About time for an update methinks!
I went back to work on Monday, my back is still not quite right, but too few staff at work for me to stay off any longer, rest assured tho I am taking it easy!
Had another session of accupuncture yesterday, Lee tried making me laugh whilst I had 20 needles stuck in me, I'm gonna have to get my own back on him now! Lol!
Lee harvested the next batch of spuds today, another 55lb of lovely reds, not bad from 10 seed spuds!
Lots of things growing on well, methinks we'll be harvesting lots in the near future!
Total Costs 2009
Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40
Total costs so far £317
Harvests 2009
Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £10
Lettuces £10
Peas £15
Broad Beans £55
French Beans £35
Runner Beans £3
Cabbages £6
Cucumber £8
Courgettes £62
Broccolli £15
Caulieflower £5
Turnip £1
Strawberries £48
Raspberries £80
Blueberries £4
Potatoes £85
Tomatoes £10
Peppers £2
Garlic £50
Onions £20
Total Harvests 2009 £587
So, we're definitely in a profit situation as for the balance sheet, up £270 so far, we may even possibly have enough of a surplus for us to include the £400+ costs that setting up the apiary has cost us this year, even if we dont manage to get a honey harvest this year!
Hope your harvesting as much as we are!
Sue and Lee's Vegetable Allotment pages, detailing all that we've been doing on our allotments, from clearing the 8' tall weeds that they were covered in when we started with our first plot in October 2006, through to where we are today, with 2 neighbouring full sized productive organic vegetable growing plots, 2 apiaries and 6 Beehives!!
FYI
Clicking on any of the pictures will open them at full size in the browser window, which means you will have to use the 'back' button to return to the main pages, whereas clicking to the left or right of any picture will open them in a new window, if you fancy a closer look at any of the piccies we've posted! We've included a Google Earth satelite picture of our plots and this years planting plan at the bottom of the page, next to each other. If you choose the Earth view on the satelite image you can rotate the image until it is lined up with the planting plan, then use the arrows in the plan to scroll from Plot 2 to Plot 1.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Harvesting update!
Well, I'm still off work, had accupuncture on Wednesday, which seems to have helped, have another 5 sessions booked, and hoping to go back to work on Monday, even tho the Dr wanted me to take another week off, will just have to see how I get on at work! I'm still not able to get to the plot, tho am going to go down there tomorrow and see how I get on, I'm free of pain when laid down, and can walk for 10 to 20 mins before it gets painful, but can only stand still or sit upright for 5 to 10 mins at a time, tho this is getting better!
Lee has been busy harvesting, the toms are ripening well now, the overwintering garlic and 1st batch of onions are now drying, some really good bulbs of both too! The turnips are approaching harvestable sizes, as ar some of the peppers and chillies! The courgettes are cropping like mad, as are the french and broad beans! The second spuds will be coming out tomorrow, as we've just about finished eating the 1st earlies! The pumpkins and squashes have set fruits, looks like another reasonable year for them again this year!
The bees are doing well, I'm told Hive 2 is extremely busy and doing really well, with 10 frames of capped brood being present, tho they havent yet drawn out many of the frames in the super that was put on last week! Hive 3 is getting busier, but no sign of the queen having started to lay yet, and Hive 1 is doing ok, still not as busy as Hive 2, but we'll see how it gets on!
Ok, onto the balance sheets!
Total Costs 2009
Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40
Total costs so far £317
Harvests 2009
Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £9
Lettuces £10
Peas £15
Broad Beans £45
French Beans £30
Cabbages £5
Cucumber £6
Courgettes £53
Broccolli £15
Caulieflower £5
Turnip £1
Strawberries £45
Raspberries £80
Blueberries £4
Potatoes £35
Tomatoes £6
Garlic £50
Onions £20
Total Harvests 2009 £494
We're in a profit situation on the plots of £177 for the year so far, with the vast majority of crops still to be harvested! Hope you're growing year is going just as ell and you are reaping bountiful harvests!
