Well, so much for best laid plans! The swarm season was a wild ride with some actual swarms and not just the usual splitting and the early splits to try and increase our losses! As soon as the days lengthened the bees were off! Some colonies are already on their second new queen of 2024 and keeping track of everything has been a bit of a nightmare.
So far honey has been scarce this season, except for a little just in time for the Bridport Food Festival.
The bee forage we planted back in April under our new trees germinated well and we fenced the sheep and deer out to help the crop get established. The fruit trees were getting a bit of a hammering from what I thought was caterpillars and with the constant rain showers I was having to make regular trips down to reapply the deterrent on the trees, one evening I was a little later down after supper to find that the tree eating culprits were in fact SLUGS!! The 2024 slug-ageddon had begun… Freya (in her usual positive manner) suggested that the damage to the emerging bee fodder was preferable to the damage they might have wrought on the new trees so the fodder is now minus alsike clover, phacelia and meliot and the remaining buckwheat is fighting on through the onslaught, just.
There has been an increasing number of insects visiting us for forage or taking advantage of the wild areas here at Twinways Orchard – pictured below is a beautiful Broad-Bodied Chaser Dragonfly.
- Seasons Change - 30th October 2024
- August – The Bee Season Draws to a Close. - 18th September 2024
- Best Laid Plans – May & June - 30th July 2024