Possible pollinating picture post.....

OK...we have some friends coming and a bit of celebrating to do but I have time to post you a few quick pictures.

So first off I needed to burn this old hive that had been on the allotment for a long time and currently had no bee inhabitants but obviously could hold some sort of disease which I didn't want to chance my bees picking up.

The hives parts and wax produced a very hot rapid fire!!

 So here are the hives in place. Two wooden hives each with one super each containing stores of honey for the bees. In the smaller 'nuc' is a newer swarm which I will shortly move into one of my poly hives so they have more room. I will then give them more feed to give them chance to build more comb and collect more stores to improve their chances of surviving the winter.

And the final picture is introducing you to Trojan. Hopefully all being well we will be bringing him home next weekend. I am excited about that as I was about getting my bees!!!

Will try and catch up with everyone over the next few days but things are just so busy at the moment...kind of hoping for a calmer week.

Hope you all have a good weekend.
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Bees be on the plot!!!

Well I know I showed you my new hives in my last post and I said how I wasn't getting my own bees until next year. Well the words 'my own' were true, however I do now have bees on the allotment. I am looking after two hives for Jez but also there is a poly nuc on there that we are going to try transferring into one of my hives in a couple of days. No photo's yet but I will put you some up tomorrow and tell you more about them....Lovely pollinating little things are going to give us all wonderful crops...and hopefully 'beehave' and not sting anybody!!!

Updates and photos to come tomorrow!!!!

BEEHIVES!!!!!!

So yesterday there was a big delivery of five large packages delivered to my house. My Son initially got VERY excited as it's his 18th birthday on Wednesday but I soon told him that no in fact the packages were full of hives and equipment for the bees and absolutely nothing to do with his birthday..lol

I still won't be getting my own bees on the allotment until next year but I wanted to get everything now as there is such a huge array of things to consider when buying that when I had finally come to a decision I figured it was best to make my purchases and then I would stop doubting myself and changing my mind as I spoke to different bee-keepers.

More about that later...for now I will just show you what I have bought.

Polystyrene hives complete with deep brood boxes, two supers and feeder.

Two poly nucs with 'ekes' to convert to deep brood and frames and wax sheets.

It's all very exciting...now I need to purchase my shed for the bee plot so I have somewhere to store stuff and I really need to get on with setting up my beds and start sowing things. I'm kind of like a little kid on Christmas eve...next year just can't come round soon enough!!

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Bountiful Harvest!!

So I went down the allotment today and spent 41/2 hours being very busy. Luckily I had some help in the way of Kate (she has the other half of the allotment that I ma taking care of this year) and Martins niece who is visiting them for a while. Angela did a great job and I really appreciated the help!! With Angela's help I got twice as much done. Whilst there we had every weather imaginable except snow so did take cover a couple of times in the greenhouse but it didn't stop us getting plenty done....

Such a big harvest...and still plenty left to get!!

This was just what we managed to get harvested today, (if you scroll over the picture you will get a list of what's in the barrow). There is still plenty to harvest but this was a good start...guess what I'm doing tomorrow?!?!?!

Besides the harvesting I managed to get a lot more weeding done and managed to get my tomato plants under control with a much needed trim and some canes so thinks are looking to take shape again!!

A productive but exhausting day.

Night all.
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Absence makes the heart grow fonder…..

Go on...admit it...you TOTALLY missed me!!!! Okay, maybe you didn't, but at least you have come back for a read anyway!!!

So why have I been so quiet for the last couple of weeks??? Well it's been a mixture of things really with mishaps, holidays, house guests, sad times, big decisions and exciting developments...all of this with some good old English summer weather (that's right....torrential rain) has meant that I just haven't got sat down at the computer for a while...but now I am back and I have to catch up with you all over the next few days and get some posts in too.

I will share some of the more exciting things with you and leave out the mundane and embarrassing...actually you would probably like the embarrassing but I think I will still keep it to myself!!!

So I will introduce you to our house guest who I think will be leaving either tomorrow or Tuesday and we have had some great fun with......

Meet Shona

Shona has been staying with us whilst her owners went away and we have loved having her....probably a little more than the cats but they all came to a truce in no time and have got along fine although Shona would have liked to have got a little closer to them.....

Shona getting as close as she dare!!

That brings us on to the sad new of Toby, (the cat above on the right). Two days after this photo we had to take him on a trip to the vets to be put to sleep. He was very old and very loved and we will miss him dearly but it was the best thing for him.

Our big decision and exciting news...we are going to get a dog!! This was actually decided before Shona came to stay although that had been planned for a while anyway and having had her with us for a while has made me even more excited about it. We have gone through the R.S.P,C.A. and have already had the home visit and picked out a dog...now we wait for vets reports and stuff. Hopefully everything will be Okay but it will be a while before we know and when we do I will introduce you all!!

So what else?? Well the allotment is doing really well, in fact the veggies are doing as well as the weeds right now and I have plenty to get harvested and will be doing this in earnest tomorrow so will post more about it and maybe the weeds then!!

The bee front is progressing nicely and I will tell you all more about that later in the week too. In fact there really is so much to tell that this post seems a little pointless right now but I felt I needed to at least touch base with everyone before I fell asleep tonight..and then maybe spend some time tomorrow catching up with you all.

So I will leave you with a lovely sunset right now taken last Friday when we went out to Woody's for a drink and a nice walk around the lakes with Shona.

A lovely sunset over the lakes at Woody's.

Hope you have all had a great weekend!!
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