The last two weeks have been quite busy. We have had several swarms of bees to catch and another load of honey to extract. The field of rape behind us has certainly paid dividends. So far we have extracted more honey than we collected for the whole of last year. The picture shows a swarm of bees congregating at the bottom of the garden. Once they are in a bundle we get the swarm catcher and cut off the branches and the bundle falls into th
e catcher. We empty them into a skep then turn it upside down, onto a white sheet, propping one edge off the ground and then empty the rest of the bees onto the sheet. Gradually they all go into the skep and later in the day transfer them into a nucleus box. We have run out of hives at the moment and waiting for new ones to arrive before we can transfer them into there new home.We were involved in a farm open day last weekend and did a display about beekeeping. We had hoped to take an empty hive to display but when Geoff went to collect it he discovered another swarm had settled into it and made themselves at home. We have six hives at Redlands now. These are quite small colonies therefore will not produce much honey from them this year.
On a sadder note we are having a lot of misfortune with the chickens. They decided to become cannibals and pecked one to death and the dogs have now found a way into the coop and killed two more. Just one left, poor thing. Alistair sold some of his pigs last week so we are hoping to get the place cleared out and use it for the chickens. The house is more substantial than the coop in our garden so should be better and more dog proof.
The sheep have been sheared and look very strange without their woolly coats but much tidier.
Silage making has begun and Alistair and David have been very busy when the weather is suitable. Some of the grass will be made into hay as well.
We have had a revised quote from e-on which is much more acceptable. We have to wait 12 weeks before they can come and do the work. The electricity has to be disconnected from the house before we can demolish the house. This means no action until September but hopefully the planners will have an answer for us by then as the planning has gone to the council for the new house.