Lee has been busy harvesting, the toms are ripening well now, the overwintering garlic and 1st batch of onions are now drying, some really good bulbs of both too! The turnips are approaching harvestable sizes, as ar some of the peppers and chillies! The courgettes are cropping like mad, as are the french and broad beans! The second spuds will be coming out tomorrow, as we've just about finished eating the 1st earlies! The pumpkins and squashes have set fruits, looks like another reasonable year for them again this year!
The bees are doing well, I'm told Hive 2 is extremely busy and doing really well, with 10 frames of capped brood being present, tho they havent yet drawn out many of the frames in the super that was put on last week! Hive 3 is getting busier, but no sign of the queen having started to lay yet, and Hive 1 is doing ok, still not as busy as Hive 2, but we'll see how it gets on!
Ok, onto the balance sheets!
Total Costs 2009
Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40
Total costs so far £317
Harvests 2009
Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £9
Lettuces £10
Peas £15
Broad Beans £45
French Beans £30
Cabbages £5
Cucumber £6
Courgettes £53
Broccolli £15
Caulieflower £5
Turnip £1
Strawberries £45
Raspberries £80
Blueberries £4
Potatoes £35
Tomatoes £6
Garlic £50
Onions £20
Total Harvests 2009 £494
We're in a profit situation on the plots of £177 for the year so far, with the vast majority of crops still to be harvested! Hope you're growing year is going just as ell and you are reaping bountiful harvests!
Friday, July 17, 2009
One days worth of harvested crops!
Well, I'm still off work, the Doc told me I may be off for another week, so I'm still resting up (and feeling mighty bored with being housebound), but Lee has been working hard, not only doing his paid work, but looking after me and going to the plot to weed, feed, water and harvest! I just wish my back was better so I could go and help him, hopefully another week and it'll be better, but til then I gotta rely on my fab hubby!
The piccy above shows just what he harvested on Wednesday, just 1 days harvest!! Another 4lb of rasps, another 6lb of broad beans, 1lb tomatoes, another 1 lb of french beans, another bunch of spring onions, another large iceberg lettuce, another 1/2lb of peas, 2 large caulies, several spears of PSB and 1 large head of broccolli plus 25 more courgettes, of between 1 and 3lb each! Just about ready to harvest now on the plot are the overwintring garlic, the first batch of overwintering onions (about 100 onions), the second early spuds, more broccolli, more caulies, more cabbages, more toms, the first of the peppers, more broad beans and french beans, more radish and spring onions, lots more raspberries, more strawberries and of course, lots more courgettes!!
Total Costs 2009
Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40
Total costs so far £317
Harvests 2009
Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £9
Lettuces £10
Peas £11
Broad Beans £35
French Beans £25
Cabbages £1
French Beans £25
Cabbages £1
Cucumber £5
Courgettes £38
Broccolli £13
Strawberries £40
Raspberries £70
Strawberries £40
Raspberries £70
Potatoes £35
Tomatoes £5
Total Harvests 2009 £349
So, we've now reached the point that we've broken even for the year! On fact, we're now already £32 up for the year in terms of what we've spent on the plot!
Beekeeping News!
Well, Lee, Pat and Colin did the Hive inspections on Wednesday, Hive 1 is still fairly quiet, the queen is laying, but not in any great qunatities, but they have stopped taking the feed and have now drawn out 8 frames, hopefully we'll be able to put a super on there soon! Hive 2 is going great guns, there's lots of brood, lots of bees and half of the super has now been drawn out, so no worries with this hive! Hive 3 is busy, the feed is going down at a tremendous rate, they've drawn out 8 frames and the queen is present, although not yet laying! Hopefully she'll be mated soon and start laying in the very near future!
