just starting out in a somewhat backwards fasion.

[frankenstine]

hi from herefordshire , just starting out keeping bees after thinking about it for quite some time as weve had a wild colony living in the garage roof, thats been there in the region of 10yrs.

we had been reading up on tge subject when the bees themselves decided to up that pace just a bit and swarmed onto a bush in the garden after a few calls and a bit of rushing about we had a small colony in a nuc box they have since been transfered into a hive and seem to be doing well. with rather a lot of help and advice from a local bee keeper.

one of the areas i'm keen to look into is potential planting to encorge and help the bees to thrive, we have about 15 acres with a small patch woodland here comapred to other areas wildlife dose seem to very well here, most of our ground is curently grassland for grazing ( 1 horse )and hay altho the hay crop isnt really worth the hasstel of dealing with contractors one of the ideas that keeps poping up and i'm currently looking into is planting some or even the magority of this area not just bee freindly but primeraly for bees as we hopefully increase our number of collonies

 

[theeggman]

Welcome to the forum, You've picked the time just when the forum has been 'upgraded' and we are all feeling our way around at present.
Someone nearer to you will be along shortly I would think to give some advice.

 

[Erichalfbee]

hi from herefordshire , just starting out keeping bees after thinking about it for quite some time as weve had a wild colony living in the garage roof, thats been there in the region of 10yrs.

we had been reading up on tge subject when the bees themselves decided to up that pace just a bit and swarmed onto a bush in the garden after a few calls and a bit of rushing about we had a small colony in a nuc box they have since been transfered into a hive and seem to be doing well. with rather a lot of help and advice from a local bee keeper.

one of the areas i'm keen to look into is potential planting to encorge and help the bees to thrive, we have about 15 acres with a small patch woodland here comapred to other areas wildlife dose seem to very well here, most of our ground is curently grassland for grazing ( 1 horse )and hay altho the hay crop isnt really worth the hasstel of dealing with contractors one of the ideas that keeps poping up and i'm currently looking into is planting some or even the magority of this area not just bee freindly but primeraly for bees as we hopefully increase our number of collonies

Sainfoin? Both the bees and the horse can eat and you can have the honey.

 

[Gilberdyke John]

You probably don't need telling how much grazing space a horse needs but do remember that horses are herd creatures and keeping one on its own isn't ideal. Additionally take steps to ensure the horse(s) don't nudge or disturb the hives.
There's several threads in here about bee friendly plants but trees and shrubs are equally useful. Think Apple, Pear, Plum, Blackthorn, lime (sometimes) coralberry, evodia hupehensis, rubinia amongst others. Himalayan Balsam is a great asset to bees but hated by watercourse managers. Also ivy provides late season forage. I'll leave you to search back in the forum files.

 

[Erichalfbee]

You probably don't need telling how much grazing space a horse needs but do remember that horses are herd creatures and keeping one on its own isn’t ideal

My neighbour keeps an old mare largely on her own. It’s a holiday cottage with land. Daughter and her family live near and in the summer they bring two horses over for the grazing. The transformation in the mare is a thing of wonder. Instead of standing forlornly in a corner all on her own she gallops around with them. When they go she stands over the gate with her head held low for hours. It’s heartbreaking. I go over there with an apple and a carrot every day and spend some time talking to her. Some people shouldn’t keep horses.

 

[Curly green finger's]

Hi from South Shropshire not to far away from you.
To keep your hive separated from the horse you could put a square of sheep herdals or some temperory fencing around it.
You've 15 acres so you could fence an acre or two and sow some borage or phacelia or both which your honey bees will love.
Also there quite parshal to white clover if the weather's right.
Good luck

 

[frankenstine]

My neighbour keeps an old mare largely on her own. It’s a holiday cottage with land. Daughter and her family live near and in the summer they bring two horses over for the grazing. The transformation in the mare is a thing of wonder. Instead of standing forlornly in a corner all on her own she gallops around with them. When they go she stands over the gate with her head held low for hours. It’s heartbreaking. I go over there with an apple and a carrot every day and spend some time talking to her. Some people shouldn’t keep horses.

yes i agree keeping one horse on its own isn't ideal but please dont take me for someone who knows nothing about horses or how to keep them, i have more experiance with them than most and have advice on hand from some very very experianced horsemen. i didnt join here to talk about horses and please dont presume things about it without all the information. this one is special and not in a good way.

you may be a super moderator of a bee forum but i expect you know littel about horses this one has stumped the very experianced, how do you know i have not tryed to introduce companinons and i have several times, the long and the short of it and sadly the only way this horse isnt getting kept on its own is to dig a big hole and get the vet, your comments are acually very hurtfull to my parter as she has tryed her best with this horse for the best part of 15 years now

