August 24th 2010: Hightown Road, Banbury
Bees, plums, apples and pears. It seems like a good idea to me to use the Blog TAGS function so that I can keep track of monthly activities over the years in Durham, Oxfordshire; and also to tag years so that we can see what we achieved on what year. From now on, I'll tag posts by month, year, location and activity, so that assuming one is spared, the data will slowly accumulate through the years. I may even try to back date some of the info so that I can see what was ready at what time of the year in which part of the country. I usually fail to keep track of all my gardening endeavors, but this should over the course of a year or two build up into a reasonable archive of data.
BEES
So. Today. we opened all of the hives up at around 18.00. The day is windy, and alternating between heavy thundery rain and bright hot sunshine. The bees seemed quiet and not stingy at all. We did use a fair amount of smoke on them.
HIVE 1: Yellow Carnolean Bees (EZ bees): Swarmed in July: re-queened themselves: building back up fast: four or five full frames of honey to take off at least. This was our biggest, most productive hive until July when it swarmed during our visit to the Scilly Isles. The hive seemed to be queenless for a while, but following advice, we left it alone, checked three weeks later and there was brood, eggs and larvae in the brood chamber, so all must be well. Having ost the majority of the colony, this hive is still building slowly back to strength.
HIVE 2: Black Native Bees (Lloyd Tredell) on five frames of a nucleus. Not building up very fast. Perhaps a larder brood box for them to move into? No super. This colony is our smallest. Another 2010 queen who arrived in a queen cage, which we placed with three frames from HIVE 1.
HIVE 3: Black semi-Native Bees (Lloyd Tredell) on 12 frame brood-box with two supers on top, only one needs to be spun off. The hive still needs a crown board. This is one of Llyod's queens from last year, I think. This colony was also quite small when it arrived in 2010, and build up from 4 frames.
HIVE 4: Mixed English Bred bees (Jackman) on twelve frame brood box with one super on top, which will need to be spun off in about one week from now. This is the newest colony, it started this year 2010 with five frames from a queen bred this year in Malvern.
PLUMS
The plums are ripe on the trees now, likewise greengages. We have picked a trug-full a day for the past two days, and there are many windfalls. This is exacty the right time to be taking the plums (Victorias) from the trees in Banbury. We are experimenting with a dehydrator using a mix of plums, apples and pears, but I'll report on that in the morning, when the process is finished.
The apples and pears aren't ready quite yet but the fruit which has been attacked by things is dropping off the trees, and so windfalls are providing apple juice (as recommended in someone else's blog, referenced below). The Conference pears are not quite ready, but we have a small Williams, which has produced a few pears for the first time since we have had this house. These are ripe and ready to eat now.
Capped Honey from Hive 4
Hive 4 August 24th
George resenting the use of his trug for plums
