We have had so much rain in the UK, but North Devon, although wet, seems to have got off lighter than some parts of the country!
In the dryer, warmer spells, the bees have managed to get out and collect pollen. They are returning to the hive with their pollen baskets loaded up with mainly orange and yellow pollen at the moment.
If anyone is interested, I have written a small guide on the colour of pollen and the flowers the bees have been visiting in North Devon. See: https://chilcotts.farm/bees/local-pollen-guide/
Well wouldn’t you bee unhappy too if your house has been blown over, and you are exposed to all the elements?
I can see the hives from the house and am always keeping an eye on the them checking all is well.
Everyone had been warning us about #StormCiara, but for some reason I didn’t think about the hives. This morning when I got up, the hives were fine, but the wind was gusting. The BBC website said gusts up to 70 miles per hour.
Mid morning, one of the hives blew over! Spotted as it happened, I shot out to pick the hive up to protect the poor bees from the wind and rain. As I upped the hive and went to get some blocks and straps to to put on the roof and hold it down, it blew over again!
Angry, unhappy bees is an understatement! Poor things. Anyway, I managed to up the hive again (Four stings later – four little bees obviously managed to get into my bee jacket) I weighed it down with bricks and strapped it together. I then strapped all the other hives down too.
Fingers crossed the queen has not been damaged, and all the girls will support her as she starts to lay in the coming weeks.
Quite beautiful this morning. Everything covered in frost glinting in the early morning sunlight. This Witch Hazel looked like a little glimmering jewel.
A new year has begun, and the garden is already showing signs of life. Apart from the daffodils and snowdrops poking up through the ground, this beautiful and fragrant Viburnum flower is putting on a beautiful show!
I look out on the beehives every day, but make an effort at least once a week to do a quick walk around and check there are no issues.
Most of the time, they seem quiet with nothing happening. They might as well be empty boxes. However, today one of the hives had this big pile of dead bees outside.
Bees keep there hives clean and tidy and this one had just had a big clean-up pushing out all the bees that had died.
It appears alarming to see this small handful of bees on the ground, but this can be quite usual. As the bees born in the summer die they fall to the bottom of the hive.
Dead bees at the entrance of the hive
As part of housekeeping, the overwintering bees will cast all the bodies out of the hive entrance.
This happened to bee a bright warmish day, and later on bees could be seen flying from all the hives, including this one.
It would appear we have a mouse problem in our store! After carefully picking and storing our apple crop, It would appear a little mouse family has come along and taken a bite out of nearly every apple!
Even worse, it would appear that we have had rat visitors too with big toothy bites out of some of the store squashes.
We have unfortunately lost a duck and a chicken over the last couple of days. Taken by Mr Fox! We haven’t ever had any issues with Foxes, but this year we have lost 3 ducks, 2 chickens and a goose!
