Chooks away! The chickens have landed!

My big new venture for 2013 has begun. The chickens have arrived!

To be precise, the eight little ladies arrived on Sunday, February 3. Thanks to a major amount of hefting from Sue’s friend Tony, plus his 10-foot trailer (which he converted from a caravan base), we were able to move the chickens, their 4ft x 4ft coop and a 8ft x 4ft run from Broughty Ferry to my garden in just over an hour.

The cost was £200. All the equipment and the birds were only a year old, and the cost of the coop alone was £200, so it seems a pretty good deal.

As I said, there are eight birds — two each from four breeds. They are: snowflake (which I can’t find any info on), copper blacks, rangers and black tails. My understanding (so far) is that I should get between 200 to 250 eggs a year from each hen. That’s a potential total of 2000 eggs, or, to put it another way, 5.47954 eggs a day (let’s call it six). Quite a lot. I might try selling a dozen or so a week which should cover the cost of food, but my primary aim is to feed to family and possibly supplement the dog’s food too.

In a neat sort of cyclic thing, I should be able to use the chicken’s muck as manure for the allotment, and any excess greens etc that I grow can go back to feed the birds. Perfect.

The next step is to get their home location sorted as soon as. At the mo, they’re just stuck in corner of the garden, but the plan is get them permanently situated near the greenhouse. The hens should get enough light there, but the location also means the run won’t be too obtrusive.

That’ll be the task for this weekend (weather permitting).

Down to one hive

Dead bees littering the floor of the nuc

Paid my first visit of the year to the apiary just to see how things were ticking over.   As expected, the nuc hive  (which consisted of three frames of bees) didn’t make it through the winter. The colony was completely dead.

I wasn’t too upset as I knew its chances of survival were very slim. That leaves me with just one colony. Thankfully, it is looking pretty strong. Five frames of bees all snuggled together.

It might still come a cropper as the time when most colonies starve is just at the start of spring when the weather gets warmer, the bees start to fly, but there is nothing to forage. I will have to remain vigilant, and make sure there is food for them.

In other news, I’m hoping to get chickens next week! A new venture for the new year. I’m blowing nearly all my Christmas cash on buying a second-hand coop and run along with eight one-year-old chooks. They will go in the garden, not the allotment, but exactly where has yet to be decided.

I’m majorly excited about this new aspect of my foodie experiment, and have already devoured a couple of copies of the magazine Practical Poultry. Potentially, I could be getting eight eggs a day. Quite a lot, but I’m sure they’ll get used somehow.

Only seven more sleeps to go!

First sign of life!

Squint at the photo above and you’ll see something which has lifted my spirits no end. Sprouting out of the compost are sweet pea shoots – the first signs of growth for 2013. This means we are coming out the other side of winter, and that a full-time return to the allotment, bees and greenhouse is not far away.

OK, I know what you’re thinking: sweet peas aren’t a veg, but these shoots will eventually be heading down to the allotment once they are bigger (and it is warmer). Last year I tried growing cut flowers for Sue, but they were disappointing. If memory serves, I got one small bunch. This year, I’m going to try sweet peas.  I found a packet stuck to the front of a magazine, and planted them in November. Since then they have been sitting largely ignored (until now!) in the greenhouse.

The sight of some growth got me heading down to the allotment today for the first time in a month  to see how things were getting on. I have been experimenting with growing winter crops for the first time, and most (though not all) seem to be progressing well.

The bed in which onions had been growing in the summer was the first to be cleared last year, so I thought I’d keep the ball rolling and use that space to plant some crops which will be ready to harvest in the spring. I started by planting  winter cabbage, pak choi and lamb’s lettuce seeds straight into half a bed. That quickly turned out to be a failure. As is just about always the case when I sow seeds direct, the weeds took over before the veg itself could grow, and the whole thing was just swamped within weeks.