 

[Erichalfbee]

yes i agree keeping one horse on its own isn't ideal but please dont take me for someone who knows nothing about horses or how to keep them, i have more experiance with them than most and have advice on hand from some very very experianced horsemen. i didnt join here to talk about horses and please dont presume things about it without all the information. this one is special and not in a good way.

you may be a super moderator of a bee forum but i expect you know littel about horses this one has stumped the very experianced, how do you know i have not tryed to introduce companinons and i have several times, the long and the short of it and sadly the only way this horse isnt getting kept on its own is to dig a big hole and get the vet, your comments are acually very hurtfull to my parter as she has tryed her best with this horse for the best part of 15 years now

I didn’t have a clue that you kept only one horse. How was I supposed to come to that conclusion. If you look at my reply it was to Gilberdyke John and I actually highlighted that part of his post. I’m not a super anything. It’s a handle supplied by the forum admins.
You obviously care about your holding and whatever stock you have on it.
I’m sorry you took it the wrong way

 

[frankenstine]

Hi from South Shropshire not to far away from you.
To keep your hive separated from the horse you could put a square of sheep herdals or some temperory fencing around it.
You've 15 acres so you could fence an acre or two and sow some borage or phacelia or both which your honey bees will love.
Also there quite parshal to white clover if the weather's right.
Good luck

the horse is fenced off well away from the bees already, we have to be carefull with grazing anyway as laminitus can rear its head if we are not carefull so have existing paddocks of various made out of both permant and tempoary fencing.

ive noticed they like the clover, the grass lays in our fields are about done and not really right for the horses needs at the moment anyway so going to have a magor replant soon anyway , ive really actually got to plant grassses with a lower feed value for the horse as what we have now is a bit to rich. i can easly devide off 5 acres without issue for alternative planting. i would like to think i chould rotate it with grass but expriment, by removing all the usual restraints of planting, the ground has good potential but is quite poor at the moment farmers like to call it hay raped, its just been not that a diverse grass mix for to long so the crop is poor both in yield and quality. so my aim is to come up wth a mixture of whatever with sole contraints that its good for bees and soil then say leave it for 5 years untill replanting grass then plant the same mix in another 5 acres, so atm im looking borage, phacelia and a bit of clover ive got a lot more reading to do but hopefuly i can find or mix an economic seed mix that i can just spin on and roll in

 

[Curly green finger's]

the horse is fenced off well away from the bees already, we have to be carefull with grazing anyway as laminitus can rear its head if we are not carefull so have existing paddocks of various made out of both permant and tempoary fencing.

ive noticed they like the clover, the grass lays in our fields are about done and not really right for the horses needs at the moment anyway so going to have a magor replant soon anyway , ive really actually got to plant grassses with a lower feed value for the horse as what we have now is a bit to rich. i can easly devide off 5 acres without issue for alternative planting. i would like to think i chould rotate it with grass but expriment, by removing all the usual restraints of planting, the ground has good potential but is quite poor at the moment farmers like to call it hay raped, its just been not that a diverse grass mix for to long so the crop is poor both in yield and quality. so my aim is to come up wth a mixture of whatever with sole contraints that its good for bees and soil then say leave it for 5 years untill replanting grass then plant the same mix in another 5 acres, so atm im looking borage, phacelia and a bit of clover ive got a lot more reading to do but hopefuly i can find or mix an economic seed mix that i can just spin on and roll in

I know a bit about what your talking about, what treatments have you used for laminitis.. I've seen it in horses and cattle over the years.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

you may be a super moderator of a bee forum but i expect you know littel about horses

I suppose with her being a retired vet, you're right

ive noticed they like the clover, the grass lays in our fields are about done and not really right for the horses needs at the moment anyway so going to have a magor replant soon anyway , ive really actually got to plant grassses with a lower feed value for the horse as what we have now is a bit to rich. i can easly devide off 5 acres without issue for alternative planting. i would like to think i chould rotate it with grass but expriment, by removing all the usual restraints of planting, the ground has good potential but is quite poor at the moment farmers like to call it hay raped, its just been not that a diverse grass mix for to long so the crop is poor both in yield and quality. so my aim is to come up wth a mixture of whatever with sole contraints that its good for bees and soil then say leave it for 5 years untill replanting grass then plant the same mix in another 5 acres, so atm im looking borage, phacelia and a bit of clover ive got a lot more reading to do but hopefuly i can find or mix an economic seed mix that i can just spin on and roll in

Try looking at traditional wildflower meadow mixes, sometimes just seeding with yellow rattle reduces the feeding in the soil whick slows down plain grasses and gives the wildflowers etc. a chance to reestablish. We're doing it with a lot of public parkland in our area.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I suppose with her being a retired vet, you're right

It’s no matter. We got our wires crossed.
The OP thought I was talking about his horses when I was infact talking about my absent neighbour.
It happens.

