Five years a beekeeper

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Mrs Apis Mellifera

As wet bank holiday weather drizzled into the week, I found myself thinking of the virgin queens emerging from our split hives waiting for a dry spell to fly out and mate.

Three weeks ago Thomas and Jonesy had artificially swarmed Chili’s and Chamomile’s colonies after finding queen cells in the hives, leaving Emily and I two new hives and queens-in-waiting.

Last Saturday’s approaching thunderstorm had given the bees a headache and made hive inspections impossible. Then as the storm broke it became a typical Ealing beekeepers’ day with beekeepers huddled around tea, accompanied by Polish cheesecake made by a beginner.

Thomas returned to inspect his hives later on that weekend and checked ours too, reporting back that it appeared a queen cell had been torn down in the hive split from Chili’s colony and that a queen cell was open in the hive split from Chamomile’s colony. Our other…

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Can we find evidence of Dormice in Staffordshire ?

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www.wildlifekate.co.uk

Most of us will never  see a dormouse, but are familiar with beautiful images of them curled up asleep when in hibernation. I found I knew very little about them, so turned to the Internet to find out a little more. …

‘Dormice are well known for their habit of sleeping for much of the time. Their popular English name is thought to derive from the French word ‘dormir’ meaning ‘to sleep’. Dormice are known to hibernate for as much as seven months of the year. At the onset of colder weather in October, the animals will select a suitable site close to the ground to build a nest. They then curl up and go to sleep until April. During hibernation, dormice slow down their bodily functions and enter a state of extreme torpor. In this state they feel cold to the touch and take some time to rouse themselves…

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Perennial Vegetables-keep growing!

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Green Lizard's Blog

I’m reading book at the moment. Martin Crawford has written this very useful book about Perennial vegetables.

The perennial vegetable is one that is there all the time. Commonly we tend to grow vegetables that we plant every year and harvest every year and start again every year!

That’s a lot of work!

You may have noticed by reading this blog I don’t like a lot of work and if there is a lazy option then I’m always keen to try it!

There is the added advantage of finding out about vegetables that I’ve never heard of too!

I’m also learning about some different flowers and things that are not vegetables that I can add to the allotment, lupins for example which will benefit the bees while adding nitrogen to the soil.

So far I’ve already added asparagus and horse radish and wild garlic as permanent plants and they seem…

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My first cucumber…

Lovely post Helen thank you for sharing have a blessed evening

Growing out of chaos

Strictly speaking, I haven’t got any cucumbers – what I have instead is a seedling which I hope will grow into a plant, survive the transfer outside and produce cucumbers for me. It is however the first time I have attempted this as I previously lived under the belief that I would need a greenhouse for them.

The variety I have (Burpless Tasty Green F1 Hybrid) can be grown in or outdoors, so I may keep a plant inside. But I have allocated a part of my garden to cucumbers this year. I just need to turn the compost heap again….

© Helen Butt, May 2014

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making a point

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Lovely imperfections

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garden photo blog

Pictures are often imperfect, for an expert they might be to dark or to bright, to blurry or to unbalanced. These are pictures that are lovely to me, for their faults. (pictures in this post are not cut or enhanced in any way).

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Night-time at Silver Trees with the Bushnell Equinox Z

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www.wildlifekate.co.uk

As you will know, I am an avid user of the Bushnell trail cams but, until recently,  I had not had a go with any of their night vision kit. A few weeks ago, Bushnell sent me the new Equinox Z 6x50mm to have a go with and I must admit, I am pretty impressed! I will doing a more detailed review on this piece of kit in the next few months when I have given it a good trial in a range of situations, but first impressions are really good.

The unit is light and easy to hold and surprisingly small considering its capabilities! It has a rubber-armoured casing, which is water resistant and  it feels pretty rugged. It uses an Infrared sensitive CMOS sensor and multi coated optics which increase light transmission and reduce glare.  

The aspect that I was most excited about was the record facility…

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Coconuts and Cassava

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SARAH THE GARDENER

Coconut and Cassava

Bananas and breadfruit…  I’ve been away.  The last couple of weeks I have been cruising around the South Pacific, with exotic destinations such as Noumea, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and starting and ending in Sydney, Australia.  It was such a whirl wind tour – nine wonderfully tropical locations in a 14 day cruise.  It was really lovely, and I was sharing the gardening love as I was blessed to be able to speak to audiences about the joys of gardening and why our fellow passengers should start a garden as soon as they got home.  I think I managed to convince some new gardeners, which is great news.

Bananas and breadfruit

But at sea there is no gardening to be done – something to do with biosecurity.  All the plants on board the ship were plastic!  So every time we landed somewhere exciting my eyes immediately sort out…

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Up with the garden path 2014 Part Three: the bypass loppers

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Growing out of chaos

I woke up this morning with a degree of excitement: it was a day without any commitments or social engagements and I was going to one of my favourite garden centres to buy something to cut my hawthorn bush down with.

Earlier in the week, I had tried using my lawn cutters. Yes, it worked. Not easy on the hands or arms and a bit unwielding, though. (Plus, I didn’t want them to go blunt.) Not so the bypass loppers I bought this morning. They made cutting off the branches a bit of a doddle. In less than an hour I had finished and it all fitted in the household green waste bin as well.

One of my neighbours popped her head out while the job was in progress. She didn’t exactly say she was pleased to see the bush go. At the same time, there is no doubt that…

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Springwatch Begins… What happens when the team film in your garden?

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www.wildlifekate.co.uk

If you are a wildlife enthusiast like me, you will always be looking forward to the end of May, when BBC Springwatch once again graces our screens with wonderful wildlife footage. With superb live cams, that inspired what I do here, I spend more time watching TV at this time of year, than I do any other time of year! It is made extra special, of course, because I have been lucky enough to have featured on the show for the last 2 years. This year, I welcomed Michaela Strachan to my garden and this footage is due to air next Tuesday… although that could change!

You can find out more about the wonderful day I had filming with lovely Michaela, on my website HERE

Whilst watching one of the shows earlier in the week; the piece by Bill Oddie about garden birds, I recognised birds from my garden! Some of…

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