A Bit of Beekeepery at Our School Garden Open Day

Saturday the 11th of May


It was Garden Open Day today at LandofSpike's kids' Primary School just along the road from Spike Towers.

This annual event showcases the work of the School Garden Team, a small and dedicated group of parents and staff who work with the children throughout the gardening year to help them understand how things grow and where our food comes from.

Presumably, it also helps the kids understand the very best ways to get totally covered in dirt.

The day was a bit windy and not particularly warm, but at least it wasn't raining. 
So, unperturbed and with a few heavy things on top of the light things to stop them from blowing away, it was time to open the gates to the public and let everyone have a look at what the gardeners had been up to.

As ever, there was plenty of brilliant stuff to see and do.
The day was subtly bee-themed, with a make-a-bee craft stall and a bee-themed colouring-in table. 
Kids could also plant some seeds, paint their own plant pot or decorate a pebble.

You could make one of these at the craft stall

Hungry visitors could sample a variety of tasty homemade breads, rosemary scones, apple cake and fantastic soups made from produce grown in the garden.
Intrepid visitors could take a tour round the site to view the results of all the great work carried out by the children and adult helpers.



In addition to all this excellence, LandofSpike had been enlisted to spread the beekeepery word and was delighted to set up shop under the apple blossom tree on the garden's northern borders, right next to the face painting stall.
.
His aim was to try and help demystify the arcane world of the beekeeper.
He couldn't really bring a big bag of bees along with him, so he brought a big bag of beekeeper kit along instead. 
And talked a lot.


In a hugely enjoyable couple of hours (for him at least) we discussed frames, foundation, Langstroth, beespace, brood boxes, supers, queen excluders, hive tools, smokers, colony collapse disorder, neonicotinoids, fondant, syrup and the value of autumn feeding.
That's the autumn feeding without which the beesofspike would not have survived the winter.
. 


A varroa tray with 4 days worth of debris provided a sample of mites to look at under a microscope. 

Horrible

And once identified, people could return to sift through the tray to find the little blighters in situ, along with plenty of wax flakes, some dropped pollen, a few wings, legs, a sting and, happily, no evidence of wax moth.

Varroa tray detectives could identify, wax flakes, pollen & mites

There was lots of wild comb on display and very quickly people found they could identify brood cells and larvae, capped brood, drone cells, pollen cells and uncapped and capped honey. There were even a few new workers emerging from their cells to marvel at.

A BeesofSpike worker emerging from its cell

Despite all this learning and worthiness, LandofSpike suspects that by far the most popular bee-related exhibit on his stall was the large chunk of honey-filled burr comb that he sliced off the side of a particularly heavy frame of capped honey.

Yes, we know the varroa are really interesting but when can we have a taste of this?

Garden Guru Anita whisked it away to the produce stall where it was very swiftly consumed, along with the delicious homemade breads, by an enthusiastic public. 

It's heartening to know that the bees that made that honey had, more than likely, visited this very garden and the gardens of most of those attending the Open Day, to collect nectar and pollen.
It was indeed the most local of local honey. 

And so with people still picking beeswax from between their teeth, a very successful Open Day came to a close.



It would seem that anything that can help make beekeeping more accessible is a step in the right direction.
What goes on underneath that veil, behind that screen of smoke and inside those enigmatic buzzing boxes shouldn't be seen as mysterious at all.
Hopefully today, and days like it, help to lift the veil just a tiny bit.


LandofSpike's only regrets were that he didn't get to demonstrate his smoker lighting technique, which was judged a Health & Safety hazard by Mrs LandofSpike, and that there wasn't time for Stevie to model her extremely cute beekeeper suit.

Foraging in January

Yesterday, as reported on this blog, the bees were out and about in great numbers due to the unseasonably mild weather.

While in the Apiary, LandofSpike also noticed a few workers returning with polllen. 
There was uncertainty as to where this pollen could be coming from so early in January.

Today, the 9th of January, it's still sunny and is a pleasant 9.3C in the Apiary. 
And, with bees still in the air, the mystery of where the pollen's coming from has been solved.


