"next season I'm going to be right on top of swarm control, I'll manage the Apiary so that the site infrastructure/equipment is all in good nick, no leaking roofs, boxes and frames ready when they're needed etc., I'll manage the Apiary so that local wild-life finds it an ideal home, the bees find shelter and forage especially early and late in the season, visitors find the setting beautiful because it looks good, smells good, and hums with life and also so that visiting Beekeepers don't feel it incumbent upon them to offer 'constructive' criticism".
Most of the time I was way behind with making up frames and boxes and repairing equipment. The pavilion roof leaked like a sieve. A hosepipe ban was promised before the pond was excavated let alone lined and filled. Some would say my swarm control at this time left a little to be desired. About seven swarms, left home along with more than a few casts (see my post dated May 30th.). At that time we had eleven colonies on site, I could work out the percentage losses, but my maths isn't what it was, so to avoid error.....
On the plus side Colin and I managed to recover most of the swarms issuing from our own hives and were also called on to recover and re-home numerous swarms from as far afield as Gravesend and Erith. Most Beekeepers who have the opportunity to collect a swarm enjoy the challenge. Some of ours called for a little ingenuity.The one hanging from a bough only a little thicker than your thumb where we found it necessary to support our ladder with two ropes separately tied from slender branch to slender branch deviating a few degrees each time and eventually lashed to a trunk. Then there was the St John the Baptist church in Erith, the entrance to the nest right in the apex of the roof thirty five feet up and above the ceiling in a space where no one had set foot for many a year and pleasingly, for reasons that escape me, they were probably workmen like Colin and I. We also found it gratifying to supply bees, (swarms or feral colonies) to schools and novice Beekeepers almost always through the good offices of our Chairman Bill Mundy. Throughout the season Colin and I managed to raise a 'handful' of Queens, from the many Queen cells appearing in our hives, in the same way these found homes with members of Dartford Beekeepers group and others who had Queenless colonies. Later in the season after Bill Mundy had eased a little cash out of the Council's coffers in the form of a grant, Colin single-handedly re-configured and re-covered the shed and Pavilion roofs. I finished the excavation of the pond just before the hose pipe ban and because there was no cash for a pond liner installed a thick plastic 'damp course' in it's place. The pond was filled on the night before the ban on the use of hose pipes came into force.
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| The Bole wall under construction |
This year we entered the Kent Wildlife Garden competition and won a gold award. The judges were also so impressed by the whole Tredegar Allotment site that they awarded us a plaque for "the best Community Garden in Kent". At the award ceremony in Sevenoaks Richard and Julie, who run the Tredegar wildlife plots, gave a brilliant talk on how wildlife has been central to the development of the Tredegar site and how others could emulate our success.
This year we celebrated 100 years of Beekeeping in Dartford. The Lord Mayor and her deputy and the leader of Dartford council attended a special Apiary open day along with a good number of local residents.
Our honey harvest was pretty poor but Bill Mundy reckons we could make about £400 on sales of the same.
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| The hornet is carving a chunk of fresh goat meat for her young here |
Attention all Beekeepers! The Asian Hornet is expected to take up residence in the UK in the near future, no doubt arriving in the South East first. We've made up a few traps for the Bedonwell Apiary and if all beekeepers do the same numbers may be kept to a minimum.
Barry
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| These photos of the Asian hornet were taken in Nepal |
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| The goat has been butchered for only about 5 minutes |