As to the costings, well, we did add it up the other day, and if we include the honey extractor and the materials for building the apiary, then the total costs between the 4 of us is approaching £800, we're definitely out of pocket on the honey front, and will probably remain so for a year or three, but thats not the point, its something we're enjoying and is playing our small part in ensuring the survival of the honeybee in the uk, plus we'll (hopefully) soon be self sufficient for honey and overall we will still end up in a 'profit' situation from the plots despite the outlay for the beekeeping! Next year we've another apiary to build (on Plot 1 at the back corner where the walk in plastic greenhouse is) and probably another 3 or 4 hives to pay out for, so we wont be recouping much next year, but longer term it should become (at least financially) a self sustaining hobby, and one that is giving us a lot of enjoyment!
Hope your growing year is going as well and that your harvests are going well!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Bad Back stops play & Mr D is having to do it all!
Firstly an apology for the lack of updates, its been 10 days since I've posted anything, 10 days since the last piccies or updates, and I have to apologise for the laxness, unfortunately I've not been able to get to the plot, sit at the computer or do much of anything as I've had an extremely bad back, most of my hols were spent resting it and even after that it wasnt getting better, so after seeing my GP 2 weeks ago, he diagnosed another case of Sciatica, a bad one this time, and I've been litterally laid up for the past 2 weeks! Its slowly getting better, perhaps another week or resting it and I'll be able to get back to work, but until then I'm housebound n bored stupid!
Fortunately for me, Lee has been an absolute angel, not only nursing me, but also going to the plot, harvesting, weeding, looking after the bees (with Pat and Colin) and doing a bit of tidying, in fact he even took these piccies for me today so I could see how everything is coming along, and boy does most of it look fab!! (Ok, there's some weeds n some tidying up to do, but nothing too serious and mainly at the path edges)
So, Plot 1, the celery is flowering like mad, looks very pretty, cant wait to see how much seed we get, them its a case of making our own celery salt, cant wait! The broad beans are cropping like mad, we're taking a few lb's every couple of days, lots being blanched and frozen! The Garlic is just about ready, it'll be harvested after the judging (this week or early next), as will the fabulous overwintering onions (behind!) The strawbs are producing, as are the french beans and the runners arent far behind!
Celery flowering!
The Dwarf French Beans are cropping heavily, about 2lb every couple of days at the moment, the late broadies are almost ready and the early runners are flowering well!
Maincrop spuds are looking fab, as are the turnips, tho the neighbouring swedes look like they've been had by something, looks like we'll have to get them netted asap! The later planted peas and mange tout are coming on really well, as is the chard and spinach, and also the carrots and parsnips!
Plot 2 is also going great guns! Desnt seem possible that its grown so much in only 10 days, but the proof is in the piccies! The courgettes are cropping like mad, Lee brought 14 large courgettes home yesterday and says there's loads more coming on! The sweetcorn is really growing well now, as are the pumpkins and squashes, and the brassicas are looking amazing!
Fortunately for me, Lee has been an absolute angel, not only nursing me, but also going to the plot, harvesting, weeding, looking after the bees (with Pat and Colin) and doing a bit of tidying, in fact he even took these piccies for me today so I could see how everything is coming along, and boy does most of it look fab!! (Ok, there's some weeds n some tidying up to do, but nothing too serious and mainly at the path edges)
So, Plot 1, the celery is flowering like mad, looks very pretty, cant wait to see how much seed we get, them its a case of making our own celery salt, cant wait! The broad beans are cropping like mad, we're taking a few lb's every couple of days, lots being blanched and frozen! The Garlic is just about ready, it'll be harvested after the judging (this week or early next), as will the fabulous overwintering onions (behind!) The strawbs are producing, as are the french beans and the runners arent far behind!
Celery flowering!
The Dwarf French Beans are cropping heavily, about 2lb every couple of days at the moment, the late broadies are almost ready and the early runners are flowering well!
Maincrop spuds are looking fab, as are the turnips, tho the neighbouring swedes look like they've been had by something, looks like we'll have to get them netted asap! The later planted peas and mange tout are coming on really well, as is the chard and spinach, and also the carrots and parsnips!
