A brew earned

The clocks went forward this morning, it is British Summertime, so an early start was an hour earlier. I had to run over the Donnington Park to have a look at the market there. It was very distracting to hear the bike racing on the other side of the wall without seeing what was going on. There was lots to see but nothing to buy. I still got parted from a tenner for "stuff". A pair a sun glasses and some dappy dils. We came home and had a brew and spot of lunch.

Lunch done and air temperature suitably warm I went over to the bees. Even before I opened hive I could see all was well. The foragers were coming home covered in pollen not just packed into the bees corbicula ("little basket") on their hind legs , bright yellow pollen. That will be Willow pollen. I took the hive down layer by layer. I found the bees big, black and glossy. These were the bees that had over wintered.. There were a few scrapes of bee candy left. When I went through the top brood box I was delighted to find lots of brood at all stages of development. In the bottom box I found bees were starting to emerge. That means two things. Firstly the hive has weathered the winter. Secondly the over wintering bees are assured of being replaced. Not surprising there was plenty of pollen in the frames but there was also a good deal of early stage honey. As I reassembled hive I put the brood boxes together in the usual manner, cleaned up and replaced the Queen excluder. I then put on a new super with clean foundation then the old super. Above that I put on the feeder and dropped in the remainder of the candy then the roof. The bees settled down very quickly. I tidied up the apiary and walked back to Degsy.

I trundled over to the lottie and parked Degsy up. Again it was really sunny but not very hot. I used a plank to give me a edge and dug a trench along its length. Then I spread in a wheelbarrow full of horse manure along the trench and dropped in a seed potato regular intervals. The first earlies are called "Anya". It remains to be seen how they perform. After that I back filled the trench by using the rake to pull in the spoil from the trench. I did six trenches which was 72 seed potatoes. The soil being so light from the previous day's digging was easy to work. By the time I had completed three trench I reckoned I earned a brew. When I had finished I had a little time spare. I got on my hands and knees and weeded the Asparagus bed and then the Rhubarb bed. They looks really good.

Dave G and Dave P came down as I was on the last lap. Dave G came over for chat as usual. He had to talk to the back of my head but he is used to that. When I was done I had a chat with Dave P. He gave me some of his spare red onion sets and white sets. Now I just need to plant them!