Boundary Wires, Bees, and BST
After a busy couple of weeks with a trip to Fuerteventura and then a week at a conference with work, the spring garden was looking a little overwhelming. Things—namely the goosegrass, dandelions, and stinging nettles—were getting out of hand, and I’d yet to get Hector, our robot lawnmower, up and running.
Robot Mowers
Harriet, the mower out front, was already in action and keeping the lawn neat and tidy. I’d checked her boundary wire earlier in the year and had built her a new garage where she could recharge out of the weather.
Hector, however, needed some more TLC. Now, anyone who reads this weblog or knows us personally will know how highly we rate our robot lawnmowers. They do an excellent job, they are kind of cute, and they save me loads of time—time that allows me to keep on top of other things in the garden. However, as they are several years old, they aren’t the latest, greatest models. They don’t have GPS and high-definition cameras onboard and therefore rely on a boundary wire to operate and guide them. This actually works really well—until it doesn’t. At this point, trying to find where the fault lies is almost impossible.
Boundary Wires
The boundary wire is hundreds of metres long and is buried a couple of inches under the lawn. It’s a convoluted setup, and there’s no clear indication of where the problem might be. Did I break the wire whilst gardening? Did the builders next door break it whilst erecting the fence? Did the builders constructing the shed damage it, or has a connector simply come loose? There’s no way to know.
You can sometimes narrow it down to one side or the other, but if there’s an issue on both sides of the garden, all bets are off. You can also use an AM radio to detect a voltage in the wire—I’m not completely convinced how well this actually works, though, as it still seems somewhat hit and miss. So, after changing the connectors, cleaning everything off, and checking a couple of joints and junctions, we were still no closer to a fix. Saturday was therefore spent crawling around the garden, listening to the faintest sounds of interference on a poxy little AM radio, digging holes in the lawn, finding the wire, and swapping out certain sections. Still no joy, so we gave up for the day when it started raining.
Sunday dawned bright and cheery, so I was soon back out there on my hands and knees. Anna was convinced that we’d fixed most issues and that the final problem lay somewhere in the northeast section of the garden—a complex bit of wiring from the far junction with the central guide wire and a section of lawn that weaves around a compost bin, a shed, the oak tree, a birch tree, a hawthorn, some pampas grass, and the gravel seating area. I’d already exposed certain parts of this section, but we couldn’t determine where the break was. So, I dug it all up and replaced the entire section with new cable.
Success! It worked. I still couldn’t actually see a break or even a little kink or nick in the cable that I removed, but we now had a green light on the base station. Hector could recharge and finally start mowing the lawn for us.
Bees
With the mowers resurrected and helping me out in the garden, I did some weeding and tidying—it’s nowhere near ready for summer, but I am at least making some progress, and it’s nice to have the mowers doing their bit as I get on with other things. As I worked, the sun was warming things up, and the bees were busy. I hadn’t looked in on them yet this year, so I decided that today would be a good opportunity to do so.
As usual with the first inspection of the year, I didn’t want to disturb them too much. I just wanted to check that there were indeed bees in each hive, that the queen was present, and, if possible, to spot her so that I could put the queen excluders back between the brood boxes and supers.
I’m pleased to report that all three hives in our home apiary had bees in them. I can’t really do anything with the middle hive, as they are on self-built comb that is attached to the crown board, so I can’t actually get to them. They seemed pretty happy and healthy, though, and I’ll need to devise a strategy for them going forward. My ‘strategy’ is quite likely to be to leave them to it and see what happens! The other two hives looked healthy too, with plenty of stores and plenty of brood in all stages of development. I didn’t actually spot the queen in either of them, but I put the queen excluder on anyway and will have to check next week to make sure the queen is below it and not laying eggs in the honey supers.
It looks as though the weather is going to be nice this week. Today, the bees have been returning to the hive absolutely caked in pollen, which is a good sign. However, there is an easterly wind forecast from tomorrow, and at this time of year, that often results in a strong katabatic wind, which might just keep them from flying despite the sunshine.
We actually have a fourth hive in an out-apiary at a friend’s house too, so I’m hoping to take a look at them later in the week.
Spring is Here
With the mowers mowing, the bees doing well, and the sun shining, I spent the rest of the day continuing with chores around the garden. Spring growth is well underway. The Hellebores have finished flowering and are looking healthy with new leaves, the rhubarb is grwoing like mad and there are flowers here and there too – the primroses are certainly putting on a show. Even the bonsai tree that I grew from a seed from Morgan is beginning to come into leaf.
The clocks have gone forward, it’s British Summer Time, and the garden won’t wait. I’ll never find time to do all the things I’d like to do out there, but most things will grow without too much intervention, and at least the weeds are good for the wildlife.
Spring has well and truly arrived.
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As usual I’m really jealous of the rhubarb, ours isn’t even showing above ground yet level !