Plot 2 is also going great guns! Desnt seem possible that its grown so much in only 10 days, but the proof is in the piccies! The courgettes are cropping like mad, Lee brought 14 large courgettes home yesterday and says there's loads more coming on! The sweetcorn is really growing well now, as are the pumpkins and squashes, and the brassicas are looking amazing!
Biggets head of broccolli, looking great!
Another large broccolli!
Another large broccolli!
Large Cauliflower, just about rady for harvesting! Looks like we'll be processing and freezing lots of things in the near future!
Finally, a quick piccy of the herb / flower bed we put in next to the pond only 2 weeks ago, tis looking great!
Finally, a quick piccy of the herb / flower bed we put in next to the pond only 2 weeks ago, tis looking great!
Altogether I'd say that we're looking at (touch wood, fingers crossed) our best years crops since we've had the allotment, its quite possible that we're going to end up with more than the £2000 of organic fruit and veg we did last year!
So, onto the balance sheet!
Total Costs 2009
Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
Harvests 2009
Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £7
Lettuces £9
Peas £10
Broad Beans £30
So, onto the balance sheet!
Total Costs 2009
Rent + subs for 2 plots £85
Debris Netting £70
Seed Spuds £20
Compost £20
Seed Compost £5
Seeds £20
Plant feeder / feed £12
Growbags (4 for £5) £15
2 Apple trees £30
Herbs and Flowers (for underplanting 3 beds of fruit trees) £40
Total costs so far £317
Harvests 2009
Rhubarb (£1 a stalk in Sainsburys) £50
Spring Onions (£0.99 a bunch for organic) £7
Lettuces £9
Peas £10
Broad Beans £30
French Beans £20
Cabbages £1
Cucumber £5
Courgettes £28
Broccolli £12
Cucumber £5
Courgettes £28
Broccolli £12
Strawberries £35
Raspberries £60
Potatoes £35
Tomatoes £3
Potatoes £35
Tomatoes £3
Total Harvests 2009 £305
So, just out of pocket to the tune of £12 so far, but that is definitely changing!
Hope you're growing and harvesting year is going well!
Beekeeping News!
Well, the hives now seem to have settled themselves down, Hive 2 is as busy as anything, we've (Lee, Colin and Pat) removed the feeder and put on a super, so we'll see how they are getting on with filling that this week, Hive 1 seems to have settled, they arent taking much of the feed in there now, so after this weeks inspection it may be time to remove the feeder and put a super on here too! Hive 3 now has a Queen, she was seen by Lee, Pat and Colin at last weeks inspection, all we need now is to et her mated and laying, which only time will tell! This Hive is taking feed like mad, perhaps cos they are using it to draw out the comb in the other 5 frames, wednesday we should know more!
Friday, July 03, 2009
Beekeeping - another colony homed, 3 hives on the plot! Plus a bit more info!
Well, once again a beekeeping update!
Our 2nd hive (the first one that we moved to our apiary) is doing really well, the girls have drawn out 9 frames of foundation to produce comb, the queen is laying well, with 6 frames now having eggs or larvae in them, and next week we will be removing their feeder and giving them a super to allow them to start storing honey stores for the winter! If we manage to get more than one super filled up, then we may get to harvest some for ourselves, but not if it leaves the colony short (if we leave it in place and they dont eat it all through the winter, then we can still harvest it in the spring, so no loss there!)
We did our inspection on Hive 1 the other day, with Dave being present, and it now appears that the queen in that hive is also laying both worker and drone, though not as quickly or as many as the queen in hive 2, but this then meant we were ok to move her hive back to the plot, which was planned for last night! (Hive 1 is the one on the stand to the left of hive 2, the brood box and super inbetween them are spares that will allow us to put any frames we remove whilst doing an inspection into them on a temporary basis, the other brown supers and brood boxes in the right hand corner are the stack of spares filled with frames, ready for use!)
