Getting close to the equinox...

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Well the season progresses at pace

Here in N Wiltshire the OSR is fading and the winter field beans are flowering producing their watery dark nectar and I’ve heard Lime is also flowing - will check on an apiary this week that has 100 or so in neighbouring parkland to see if it is indeed in flow..

We had a flow from hawthorn - the one year in 5 and it’s left some colonies on no fewer than 6 supers and one with 7. And it’s only 31 May...

Worrying to me is the blackberry starting to flower. It seems 2-3 weeks ahead of last season and the white clover is also out in places too, looking lush at the moment but unless we get some decent moisture it’ll soon burn off, and the summer flowers will also struggle as it’s very dry.

At my paddock the springs have dried up and the flow off the old airfield drain has almost stopped which is rare.

Plenty of activity in the bee-yards. No sooner than I relocated two swarms from beside my lock up that had found their way in to old nucs full of fusty framed ready for rendering, than two more appeared...one into a langstroth nuc and the other into an empty nuc which soon had frames installed.

I’m pretty sure one of them is from my temperamental hive, a large 14x12 in an experimental (for me) Abelo hive. I switched it’s floors for the pollen trap this weekend as they always bring in a lot.

So to the week ahead - 10 nucs with new queens will need moving on to larger accommodation and I’ve got a batch of buckfast style queens from a new supplier I’ve not used before, but recommended by a mate, so will be fun making nucs for them - and I have just the hives to use to populate them.

Helped out a couple of new beekeepers who needed an extractor and had bought unwisely on Amazon and it had turned up broken and bent and threaded screws throughout - so they have my old manual extractor for a few days to clear a couple of supers on their first hive.

Plenty of honey orders flooding in and the old customers are returning as lock down begins to lift at last. What a disaster it has been for the economy and employment ... we’ll be paying for this for half a century and I don’t actually think the NHS have struggled at all. The issue is cleanliness and obesity. Sorry to rant but so many ‘other’ conditions have been left to their own - oncology, eye departments, dentistry, my own Optics industry and the job losses are just beginning.

A worrying end to one of the best Spring flows for a while...
 
hmm Not sure I'm a fan of the new Blog layout...seems the old layout worked far better and I can't easily review my own history...,and what about a new 'title' for a 'new' blog posting !!

Anyway, hopefully the following can be viewed.

I was up at 'O-crack-sparrow-fart' this morning, 4.30am to be precise, to some hives to a 50 acre field of buckwheat/phacelia. The attached photos show it - the blue flower is the phacelia and the white the buckwheat.

This came about after passing the field a few times and a bit of sleuthing to ascertain the landowner. It turns out the field was originally OSR but it didn't germinate well so he direct drilled a green manure mix which he was rightly proud of - there are also three varieties of white clover in the base too which he hopes will flower after the top growth has been topped in early September.

Interestingly, my main apiary is benefitting from a rather unusual flow of buckwheat too as there is a nice 20 acre field within a minutes fly-by-wing which is yielding well. This was drilled into a roughly cultivated grassland ley after the first cut. I haven't ascertained why but will quiz the farmer when I next see him.

The final bit of sleuthing will hopefully yield a new site for Borage in 2021 - I happened across a 75 acre field on the way back from Dorset and seeing as there were no beehives on it that too will be a fine relationship to build should I manage to track down the farmer.
 

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Wow, I envy you that. Love the colour on the pollen baskets when they are loaded with phacelia. I have some buckwheat too but it doesn't look like that. I am in N Wales.
20200728_110805.jpg
There is another plant in one of the photos but I can't quite make it out. Looks a little like sainfoin. Photo of young sainfoin:
20200630_184948.jpg
Bet your girls get bumper crop on there. I would be interested to know.
 
hmm Not sure I'm a fan of the new Blog layout...seems the old layout worked far better and I can't easily review my own history...,and what about a new 'title' for a 'new' blog posting !!

Anyway, hopefully the following can be viewed.

I was up at 'O-crack-sparrow-fart' this morning, 4.30am to be precise, to some hives to a 50 acre field of buckwheat/phacelia. The attached photos show it - the blue flower is the phacelia and the white the buckwheat.

This came about after passing the field a few times and a bit of sleuthing to ascertain the landowner. It turns out the field was originally OSR but it didn't germinate well so he direct drilled a green manure mix which he was rightly proud of - there are also three varieties of white clover in the base too which he hopes will flower after the top growth has been topped in early September.

Interestingly, my main apiary is benefitting from a rather unusual flow of buckwheat too as there is a nice 20 acre field within a minutes fly-by-wing which is yielding well. This was drilled into a roughly cultivated grassland ley after the first cut. I haven't ascertained why but will quiz the farmer when I next see him.

The final bit of sleuthing will hopefully yield a new site for Borage in 2021 - I happened across a 75 acre field on the way back from Dorset and seeing as there were no beehives on it that too will be a fine relationship to build should I manage to track down the farmer.
If you want things to happen you have to do the donkey work.
Inspiring Somerford, would you say your a hardened migratory beekeeper.
:)
 

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