Blogs and bees

If you have been wandering around here over the last few months you will have noticed my tardiness in updating this blog.

Unfortunately bees, cheese, the garden plus the unhappy circumstance that I must also go to work to afford to do all the first things on the list, have meant that I have just not got around to it.

Here, then, is a summary of the months since May.

The beekeeping courses are over and I have loved every minute of it. Paul is running a build your own bee hive course next year and I will be doing that with the intention of filling the hive with bees in May.

The cheese making course was brilliant and I make a batch of cheese every weekend now. I have also started making my own bread and feel much better for it.

The growing year has had some brilliant successes and for the most part the heritage seeds have been very good. Failures were the peas (grew really well but had little flavour), melons (too cold for them, I think) sweetcorn (look great but nothing to eat on them) and the Purple Ukraine tomatoes (rot before they ripen).

Successes were the Purple Rainbow Chillis, White Volunteer Courgette, Czar Runner Beans, Longpod Broad Beans, lovely yellow Galina tomatoes, Sanguina beetroot and the outright best crop was the nearly extinct Tamra cucumber. I have had more cucumbers than I could eat and the flavour was fantastic.

I have saved three as seed cucumbers and I will be giving the seed to everyone and also returning some to The Real Seed Company to pass on to other people themselves.

Elsewhere in the garden there was less frogs than usual owing the the frogspawn disappearing, probably down the throat of a local heron. The big pond was happy host to its newty guests again this year and I have seen loads of little efts as I was giving it an occasional clean.

A lot of my planting for next year will be particularly aimed at providing food for the bees and I have already started a special bed of marjoram and hyssop, two buzzy favourites. The tall crops of peas and runner beans will be grown in containers instead and the remaining veg beds can be left for beetroot and onions.

Lastly, I have invested in a dehydrator and am having great fun making lovely dried snacks out of my left over produce.

Although I hate the dark I am almost looking forward to winter this year because I will finally be able to stop and put my feet up! Maybe there is a point to winter after all.

The best thing is planning the year ahead and then in the early spring planting the seeds to begin the whole wonderful cycle all over again. And of course, hopefully there will be a hive of bees to share in the fun.

Bee Keeping - Day One

The first day of the bee keeping course was absolutely brilliant. The course is being given by Paul Peacock, who has been keeping bees for over fifteen years. He also writes books on sustainable living and is a regular on Gardener's Question Time.

He is also a thoroughly nice chap!

After learning about the life cycle of the bee and about the hive, we suited up and went to investigate our first hive.

Claremont Farm has four hives and in the morning Paul inspected two hives while we watched. Interestingly, even though they were side by side, the temperaments in the two hives could not have been more different.

The first hive was made up of placid bees who seemed unbothered by the inspection of their work. The bees in the second hive however were much more aggressive and Paul got stung several times (although that was through gloves so thankfully it was not the full effect!).

After a lovely lunch we suited up again and were allowed to inspect the two remaining hives ourselves.

Being so close to the bees was amazing and I did not feel threatened in any way by them. Unfortunately it was then that the rain set in and we did not want to get inside the hive wet so we put everything back and left the bees to it.

Altogether it was a lovely day and I can't wait for day two now in June.

I have also signed up for Paul's cheese making course!

Bee Keeping

Fully intending to embrace the natural garden ethos as much as possible, I have enrolled on a bee keeping course at a local farm.

http://www.claremontfarm.co.uk/forthcomingevents.html

The course finishes in September, too late to get a hive before winter but I intend to be fully hived up by late spring next year.

My neighbour has already said that he does not mind a hive next door so apart from the (considerable) expense of setting up, I'm raring to go.

The first day is next Sunday, 15th May, followed by a day a month and finishes with two days in September.

I have already read two books on bee keeping and am more fascinated than ever by the workings of a colony of bees. The thought of learning hands-on is both daunting and fascinating but over all I can't wait!

I will keep you posted.