It now transpires that at least some of it was coming from the thicket of Mahonia just outside the front gates of Spike Towers.
Mahonia is a dense little shrub which bears blue-black berries and is armed with some pretty spiky and tough evergreen leaves.

The council's favourite loiterer deterrent 

The local council plant Mahonia in places where it deems people need to be deterred from loitering. 
Seemingly, the raised bed area in front of Spike Towers has been designated a No-Loitering Zone as they've filled it with a healthy patch of the stuff.
This has the happy bonus of supplying the BeesofSpike with a reliable local source of winter forage.

Bright January sunshine, bright yellow flowers

At this time of year Mahonia has the most brilliant yellow blossom. It's amongst the earliest bloomers of the year.
And the BeesofSpike were all over it.

A BeesofSpike worker enjoying some January forage 

NeighbourJane takes the credit for spotting foragers industriously working the Mahonia in the sun this morning and LandofSpike was able to get some nifty photos to record the event.

Pointy leaves to deter humans, Lovely yellow flowers to attract bees

The bees don't usually have many opportunities to fly in the winter months but, if it's mild enough, Mahonia can now be officially added to the Winter Forage List.

New Arrivals at Spike Towers

Saturday 30 June, 7:33 a.m.

The doorbell at Spike Towers rings loud and long.

BKJ2, having been up and about for quite a while, and being much faster than her old Dad, gets to the door first and throws it open.

On the step is The Royal Mail Special Delivery Guy clutching a reasonably sized and well sealed parcel. 

The parcel has dark, meshed-over holes on three sides and a large (and grammatically ambiguous) "FRAGILE BEES KEEP COOL" label covering its fourth side.

BKJ2 turns and launches herself into a Paul Revere-style charge through the house, announcing joyously, and at high volume that, "The Bees Have Arrived!" 

It's an alarm call that propels an instantly awake BKJ1 to the front door faster than the proverbial speeding bullet. 

The Postman, fair play to him, seems totally unfazed by the whole experience. 
He gets BKJ2 to make her mark on his electronic signing device and he listens politely as she excitedly tells him just what's in the box.
LandofSpike suspects that he may well already know.

Job done, Mr Postman breezes off.

So with the front door now firmly closed, LandofSpike, BKJ1 and BKJ2 are left standing in the entrance hall of Spike Towers looking at, and listening to, their New Box.

It's buzzing.

Or, to be more precise, whatever's inside the box is buzzing, and it's doing it rather loudly.

Buzzing

The box, as BKJ2 has already told us, contains the prospective new residents of the BeesofSpike Apiary.

A Five Frame Nucleus of Buckfast Honeybees.

It is, of course, these little fellers that are making all the noise.

They've had a long overnight journey from the Welsh Borders so they're entitled to be a little grumpy.

But their journey is almost over.

Mrs LandofSpike now appears and firmly but calmly, informs LandofSpike that it would be best if he, and his box, were to relocate themselves into the garden at the earliest possible opportunity, preferably a long way from the house.

Calming down... nowhere near the house

Again, fair play, because the loud buzzing noise does seem like a rather angry loud buzzing noise.

So off to the newly christened BeesofSpike Apiary they go.

LandofSpike lashes the box to the hive stand with his Hive Securing Strap, just in case it decides to topple off sideways.

Best to be on the safe side...

Nicely strapped down

That done, LandofSpike left the bees to settle in their traveling box for a few hours, and having missed breakfast in all the excitement, took the opportunity to grab himself a cup of tea and a large, nutritious snack. 

LandofSpike was now alone with his bees.

He read his instructions so he could plan what to do next.

Then he read them again. 

And then he read them again.

Several further rereads later, he suited up and decided it was about time he opened the box.

He had no idea what to expect but his task eventually proved to be extremely simple.

Y'see, LandofSpike might have been a tad apprehensive, but those bees, well, they knew what to do.

The door's under that label

The Nuc was still strapped to the hive stand, with its currently sealed and hidden entrance positioned as close as possible to where the entrance of the hive proper would be situated.

On the front of the Nuc, the big sticker which said "open using flap below" told LandofSpike where the door was concealed. It was possible to feel the edges under the exterior packaging.

