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.