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Beehive blown over by #StormCiara

Unhappy Bees!

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.

Strapped down beehive ready for the winds
Strapped down beehive ready for the winds
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Antique bottles dug up on a Victorian Farm in North Devon

Buried Treasure

While landscaping our gardens we have dug up many things including old tools, farm implements, water pumps, tyres, bones and scrap metal.

However, one of the most delicate and lovely things we have found are antique bottles.

Varied and obviously old, quite often the writing on them tells a story.

One bottle reads:

WHEELER
LONDON
TRADE MARK
SOFT WHITE HANDS

Another reads:

MRS WIINSLOW’S
SOOTHING SYRUP
CURTIS & PERKINS
PROPRIETORS

My favourite is:

SAMPLE BOTTLE
DR.KILMER’S
SWAMP ROOT
KIDNEY CURE
LONDON.E.C

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Dead bees outside a beehive in winter

Bee Clean

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
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.

Geese inspecting the beehives at Chilcotts Farm
Geese inspecting the beehives at Chilcotts Farm
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Stored apples eaten by mice and rats

A Bite Out of Every Apple!

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.

A Stored Butternut Squash, eaten by a rat
A Stored Butternut Squash, Eaten by a Rat
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Medlar in Autumn - North Devon

Autumn Fire!

Wow! The colours of the medlar in autumn is incredible!

I have never eaten the fruit. Each year I store it, ready to eat, and never get around to it.

I am not sure if it is the fact that you have to let it get to the point of rotting before you eat it that puts me off?

However, I wait until the spring and the big flowers probably make up for what I may have missed.

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A walnut tree shedding its seed, the walnut

Walnuts are falling!

I checked the walnut trees a week ago to see if the nuts were ready.

The tree still showed the green fruit intact with no signs of releasing its nut from the fruit.

I checked again yesterday, and within just one week, the tree had started to drop its fruit. The green fruit had split open, and some of the nuts were lying on the ground. Others were just about to fall.

I quickly gathered and picked all the nuts before an opportunist squirrel or mouse had the opportunity.

They are now all drying in the warmth of the utility room, to be eventually stored in our outside store, ready for eating at Christmas!

  • Walnut fruit
    Walnut fruit
  • A walnut tree shedding its seed, the walnut
    A walnut tree shedding its seed, the walnut
  • This year's harvest of walnuts
    This year’s harvest of walnuts

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