We then got a phone call from Dave, asking if we had any spare hives, as he had experienced a swarm, and had 2 nucleus of bees to house, (as seen in this piccy) and unfortunately only had 1 spare hive! Fortunately Colin had ordered a National Hive to keep as a spare, so we decided to get it built and were able to successfully house the nucleus in there, and also bring that hive back to our apiary at our allotment.
This hive will be labelled as Hive 3 and has 3 queen cells in it, so now we need to wait for a queen to hatch and hope that she can get properly mated and start laying before we will know whether that hive will be fully viable! So we've now got 3 hives on the plot, more than we'd planned for this year, but hopefully it will allow us a good chance of at least 2 of the 3 to survive the winter!
Ok, after a few emails from various folks asking for more details of what beekeeping involves, I thought I'd post a bit more info on exactly what a hive consists of, both the physical parts, how they are made and also about the bees themselves, along with a bit more info on why beekeepers carry out inspections and what exactly is involved with being an apiarist!
So, whilst Lee and Colin were assembling the single type of National Hive that we have (yes, there are more than one type of beehive, the brown ones we started with are known as Smiths Hives, which use the same type of frames as National Hives - but with shorter lugs - but are a slightly different construction) I took some piccies showing the basic components of a hive. You can buy Hives fully assembled, but they cost a lot more, so its usually better to buy them as a flat packed kit, which you then glue and nail together. A National Hive Kit (complete with floor, brood chamber, brood frames and foundation, queen excluder, 2 'supers' (smaller chambers like the brood chamber but not as deep, filled with smaller frames and foundation that the bees use for storing their honey in), crown board (with porter bee escapes) and roof) costs somewhere in the region of £125 flat packed, so beekeeping isnt something that is cheap to start or going to make lots of money quickly, but is something that is interesting, will eventually financially break even (local honey costs about £5 for a 1lb jar, and tastes sooo much better than shop bought honey) and improves pollination of your crops, so although not something that everyone will wish to do, is something we find enjoyable and rewarding, quite apart from the (admittedly small) part we are playing in helping to conserve the declining bee population in the uk!
So, to start with then, what are the parts of a typical beehive? This piccy shows (from top left to right) the stand, a super (filled with 12 frames which already have their foundation fitted), the roof, then in the front row (left to right) the queen excluder, the varroa mesh floor and the crown board. Not shown in this picture is a super (which can be seen in the next picture, where Colin is assembling it!
So, what exactly is a 'super'? Why do we need them? What is a queen excluder and why do we need one? Ok, many years ago it was discovered that the bees needed a gap of 3/8" (any bigger and they will fill it with honeycomb), so a moveable frame system was created by a gent of the name Langstroth. He noticed that the bees stored pollen and honey in one part of the comb, and the brood (the eggs and larvae) were sited in another part of the comb. He reasoned that by excluding the queen (by using a mesh that the worker bees could get through, but that the larger queen could not get through) from a portion of the hive, then it would allow the beekeeper to keep the brood (the next generations of bees) seperate from the honey stores that the colony was building, this would then allow the beekeeper to remove the stores without loosing any of the developing brood, so the system of using a brood chamber (where the queen lives and is free to lay her eggs) capped with a queen excluder and then 'supers' above for the bees to store honey in developed.
So, what are frames? How are they used and why? Frames are basically a way to provde the bees with a place to build the comb without it being totally random, by providing a frame and a sheet of foundation (a thin sheet of wax with a comb pattern already marked on it), it encourages the worker bees to 'draw out' the comb within the frame itself, allowing the beekeeper to remove the frames from the hive to inspect them. The frames are constructed from wood, as can be seen in the piccy of Lee above! Brood frames are deeper, allowing the queen to lay as many eggs as she wishes, whereas the super frames are smaller in depth, making it easier for the beekeeper to remove a super full of stored honey (a full super weighs in at about 30lb in total, a full brood box could be up to 50% heavier!)