The packaging was removed and the small entrance was revealed.

There it is

LandofSpike looked at the door for a long time and then, with the point of a craft knife, he gently and carefully flicked it open...

And the bees came out.

LandofSpike stood and watched.

And out they come

Still coming out

They seemed pleased that their confinement was over and set about immediately checking out the area, flying around the Apiary and crawling all over their box.

They were busy but not angry in the slightest.

However closely they were watched by the bloke in the white spacesuit, however many close up photos of them he took, they totally ignored him, so keen were they to get on with their Beestuff.

Are we still in Wales?

After a short while LandofSpike noticed that something special was happening.

A group of bees were standing by the door, their heads down, their abdomens pointing upwards and they were beating their wings.

They were fanning the Queen's pheromones from the hive into the air to announce to the colony that this was now their new home.

Later on that day bees started returning with pollen on their legs and it was obvious that they were now also already happily foraging.

With a seemingly happy flight of bees now bedding in, LandofSpike decided to leave them to settle overnight. 

Tomorrow, it would be time to transfer them, on their 5 frames, into their new permanent home.

Their momentous move will be documented in the next exciting instalment of the BeesofSpike, coming soon to this very blog.

Deforestation and the Dawn of Empire

The area which marks the Western Boundary of Spike Acres has been a bit neglected of late. 

For example...

And...

So it was with some trepidation that LandofSpike and Beekeeper Junior Number 1 made their way through the undergrowth armed only with standard issue machetes, some homemade napalm, a compass and a fully stocked toolbox. 

Their mission?

To clear a space for the Land of Bees.

More wilderness

Actually, it wasn't too bad.

The vegetation put up only a token resistance and in no time at all sackfuls of the green stuff had been hacked away and a clear earth floor had appeared beneath their feet.

Predictably, removing all the ivy, dust and detritus of the ages from the nooks and crannies in the wall and fence revealed some critters so grisly that even the bug-loving BKJ1 had to think twice before approaching them. 

home to some pretty sizeable MiniBeasts

Several of Shelob's relatives seemed to have set up camp in the ivy and leaf litter under the Boundary Fence and they seemed none too pleased to be disturbed. A couple of the brutes even decided to attack each other. We let them get on with it.

BKJ1 also found a grub which was, frankly, enormous. It turned out to be a stag beetle larva. Sadly there's no photo of this colossus as LandofSpike was so flabbergasted by its immense bulk he forgot to photograph it.

One major consideration when setting up the Land of Bees was that the site needed to be as unobtrusive and as secluded as possible. 

A nicely concealed hive makes for a happier human community. It would also give the bees a calm area in which to get on with their work unimpeded, and isolated from the rest of Spike Acres.

So screening the area on all sides was going to be essential and, possibly, a bit pricey. 

Luckily, during the day's excavations, LandofSpike was able to unearth and salvage some willow screens left behind by the previous civilisation that had colonised the area in a bygone age. 
Largely unaffected by the passage of time, the screens were ready to be re-erected and restored to their former glory.

Evidence of an Earlier Civilisation

Perfectly preserved and re-usable relics

Meanwhile BKJ1 made a great job of converting a reclaimed pallet into a sturdy beekeeper platform. 

New slats were nailed into place and then the whole thing was given a liberal coating of weatherproofing paint.

BKJ1 contemplates his handiwork

The reclaimed willow screen was in great nick and with some judicial trimming and a bit of frame construction it has given the Land of Bees excellent protection on its western and northern borders.

Well, at least it looks less wild than it did 3 hours ago

So that's it for the time being...

Before the Beebox can be installed, the southern and eastern boundaries still need to be screened off, the ground needs to be leveled and the wooden bits still need some more weatherproofing. 

We also need a little weatherproof box to keep all the beekeepery kit in.

However, neat and tidy as it is, that bare earth does still look a bit unsatisfactory.

Fortunately, LandofSpike has spotted some big chunks of turf in a skip very close to Spike Towers.

It looks very much like that discarded grass needs to be liberated and given a new bee-friendly home.