Sues Allotment Diary

Forgot what happened last year - maybe it's here!!
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LittleBrownFrog
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by LittleBrownFrog »

Beekeeping fascinates me as well :-D Thank you for sharing the pictures Sue.
"Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder..." Thoreau.
davina112
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by davina112 »

What a fantastic sight, my hubby would love a bee hive.
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by little brown hen »

He should contact your local bee keeping association Davina, they may do what ours does which is a 6 week course on bee keeping, then they rent out a hive and throw in (not literally) the bees for free. That's how we started. We had our hives on the local apiary for two years until we'd taken a very simple test, and passed. Then we could either leave the hive on the apiary, or take them away. Its a good way to start, and it give you the chance to find out if you really can cope with all those bees! We dropped something off on John allotment and the new hive was busy, and there was a small group of bees at the back of the hive, dont know what they're up to, but hopefully they arent going to try swarming again. :-D
Mum to Sox and Boo,and hens, Bramble,
Belle,Bourbon,Holly,Ivy, May and June
RIP Daisy my cat,and Spice, Clara, Alice, Biscuit, Cookie Clarice and Henrietta. Over rainbow bridge, but never forgotten.
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lancashire lass
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by lancashire lass »

that's really fascinating - and you now have another hive too )t'
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by davina112 »

Thank you LBH, I will tell hubby.
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by little brown hen »

Bee update.
The swarm of bees swarmed again. I found them under the hive! So I got out our fifth hive and repeated what I'd done the first time with the dustpan, and put them in it.
In the evening I went and checked all the hives. My hive had 3 queen cells, and I removed 2 of them and closed that hive. The others were ok, including the new ones. I had removed excess comb from the other hives, and I put it in a box and took it home for the chickens. They were in bed so I put it on the hall table for the next day, and forgot about it! The next evening I came across it and looked inside, and there was a queen bee wandering around looking for her adoring bees. So I belted down to the allotment, tried to paint green on her, but managed to get her wing! and put the bee in a queen cage and put her in hive no. 4. The other queen cell was trying to hatch, but I had nowhere for her to go, so I got a nuke out and put her in there with a frame of food and a few bees.
I checked them yesterday, and all the hives had lots of food. The nuke was empty, so that queen has buzzed off somewhere. My hive had three sealed queen cells, so I left them there and they can fight it out themselves. Wonder what will happen next?
Image Hive no 4.
Image Queen cage, there is a queen in there if you look closely. The white stuff is fondant icing. The bees eat her out, and she smells right by the time she's out and they accept her.
Image A nuke.
Mum to Sox and Boo,and hens, Bramble,
Belle,Bourbon,Holly,Ivy, May and June
RIP Daisy my cat,and Spice, Clara, Alice, Biscuit, Cookie Clarice and Henrietta. Over rainbow bridge, but never forgotten.
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Linda S
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by Linda S »

Sue the bee story is facinating thanks for giving us an insight to these lovely little creatures and sharing your knowlege...Smashing stuff :-D Lindaxx
And then there was one, Again!!!!
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little brown hen
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by little brown hen »

Ive been busy at the allotment over the last week or so. Im quite into herbs, and my herb bed has spread rather. Most of the herbs are in pots and the pots are planted. Then I can move them or bring them into the greenhouse in the winter.
The potatoes are doing well. My peas and pea beans are doing well and hopefully they'll start climbing the wires and soon I'll get peas! There are tiny spinach and chard plants. I have beetroot leaves, and another row planted. Dwarf beans are ok, also cauliflowers and cabbage. The leeks still look like fine grass, there are swedes, and today I planted my sweet corn. We've had a few bowls of rhubarb now and hopefully we'll soon get some rain to boost growth.
The bees are thriving in four of the hives, but the fifth one has no queen at the moment. There are three queen cells, but none of them had hatched last Friday when OH looked. Im hoping when we look on Friday there will be an open queen cell, and maybe the queen will have flown out to mate and will be laying eggs. Fingers crossed. :-D
Image Cabbages, dwarf beans, swede, beetroots and peas.
Image Courgettes plants and potatoes.
Image Herbs
Image Peas
Image Onions.
Image Rhubarb.
Mum to Sox and Boo,and hens, Bramble,
Belle,Bourbon,Holly,Ivy, May and June
RIP Daisy my cat,and Spice, Clara, Alice, Biscuit, Cookie Clarice and Henrietta. Over rainbow bridge, but never forgotten.
davina112
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by davina112 »

Looks great Sue, your onions are much bigger than mine
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by little brown hen »

I was away last weekend, and when I went back to the allotment on Wednesday evening I was delighted so see that everything had grown, and there were loads of pea and peabean flowers. The potatoes are starting to flower. Beetroot, swede, onions, spinach and chard was all doing really well, and my herbs have gone mad. The brassicas also are growing really well. I love this time of year, it so exciting. :-D :-D
Mum to Sox and Boo,and hens, Bramble,
Belle,Bourbon,Holly,Ivy, May and June
RIP Daisy my cat,and Spice, Clara, Alice, Biscuit, Cookie Clarice and Henrietta. Over rainbow bridge, but never forgotten.
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lancashire lass
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by lancashire lass »

I've noticed the warmer wetter conditions have definitely moved things along - when I took photos about 2 weeks ago, most of the beds on my plot still looked embarrassingly bare but last weekend I could see that everything had just taken off, including as you say, all the weeds. It won't be long before you start cropping )t'
little brown hen
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Re: Sues Allotment Diary

Post by little brown hen »

We spent about 6 hours at the allotment today. John has a problem with the bees, they keep swarming, so he got there early so he could go through the hives and try and work out whats going on. Hopefully they will be ok.
I got a lot of weeding done. We went to Lechlade, which is near Cheltenham on Thursday, and I bought a new hoe, its L shaped and wonderful for scraping up the weeds. I covered pretty much the whole allotment and it looks quite good now. There are a lot of things growing, and John picked chard and spinach from his plot and we had the chard at dinner time. )eat( It was very tasty. Ive got cherries on my tree that are turning red, so I covered the whole tree with environmesh to keep the birds off. The carrots are the only things now doing well, but finally I have some bits of green where they are coming up.
Image across my allotment.
Image There are lots of apples at the moment.
Image tiny fishes, they are bigger than last year!
Image Pea Beans
Image Peas.
Mum to Sox and Boo,and hens, Bramble,
Belle,Bourbon,Holly,Ivy, May and June
RIP Daisy my cat,and Spice, Clara, Alice, Biscuit, Cookie Clarice and Henrietta. Over rainbow bridge, but never forgotten.
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