 

[ShinySideUp]

Yellow rattle does work in reducing grasses, it parasitises them, but takes a few years to get established and can well do with a bit of a hand with spreading the seed. It is an annual plant that doesn't re-grow and only seeding can increase it's spread. Collect the seeds (about now) when the husks go brown and keep them until October or November then re-spread them where you want them onto [if you can] bare soil and tread them in; they need cold weather to germinate. You can a;so spread wild flowers preferably in autumn although box instructions often say autumn or spring.

We have had a huge crop of wild flowers this year and not a single honey bee has landed on them, this is because honey bees like to gather in bulk from one big crop of something. When they've finished that crop they'll find another big one. In my experience, as someone who has a wild-flower meadow not twenty yards from my apiary, my honey bees don't bother with local wild flowers until there is nothing else of note to spend time on. Wild flower meadows are the domain of bumble bees and other bee-like creatures (hoverflies etc.).

On the horse note, and I'm no expert, I was told many years ago that you can keep horses near bees but they must have plenty of room to get away from the hives when necessary. And by plenty of room I mean a shed-load of room as if the bees get a bit handy, say at the outset of a thunderstorm, they can get REALLY lairy and the horses need to be able to get away (like me when I've taken my August honey supers from them!).

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Yellow rattle does work in reducing grasses, it parasitises them, but takes a few years to get established and can well do with a bit of a hand with spreading the seed. It is an annual plant that doesn't re-grow and only seeding can increase it's spread. Collect the seeds (about now) when the husks go brown and keep them until October or November then re-spread them where you want them

That's where traditional hay gathering methods come in, leave until late summer, cut, then dry - the tedding and windrowing the dried hay shakes most of the seeds off and leaves them in the soil for next year. Seen it work wonders on some projects, even my cousin without trying has seen his fields slowly change back to the ones we remember as kids as he hasn't fiddled much with the land for years, just muckspreads in spring, takes one haylage crop and lets the land get on with it.

 

[Erichalfbee]

We've had a lot of success with Rattle. Six years ago we planted two strips. we top the grass only in the autumn after the flowers stop, leave the cut on the ground for a day or so for the seeds to drop off the flowers then collect and pile up in various corners of the field. From a solely grass sward we now have lots of wild flowers. Presently the bumbles are enjoying the Birds Foot Trefoil and the Honey Bees are all over the Knapweed. Its well worth trying.

 

[frankenstine]

I know a bit about what your talking about, what treatments have you used for laminitis.. I've seen it in horses and cattle over the years.

to treat it cash unfortunatly , tho i'm very fortunate that havent had to have treatment laminitus in a long time as it gets expensive quick, last time i had to deal with it i had no choice but move horse to a friends yard and just pay the bills. i try and avoid it at all costs now just been very observant of what the ground is upto and how horse looks and take no chances

 

[frankenstine]

so gooing on what shiney side up says and what ive read if i'm going to plant things for bees it needs to be enough of it to make it worth doing, so say i plant 150 mtr long strips 3mtrs wide with a bit of a gap between them say 2 mtrs. that would give about an acere would that be enough to make it worth doing, alsost tempted to plant it as a matrix of trial patches and see what works together then mow it all off at the end of the season and plough it in got to help organic matter in the ground if nothing else.

so id think ill be going on a seed scrounge, i have a lot of sunflower & lavender. borage, phacelia, clover i can buy easly and cheaply along with lupin i can get leftover seed FOC, so harvest some yellow rattel im sure ill be abel to find some here if we havent got a lot allready. dose mixing this lot up with a load of sand spinning it all on in a oner just to see what happens come spring other than fat pidgions sound a daft idea ? i i expect its been tryed but i'm keen to have a play about

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did anybody watch Countryfile last night?
That field of Sainfoin was mighty impressive. Wouldn’t it be great if that was planted rather than OSR?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Did anybody watch Countryfile last night?
That field of Sainfoin was mighty impressive. Wouldn’t it be great if that was planted rather than OSR?

I had more important things to do. I think I was cutting my toenails

 

[Curly green finger's]

I had more important things to do. I think I was cutting my toenails

How long did that take its on for a whole hour.. You must have some long nails