Just passing a mile or so from Bridget admiring the heather in the pouring rain .... not driving now obviously.
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todays news
Just passing a mile or so from Bridget admiring the heather in the pouring rain .... not driving now obviously.
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Train? Pity you weren't passing in daylight and bright sunshine - you could have given me the benefit of your knowledge! Had to put the heating on tonight for the first time for several months.Originally Posted by gavin
todays news
Train?
You must be joking.
Gavin has a chauffeur.
todays news
I did indeed. We swapped roles after the Aviemore pit-stop.
Spotted that posh train, the old fashioned one in dark red, and made note to self: must hire that for our next jolly north.
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Last edited by gavin; 21-08-2013 at 12:13 PM.
Can recommend the afternoon tea with scones on that train as it steams it's way to Glenboggle
As long as the crockery is posh-label stuff.
On our Wester Ross - Lewisian expedition the bell heather and ling heather were in profusion, side-by-side. It seems that the overlap in flowering is greater than in the east. Must help provide continuous late forage from some time in July until September.
Our B&B host on Lewis near the Callanish Stone Circle (highly recommended, B&B and stones) mentioned a nearby beekeeper. Can't be easy keeping bees thriving in that sort of terrain. Stornoway itself is a different matter - one street could have been suburbia anywhere given the healthy growth of trees and other garden plants.
OK, its a warm humid day in Tayside and the bees in the hills are overdue a visit ....
G.
Saw a worker bee beating up a drone on the front of one my hives on this bright, warm afternoon in southern England with plenty of balsam coming in.
Is it really that time already? I wonder if day length determines the time for drone evictions, rather than food scarcity or temperature, for example.
Bee inspector came today - and didn't have much to say really except I could try to unite two hives or maybe all three of them before its gets too autumnal. So he found no queens, no queen in the apidea, no brood, no eggs, no larvae and he reckons I did have drone laying laying queens after all. ( We didn't inspect the new queen added 2 days ago just checked she was out of her cage) So much as I thought all along really. The nuc has been dumped after the robbing so it look likes I will may be back to square zero in no time at all. I will certainly be supporting Drumgerry in his queen rearing programme next spring.
Only one good thing - doesn't look like I have varroa (as he picked over the corpses in the dumped nuc) so excellent news for a beeless apiary then.
Our bee inspector called today for a look at my bees. Hooray !! He has declared them to be free of disease so normal beekeeping can resume. I've just got to wait for the official release of the apiary from the stand-still order.The bees looked to be in very good shape with all colonies being queen right . Bursting with bees and all with significant brood nests.Still more flower honey to remove from some of them. Lots of honey stored in the brood boxes which should reduce my winter feed bill. Honey flow is now pretty well over causing some of the bees to become tetchy and defensive,
Our association is moving forward at last, we have secured an ass'n apiary site where we can do some neuc rearing next year plus arrange for our beginner members to get some hands on experience. Need to get our hands on some black bees so we can do a bit of queen rearing etc.
Well, the Amm swap-shop via SBAi started this year, so come May 2014 I hope that we can do more.
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