Once the frames are constructed, a thin sheet of foundation is fitted to grooves in the frame.....
First comes the stand and the floor, the stand lifts the hive to a comfortable working height and prevents the hive floor from sitting in water which would lead to dampness and rot. The floor pictured here is an open mesh 'varroa' type floor. One of the biggest problems that honey bees are currently facing is from a parasitic mite, Varroa Destructor, more commonly known as the Varroa Mite. This nasty little beastie was accidentally introduced to the uk in the 1990's from asia (where the bees have some resistance to it) and has proven to be deadly to a bee colony of steps are not taken by the beekeeper to manage varroa infestation, it is this parasite that is believed to be responsible for the death of virtually all wild honey bees in the uk, the only honey bees that are now surviving are ones that are cared for by beekeepers, and considering how much of our food crops depend on honey bees for pollination, then it is absolutely vital that beekeepers are there to look after the bees! Managing Varroa is done in several ways, there are many ways to combat varroa, some using chemicals, some which encourage the bees to groom themselves (such as dusting the colony with icing sugar, encouraging the bees to clean it off themselves thus dislodging the varroa) and some (such as the open mesh floor) that are passive (if a varroa mite falls off a bee, then it passes straight through the hive floor and cant get back in), none of them on their own are enough to ensure that varroa is kept under control, so a combined strategy has to be adopted to ensure that numbers of varroa are kept to a level that the bees can handle, otherwise the colony will not survive!
After the stand and floor comes the brood box, complete with its frames. This is where the queen lives and where all the brood is raised. A healthy colony of bees will consist of a single Queen (whose job it is to lay all of the eggs) some Drone bees (the male bees, whose only job is to fertilise a queen when she takes her mating flights) and (the vast majority) the worker bees, which are immature female bees who are unable to reproduce. A nucleus (or a newly captured swarm) will normally consist of 5 brood frames of bees, including nurse and forager bees (both worker bees, but at different ages), some capped worker brood, a few capped drone brood (the cappings are more domed so it is possible to tell them apart), a frame or two of eggs and larvae (to develop into the next generation of workers) and a couple of queen cells! Once a virgin queen hatches she will usually kill her sister queens, then over the next few weeks she will take several mating flights (can be up to 12 mating flights in a 2 week period - this is the only time in her life that she will normally leave the colony and certainly the only time she will be mated!) after which she will begin laying eggs. If she has been properly mated then she will produce both worker and drone brood, if the matings didnt go well, then all the brood will be drones and the colony would need to be re-queened to stand any chance of surviving.
Next would normally come the 'supers' although we havent got one in the piccy here, filled with super frames (shorter frames for the bees to fill with stores), then a crown board (a lid with a porter bee escape (a one way door for the bees, it allows them to go down through it but not to come back up), which can be moved below a super to allow it to be cleared of bees in order for it to be removed by the beekeeper. This is normally only done once there are 2 supers full of honey on the hive! As this hive is going to be used for a nucleus, we are going to be using the crown board under a super, with a feeder above the central hole to allow the bees to feed on a strong sugar solution, in order to give them an incentive to stay in the hive and also to provde fuel for them to draw out the new foundation!
Above all ot this comes the roof, which is rainproof to keep the colony dry, and has ventilation to prevent dampness from condensation from the bees themselves!
Our 2nd hive (the first one that we moved to our apiary) is doing really well, the girls have drawn out 9 frames of foundation to produce comb, the queen is laying well, with 6 frames now having eggs or larvae in them, and next week we will be removing their feeder and giving them a super to allow them to start storing honey stores for the winter! If we manage to get more than one super filled up, then we may get to harvest some for ourselves, but not if it leaves the colony short (if we leave it in place and they dont eat it all through the winter, then we can still harvest it in the spring, so no loss there!)
