Good ideas

After a rushed breakfast I did the poo trailer run. Whilst at the lottie I had a job to do on the new allotments and met a chap interested in Rat eradication by the fishing ponds. All that took up time.On

As promised I went to the bees today with the two jobs in mind:
A.Artificial swarm the big box
B. Mow the grass

I have been reading a couple of books on managing swarms. As you may recall I have a new regime this year. I have not fed the bees any syrup this year. The big box is expected to swarm but I think it for brood box congestion rather than over stimulation. Mr Internet supplied some insights, Ted Hooper's book "A guide to bees and honey" written in 1976 and C de Ribeaucourt's "A manual of rational beekeeping" written in 1876 provided a more considered guidance. It was only when I checked the publishing dates for the blog did I discover that the two book were written a century apart. When I turned up at the apiary at 11am the sun was shining and a gentle breeze wafting across the site. I did as a combined wisdom suggested; I split the hive in two, the frame with the queen cell and all the brood and the bees on the frames were put in a new hive and moved to a new position in the apiary. The "old" queen was left in much depleted hive with any many drawn brood frames as I had available. The remainder of the brood chamber was filled frames of foundation. I put a super back on to provide food. The other super went on the new hive. The books say leave the hives alone for a week. OK then. The old queen's hive will be reinforced during the day and tonight by the returning foragers and those foragers that are currently in the new hive. Once they go out to forage they will return to their old hive not the new one.

The grass is getting very long at the apiary so I took the scythe with me and gave the grass a haircut. Well it was more of a beating. I scythe could do with sharpening.

After a spot of lunch we decided to drive over to Woodhouse Eaves. The village was having an open gardens event. There were 22 homes that opened their garden for charity, the local church I think. The allotments, in the middle of the village, were parts of the open day. They were opened in 1913. I picked up an idea for our lottie. We saw some very nice gardens. Folks really went to town on them. I might have persuaded H to have a summer house or rather a "garden room". The other good thing I saw was angle brackets on the roof of a greenhouse to which a bamboo cane was attached. To the cane was top fixing for the canes supporting the Tomatoes. I smart idea. Pity I did not think of it.