Much more successful (so far) are the winter onions and garlic. Throwing caution to the wind regarding crop rotation, I planted three types of winter onions in the other half of the onion bed – White, Electric Red and Shenshu, and (in the bed formerly occupied by the courgettes) I planted two types of garlic (Lautrec Wight and Solent Wight). All seem to be doing well, and their delicate green shoots are popping out the ground. If all goes well, the onions and garlic should be ready by May.

Elsewhere, the biggest change has been the digging of a new rhubarb patch. This is located in the last part of the allotment which was uncultivated, and had previously been used to dump weeds and compost. It is just about big enough for six crowns — two each of Victoria, Stockbridge Arrow and Champagne. Of course, this is a long-term investment, and it’ll be 2014 before I’ll be able to harvest any.

The fruit cage has also had a makeover. I’ve ripped out 12 strawberry plants (I hardly got a crop this year), and put in six raspberry canes (Glen Moy). Again it will be two years before I get a harvest.

Next on the agenda is to finish turning over and feeding the soil. However, as it is snowing outside, I’ll need to wait for some better weather. Hopefully, it’ll not be too long….

My beekeeping year 2012

The bees at Glenesk

On January 7 I gave a short talk at the Members’ Night of the East Of Scotland Beekeepers’ Association, covering the major highs and lows of 2012. Here it is in full:

The first notable event of 2012 began on May 20. I had two hives and had already noticed that one was bringing in a serious amount of honey, expanding rapidly, and producing queen cells.

It was time to create an artificial swarm  –  my first. I found the queen on the first attempt and popped a queen cage on her and prepared to move her to her new hive.

It was all going well until the cage dropped off, and, to make matters worse, the queen then flew away. That was Crisis No. 1.

Where did she go? Chances are she went back to her hive, but by this time the bees were so disturbed, I had no chance of seeing her, so I shut the hive up.

That was on a Sunday. On the Monday, I returned to see if I could find her. No sign, despite going through the hive twice. I was preparing to go home when I turned round and saw something that rooted me to the spot. There was a huge swarm in a nearby tree. It must’ve been at least three-foot long.

Crisis No. 2. What do I do? I’d never caught a swarm before and didn’t have the right equipment. So, I phoned my mentor. Luckily he was available to help.

Within an hour, we had cut it down, and stuck it in a spare brood box.

My mentor reckoned it was a belter of a swarm which would work like crazy to bring in honey. Furthermore, it would produce astonishing clean and perfect comb.

This was going to be great, I thought. Three hives all going like crazy, bringing me honey. I might even have some to sell.

The following day at work, I got a very confused message from my son. Someone had a swarm in their chimney, and they thought it was mine. Crisis No. 3.  I couldn’t understand it. I knew one of my colonies had already swarmed, and the other wasn’t ready to. Perhaps they weren’t my bees.

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Late as usual! I’m finally getting around to posting a video I shot over a month ago.

It was taken just as the tomatoes were ripening, and  as I write this the crop is all but over, and  I’m starting to tidy the greenhouse up for winter.

There are a few straggly tomatoes left on the vines, but most are green and/or rotting. However, at the peak of the tomato glut I did try drying about 30 or 40 tomatoes in the oven, and then storing them in olive oil.

A great hit! Absolutely lovely, and once again it puts the shop-bought rubbish to shame.

 

Tired of being tired

Each year since I started running an allotment, there comes a point where I’ve been tired for such a long number of weeks that I actually get tired of being tired. I am there now.

As you read this, I am completely shattered as I’ve been on the go with hardly a break for the past three weeks. Virtually every daylight hour has been spent either working on the allotment, looking after the bees or walking the dog. Throw into the mix a heck of a lot of cooking and harvesting, plus several evenings spent jarring-up honey, and it seems like I can go longer remember what it’s like to be not-tired. It reminds me of when my children were very young.

Of course, I shouldn’t grumble, because it is all of my own making, but I think it should be highlighted that having an allotment can be very physically demanding. If any of you think it is a sedate pastime for the elderly, then you’re very, very wrong.