We did our inspection on Hive 1 the other day, with Dave being present, and it now appears that the queen in that hive is also laying both worker and drone, though not as quickly or as many as the queen in hive 2, but this then meant we were ok to move her hive back to the plot, which was planned for last night! (Hive 1 is the one on the stand to the left of hive 2, the brood box and super inbetween them are spares that will allow us to put any frames we remove whilst doing an inspection into them on a temporary basis, the other brown supers and brood boxes in the right hand corner are the stack of spares filled with frames, ready for use!)
We then got a phone call from Dave, asking if we had any spare hives, as he had experienced a swarm, and had 2 nucleus of bees to house, (as seen in this piccy) and unfortunately only had 1 spare hive! Fortunately Colin had ordered a National Hive to keep as a spare, so we decided to get it built and were able to successfully house the nucleus in there, and also bring that hive back to our apiary at our allotment.
This hive will be labelled as Hive 3 and has 3 queen cells in it, so now we need to wait for a queen to hatch and hope that she can get properly mated and start laying before we will know whether that hive will be fully viable! So we've now got 3 hives on the plot, more than we'd planned for this year, but hopefully it will allow us a good chance of at least 2 of the 3 to survive the winter!
Ok, after a few emails from various folks asking for more details of what beekeeping involves, I thought I'd post a bit more info on exactly what a hive consists of, both the physical parts, how they are made and also about the bees themselves, along with a bit more info on why beekeepers carry out inspections and what exactly is involved with being an apiarist!
So, whilst Lee and Colin were assembling the single type of National Hive that we have (yes, there are more than one type of beehive, the brown ones we started with are known as Smiths Hives, which use the same type of frames as National Hives - but with shorter lugs - but are a slightly different construction) I took some piccies showing the basic components of a hive. You can buy Hives fully assembled, but they cost a lot more, so its usually better to buy them as a flat packed kit, which you then glue and nail together. A National Hive Kit (complete with floor, brood chamber, brood frames and foundation, queen excluder, 2 'supers' (smaller chambers like the brood chamber but not as deep, filled with smaller frames and foundation that the bees use for storing their honey in), crown board (with porter bee escapes) and roof) costs somewhere in the region of £125 flat packed, so beekeeping isnt something that is cheap to start or going to make lots of money quickly, but is something that is interesting, will eventually financially break even (local honey costs about £5 for a 1lb jar, and tastes sooo much better than shop bought honey) and improves pollination of your crops, so although not something that everyone will wish to do, is something we find enjoyable and rewarding, quite apart from the (admittedly small) part we are playing in helping to conserve the declining bee population in the uk!
So, to start with then, what are the parts of a typical beehive? This piccy shows (from top left to right) the stand, a super (filled with 12 frames which already have their foundation fitted), the roof, then in the front row (left to right) the queen excluder, the varroa mesh floor and the crown board. Not shown in this picture is a super (which can be seen in the next picture, where Colin is assembling it!
So, what exactly is a 'super'? Why do we need them? What is a queen excluder and why do we need one? Ok, many years ago it was discovered that the bees needed a gap of 3/8" (any bigger and they will fill it with honeycomb), so a moveable frame system was created by a gent of the name Langstroth. He noticed that the bees stored pollen and honey in one part of the comb, and the brood (the eggs and larvae) were sited in another part of the comb. He reasoned that by excluding the queen (by using a mesh that the worker bees could get through, but that the larger queen could not get through) from a portion of the hive, then it would allow the beekeeper to keep the brood (the next generations of bees) seperate from the honey stores that the colony was building, this would then allow the beekeeper to remove the stores without loosing any of the developing brood, so the system of using a brood chamber (where the queen lives and is free to lay her eggs) capped with a queen excluder and then 'supers' above for the bees to store honey in developed.
So, what are frames? How are they used and why? Frames are basically a way to provde the bees with a place to build the comb without it being totally random, by providing a frame and a sheet of foundation (a thin sheet of wax with a comb pattern already marked on it), it encourages the worker bees to 'draw out' the comb within the frame itself, allowing the beekeeper to remove the frames from the hive to inspect them. The frames are constructed from wood, as can be seen in the piccy of Lee above! Brood frames are deeper, allowing the queen to lay as many eggs as she wishes, whereas the super frames are smaller in depth, making it easier for the beekeeper to remove a super full of stored honey (a full super weighs in at about 30lb in total, a full brood box could be up to 50% heavier!)
