Tales from a down-shifted family
- Making the most of modest means
Despite my sore finger and the strong winds, I did manage to do some beekeeping at the weekend. We’d bought a new poly hive so I constructed that. It wasn’t much of a project really and only took about 5 minutes so instead I set to cleaning out a whole load of old brood frames...
It was something of a mixed bag over the winter for our bees. One colony that was huge in the autumn died off whilst the colony that had taken up residence in the hive near the bedroom window did quite well. This colony had continued to expand throughout the Spring and was now looking quite...
It’s been a bit dreary these last few days, but things are growing well in the garden. Here are a few photos from around the garden at the weekend. The blackcurrants are flowering well and should have lots of fruit later in the year. The comfrey looks good. The bluebells are putting on their usual...
Project Pond wasn’t my only garden project at the weekend. I also had a somewhat more relaxing project in the form of a bonsai tree. Whilst at Charlies Garden Centre in Aberystwyth I rescued a poorly looking fern and a frost-damaged conifer. They were reduced in price and needed some TLC. The Fern was planted...
After the winds of Saturday, Sunday dawned clear and fairly still. Perfect weather for pottering in the garden. Morning Run There was a bit of exercise to do first so I headed off for a run along the River Leri and then back along the beach. Nothing too exciting and not too far or too...
I picked a whole load of succulent blackberries from the hedgrows at the weekend. Free, health food, what is there not to like about that! Better still, I’m pretty sure that the majority of our bumper honey harvest this year came from nectar from the flowers on these blackberry bushes. I can’t be sure of...
Beekeeping has always been an interesting hobby for us. We never had any intentions of making loads of honey and selling it for a profit. A good job really as Ynyslas isn’t the best place to keep bees and our honey harvest rarely produces much honey. If it were a money-making scheme we would have...
Well, as forecast Sunday (yesterday) was indeed the hottest day of the year so far. The temperature on the Borth and Ynyslas Weather Station here in our back garden hit 28.2ºC at 2:01pm. Still quite a way off the all time high of 33.7ºC but today is meant to be hotter still and it is...
I don’t know, I turn my back for 5 minutes and the bees are up to something again!! This time I think it’s a good thing as they have filled their supers to the brim!! I’m not sure where they are getting their forage from but there seems to be a honey flow! The garden...
Unsuccessful Swarming We never have much success with our bees during swarming season. As soon as there are signs of swarming we tend to do the standard artificial swarm procedure. This is supposed to ‘trick’ the bees into thinking they have swarmed and you should end up with two colonies: One containing the original queen...
Fitness / Technology / Triathlon
Fixing the Altimeter on my Garmin Forerunner 910XT
Monday, March 17th, 2014
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