On the plus side, the point at which I get completely knacked is moving later and later into the year, so I guess I’m getting physically fitter. My first allotment was the most tiring, but it was also the smallest. I could barely dig for ten minutes without getting backache. Now I can manage two hours.

The other thing to know, is that each year I’ve been taking on more and more. This year, for the first time, I found myself in the happy position of having a glut. Fantastic! It’s what we all want. But the physical act of harvesting, storing, cleaning, cooking, preserving and freezing it, has meant that I have been as busy in the early autumn as I was in the spring. I have also sold my first honey at the Dundee Flower Show — a major milestone.

So, overall, there’s much to be happy about. But I can tell you part of me is really looking forward to the winter slow-down.

My very first professionally produced jar of honey

Spent the entire evening jarring up honey, and I’m absolutely shattered so I’ll keep it brief.

Here it is, my first jar of honey suitable for sale to the public. I’ll keep this particular one for posterity, of course, but the rest (20-plus jars) will go on display this weekend at the Dundee Flower and Food Festival, and hopefully I’ll sell a few.

Video Update No. 1

The start of the onion harvest. Eventually there will be enough for months and months — if they don’t rot first

Time for another overlong video about my allotment (It’s my blog, so I’ll do as I please).  Last year I posted a clip showing it at its peak, and by way of comparison, I decided to repeat the process again.

This year’s was shot just before I started to harvest some of the crops, and as I write this bare patches of earth are starting to appear again as I start digging up potatoes and onions. Soon the growing season will be over — but I have plans for the winter. More details to follow in due course.

In the meantime, sit back, relax and try not to fall asleep …

The Death Of A Hive

Today I visited my apiary and was shocked by the sight of one of my hives (no. 2) in its death throes.

The bees had starved.

When I tipped the hive up, a heap of bees came rolling out. Tens of thousands of them. In amongst the pile were some bees which were still alive, but barely able to move, they were so hungry.

And the situation was completely my fault. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been so concerned with problems surrounding the extraction of my honey, followed by a European Foulbrood scare (I have been given the all-clear) that I forgot to check if bees had enough food.

The period from June to August is known as the “hungry gap” because there aren’t many plants in flower, so you must check to see if your bees need fed. 

I didn’t, and I feel truly awful about it. That hive was actually the one with the best-natured bees, and the only one where I saw the queen every time I looked in. It was also the hive with which I carried out my first artificial swarm. I’m sad to see it go.

 

 

The swarm chaser

The first swarm. A terrifying thing of beauty

It was only nine days ago that the weather was so rubbish I thought it was going to be a disastrous year for bees. Since then, the heat has rocketed, my bees are going like stink, and I have had four major crises in eight days. I’m knackered.

It all began on Sunday, May 20. I had already noticed that one hive was bringing in a serious amount of honey, expanding rapidly, and producing queen cells.

It was time to create an artificial swarm.

When a colony expands quickly in the spring, it soon outgrows the  hive, and so decides to swarm. It initiates the process by created new queens, and it is at the point before they hatch that a beekeeper has to act. By creating an artificial warm, a beekeeper will get rid of the colony’s urge to move home. Plus he gets an extra colony into the bargain.

The first thing I had to do was find the queen. It’s not something I’m great at, but I saw her first time. Brilliant.

I popped a queen cage on her and prepared to move her to her new hive. The rest of the flying bees would follow.

It was all going well until the cage dropped off, and, to make matters worse, the queen then flew away. That was Crisis No. 1.

Where did she go? Chances are she went back to her hive, but by this time the bees were so disturbed, I had no chance of seeing her, so I shut the hive up.

That was on the Sunday. On the Monday, I returned to see if I could find her. No sign, despite going through the hive twice. I was preparing to go home when I turned round and saw something that rooted me to the spot. There was a huge swarm in a nearby tree. It must’ve been a least three-foot long.

Crisis No. 2. What do I do? I’d never caught a swarm before and didn’t have the right equipment. So, I phoned my mentor. Luckily he was available to help.