Let the Honey Flow!

It is all systems go with the honey. We have extracted 36 frames today. Having a field of rape behind us has certainly kept the bees busy. It took us all last years season to produce the amount we have taken out today. Next job is to put it into jars label and start selling.

Alistair has been busy at Redlands with sheep shearing and hopes to begin silage making later in the week if the weather improves.

The plans for the house are nearly ready for the planners and we are hoping by the end of the week they will have gone into the council. No doubt the planners will take their time giving us permission.

A swarm in May is worth a load of hay.

Work has continued with the water supply. Now we have water in the main tank we needed to pipe it around to different locations on the farm. Alistair and his friend have worked hard this week digging up and laying pipes to water troughs and pig sties. No more water carting from Home Farm.

We have the batman's report and he has informed us that we do not have any bats. That's a relief as this could have delayed the house demolition.

We have finally had a quote from e-on. As we expected it is somewhat hefty so we are in the process of seeing if we can find an alternative route for the mains. The architect is going to look at the drawings and see if he can position the house so that the existing pole can still be utilised.

We have now put 5 nucleus of bees into the orchard. The beekeeping has been very hectic this week as we have a colony which are trying to swarm. We have taken off our first lot of honey for the season. There is quite a lot still to come as several frames were nearly full but not capped off therefore not ready to take from the hive.

Batman & Robin!!

This week has been somewhat busy. The puppies have begun obedience training. All Lass wanted to do was bark at the other dogs. This was the first time we had heard her bark. The first session was learning to sit, down and walk to heel.

The architect came to see us with revised plans. We are getting ready to put in for full planning permission for the house. He informed us that we needed to have a bat survey done. Geoff made enquiries and received several quotes ranging from the cheapest at £200 to £1500. We could not believe the difference. Needless to say we went with the cheaper quote. The 'batman' has written several books about bats and quite an authority on them. He has been and carried out the survey and we are waiting for his report.

Ironically the person doing our water supply

s called Robin. He has been and installed the pump and we now have a full tank of water.

The pigsties have doors and nearly ready to move the pigs into. Geoff has made the doors fitted them and needs to finish painting them.

Our livestock is slowly increasing. We now have four point of lay chickens. There are two brown, one white and one black. Alistair and Mary organised them as a surprise. At the moment they are in a chicken coop in the garden but will be moved to the farm.