The excavations for the pond are complete and it measures 6m x 3m. Now all we need is an outer liner - carpet, newspaper, carpet felt or a bespoke pond underlay and also an inner PVC or butyl liner to hold the water. I fancy that a nylon carpet would be longest lasting and probably easiest obtained of the free underlay options but the waterproof liner is going to cost! Working on a 9m x 6m "flexiliner" (£123) and underlay (£45) plus a few water plants I estimate that there won't be much change from £250. Butyl would cost £372 so that option would come to £500 or there abouts.
I've bought a few spring flowering bulbs for the Apiary garden - Snow drops, various daffs, Winter Aconites, Crocus, Anenome Blanda and the white Anenome. As of today my lodger Jimi and I have planted 300 daffodils. I know it's late but the supplier ensures me that they'll be OK, fingers crossed then.
My new year's resolutions on the Apiary - put tools and equipment back where they belong after use, keep really good records for each hive and have them readily available for any member's inspection and to manage Varroa as organically as possible using queen trapping etc.
I wish all my readers a happy new year and for those of you with Bees a successful season of beekeeping.
Barry
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Back home, pond building and a talk on our Nepal visit.
Colin and I returned home in early November and we've managed to keep busy since then. We found pools of water on the floor inside the pavilion. Job number one then repair the roof. This work revealed that the felt needs to be replaced over the whole roof and possibly the shed behind the pavilion may need to be done as well. Job number 2, weather-proof the pavilion and sheds for winter with a couple of coats of preservative.
Colin did both of these jobs and in the mean time I;ve been digging out the new pond . I'll post a few 'before and after' photos on this blog, but basically it's about 5m long and 3m wide and at its deepest approximately 90cm. There's also a boggy area which, to bee-keepers, is very desirable as long as there's plenty of damp moss for the bees to use as a source of water for colony maintenance. The problem has been disposing of the spoil so we'll have to construct a few tastefully positioned banks around site. We need to come up some ideas of how we can make the banks functional, wildlife friendly, beautiful, bee friendly or a combination of these. We also need to line the pond with layers of newspaper or perhaps carpet under-felt before the waterproof liner goes in. Any offers?
On Saturday Colin and I gave a talk about our recent visit to Nepal, all went well until I couldn't find the next Power point presentation on Colin's visit to Monacamana, (a famous religious site) and Chitwon (a national wildlife park), anyway, we decided to do a slide show using the original downloaded photos from his camera. Mistake! For every 10 snaps of empty blue sky or fuzzy snaps out of bus windows there was one decent, even good, shot of a rhino or an elephant. It took forever, what should have been an inspiring but brief insight became a little boring, although the audience was far to polite to say so. I blame digital cameras, in the old days when there was 32 potential photos on a roll. You had to be a bit choosy about when you pushed the button but now it's snap, snap, snap, loads of dross and a few half decent pictures! When I got home I searched the memory of my computer to see if I could locate the missing presentation and -yes you've guessed it I found it within 2 or 3 minutes tucked away in a "folder" entitled "Hive records 2004".
Barry
Colin did both of these jobs and in the mean time I;ve been digging out the new pond . I'll post a few 'before and after' photos on this blog, but basically it's about 5m long and 3m wide and at its deepest approximately 90cm. There's also a boggy area which, to bee-keepers, is very desirable as long as there's plenty of damp moss for the bees to use as a source of water for colony maintenance. The problem has been disposing of the spoil so we'll have to construct a few tastefully positioned banks around site. We need to come up some ideas of how we can make the banks functional, wildlife friendly, beautiful, bee friendly or a combination of these. We also need to line the pond with layers of newspaper or perhaps carpet under-felt before the waterproof liner goes in. Any offers?
On Saturday Colin and I gave a talk about our recent visit to Nepal, all went well until I couldn't find the next Power point presentation on Colin's visit to Monacamana, (a famous religious site) and Chitwon (a national wildlife park), anyway, we decided to do a slide show using the original downloaded photos from his camera. Mistake! For every 10 snaps of empty blue sky or fuzzy snaps out of bus windows there was one decent, even good, shot of a rhino or an elephant. It took forever, what should have been an inspiring but brief insight became a little boring, although the audience was far to polite to say so. I blame digital cameras, in the old days when there was 32 potential photos on a roll. You had to be a bit choosy about when you pushed the button but now it's snap, snap, snap, loads of dross and a few half decent pictures! When I got home I searched the memory of my computer to see if I could locate the missing presentation and -yes you've guessed it I found it within 2 or 3 minutes tucked away in a "folder" entitled "Hive records 2004".
Barry
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