindly in my view, took half the second hive off on an adventure. Uncle David thinks he's discovered their new home, there's a colony in a hole in an oak in the wood, now that's not necessarily a bad thing, certainly for the planet, but did make it a bit touch and go for hive two (the plastic Beehaus) as it meant that we had to grow yet another queen to take over the management of the remaining 1/4 of the population, this meant that the Beehaus colony has been pretty much in recovery mode for most of the summer but they're now looking healthy and numerous enough to make it through the winter with a little bit of help from me, (sugar syrup to supplement their honey stores) and a bit of luck. The weakness of this hive results from two contributory factors, both my fault, I split them too early and then they swarmed, which I didn't see coming, this means that there was no surplus of honey from the Beehaus team but hopefully next year will be better, healthier, stronger and fruitful.



The original wooden-hived colony had a very strong year and produced a good crop of honey, but, (and we always knew there'd be a 'but' didn't we?), there are two types of beeswax foundation the beekeeper can supply to his or her bees. The bees build cells on the foundation and fill them with new bees, honey, nectar, pollen, depending on the need. Now, of the two types of foundation used for honey one has thin wire running through it which makes it robust enough to spin the heavy frames full of honeycomb and thus expel the honey, the other, unwired, is too fragile and is intended for the creation of cut-comb. As a novice beekeeper, I was unaware of the bees apparent preference for unwired foundation and gave them a choice, so although very productive I've only gleaned 4 jars of liquid honey, (enough, to be honest, to easily see the Barn through to next autumn) and around 15 pieces of cut comb, honey still in the comb, great on toast or with yoghurt. So another lesson learned and they'll not get the choice next year.

In the meantime, despite their evident reluctance,  friends and family will be receiving little gift boxes of goldenly oozing honeycomb, if you can cope with the tiny amounts of wax, the honey is, to my taste, delightful.

So, as November commences the bees are  making the most of late warmish weather and topping up their stores for the winter. I've treated both hives for varroa, a nasty parasitic mite that destroys colonies and I've put guards in place to prevent naughty mice from taking up residence in a nice warm winter retreat with a constant supply of sweet comestibles. I suffered a lot of mice damage to the frames in the wooden hive last winter and that's partly why one of my winter projects is the building of another wooden beehive, to which I'll transfer the strong colony next spring. That will free up the old wooden hive for cleaning and enable me to do some much needed housekeeping. I'll then transfer the Beehaus bees to the refreshed old hive and fit the upgrades supplied by the manufacturers to the Beehaus. Honestly it's worse than software (Windows, not Mac obv) Anyway, beekeeping wisdom is that one always needs a spare hive to address the swarming problem and I'm not keen to have more than two active colonies.

Right, that's enough for now, I'm in desperate need of a cup of tea, toast and honey. Definitely time to enjoy the fruits of my (and the bees) labours.

Labels: Beehaus, beekeeping, bees, blogfromthebarn, honey, honeycomb, oakwood barn stuffy, Omlet, omlet eglu smallholding

posted by Stuffy @ 4:11 pm 0 comments

It's a hive of activity


I'm very aware that it's been a while since I mentioned my apiary efforts and since I know the lovely Mark is looking for beekeeping tips to help him decide whether to become a honey producer in the Trullo Azzuro, it's probably time for an update.



The story so far, I've a lovely polycarbonate hive which currently has no bees in it, I also have a traditional wooden hive, with a queen, a number of useless drones (male) and around 50,000 hard-at-it workers. I've been migrating the colony onto a new set of frames, (wooden structures that the bees can build honeycomb on) that will fit into the new hive. So far they've done a great job and I was thinking of splitting the bees between the old and new hives but beekeeping chum Ian has suggested that (since it's looking like a great summer for bees) we postpone the split for a while, harvest some honey "on the comb" and enjoy the fruits of our (their) labours.

I check the hive weekly, looking for signs that the current queen is of a mood to bugger off with half of the workforce, which apparently happens quite often, fortunately they seem happy in situ at the moment and I've made and installed a super, a rectangular box containing frames of very thin beeswax, this sits on top of the hive, and the bees have spent a hectic few weeks turning it into honeycomb and harvesting nectar and these frames are now pretty much full of honey.

We've gone for the simplest possible way of producing honey, simply cutting the whole thing, the honeycomb and all the honey straight out of the frame and into jars. last weekend saw Charlie and I, togged up in full protective gear, adding another twelve frames of challenge for the bees and then lumbering away giggling like white-clad thieving grizzly bears with the first full frame of honey. It looks right, it tastes like honey and it was very delicious on some greek yoghurt with fresh raspberries.

So, the beekeeping thing seems to be working, It's looking good so far but if there's one thing I've learnt about beekeeping it's that there are a heck of a lot of things to learn about beekeeping,

watch this space...

Labels: beekeeping, ChaCha, honey, Oakwood, Stuffy

posted by Stuffy @ 12:29 pm 0 comments