Once the frames are constructed, a thin sheet of foundation is fitted to grooves in the frame.....
.................... then the foundation is secured with strips of wood which are then pinned into place. Once all 11 or so frames are assembled they are put into the brood or super ready for the bees to draw out! Once this and all other parts of the hive are built it is then time to assemble the hive ready for the colony to be introduced!
First comes the stand and the floor, the stand lifts the hive to a comfortable working height and prevents the hive floor from sitting in water which would lead to dampness and rot. The floor pictured here is an open mesh 'varroa' type floor. One of the biggest problems that honey bees are currently facing is from a parasitic mite, Varroa Destructor, more commonly known as the Varroa Mite. This nasty little beastie was accidentally introduced to the uk in the 1990's from asia (where the bees have some resistance to it) and has proven to be deadly to a bee colony of steps are not taken by the beekeeper to manage varroa infestation, it is this parasite that is believed to be responsible for the death of virtually all wild honey bees in the uk, the only honey bees that are now surviving are ones that are cared for by beekeepers, and considering how much of our food crops depend on honey bees for pollination, then it is absolutely vital that beekeepers are there to look after the bees! Managing Varroa is done in several ways, there are many ways to combat varroa, some using chemicals, some which encourage the bees to groom themselves (such as dusting the colony with icing sugar, encouraging the bees to clean it off themselves thus dislodging the varroa) and some (such as the open mesh floor) that are passive (if a varroa mite falls off a bee, then it passes straight through the hive floor and cant get back in), none of them on their own are enough to ensure that varroa is kept under control, so a combined strategy has to be adopted to ensure that numbers of varroa are kept to a level that the bees can handle, otherwise the colony will not survive!
Next comes the queen excluder, which stops the queen from getting any higher into the hive and laying eggs into the frames in the supers, which means that the worker bees will fill them with stores, enough honey and pollen for them to survive the winter and hopefully enough spare for the beekeeper to be able to take some for themselves!
Next would normally come the 'supers' although we havent got one in the piccy here, filled with super frames (shorter frames for the bees to fill with stores), then a crown board (a lid with a porter bee escape (a one way door for the bees, it allows them to go down through it but not to come back up), which can be moved below a super to allow it to be cleared of bees in order for it to be removed by the beekeeper. This is normally only done once there are 2 supers full of honey on the hive! As this hive is going to be used for a nucleus, we are going to be using the crown board under a super, with a feeder above the central hole to allow the bees to feed on a strong sugar solution, in order to give them an incentive to stay in the hive and also to provde fuel for them to draw out the new foundation!
Above all ot this comes the roof, which is rainproof to keep the colony dry, and has ventilation to prevent dampness from condensation from the bees themselves!
So, there you go, you've now a much better idea of what a hive consists of! The weekly inspections we carry out are to check on the colony, to check for varroa infestation, to do a weekly icing sugar dusting, to check how much stores the bees have laid down (and whether there is any honey ready for us to harvest) and finally to check for queen cells, which can be made if the bees feel that they have a chance of making a new colony by swarming! Generally this happens if the hive becomes overcrowded and no action is taken by the beekeeper. Swarms are not something that any beekeeper likes to see happen, for if they are not caught and the colony tries to go 'wild', then it almost certainly wont survive, thanks to varroa, so its much better if you find queen cells to artifically split the hive, removing the frames with queen cells and rehousing in a new hive along with some of the worker bees and stores, thus removing the overcrowding and removing the need for the colony to swarm!
So, a basic intro to basic beekeeping there, I hope some of you found it interesting!
We'll keep you updated with whats happening in the hives as things progress!
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