Bees Working

A little while ago, I set up a feeding station for my bees, about 200 meters from the Smallholding. The recent mild weather has meant that the bees have been more active than normal, although the winds of the past few days has restricted their flying. Today was much more calm, and the bees took full advantage, taking in water, feeding on Mahonia, bringing in small quantities of Ivy pollen, and descending en masse onto the feeders. Here are some pictures of them, taken today. The insulating sleeve is sitting in the syrup to help prevent bees falling into the syrup and drowning.

As well as providing food for the bees, the syrup mix contains an essential oil mix, which I am using for varroa treatment, instead of conventional chemicals. I came across a couple of web articles describing their use, and noticed that Apiguard is just synthetic Thyme Oil, Api Life Var is a mixture of essential oils, and so is Vita Feed Green. All are much more expensive than using the essential oils themselves. There are links to these articles in one of my earlier posts, Hectic, Honey and Happy,  which you can find by following the link below.

LINK

The feeders are one gallon poultry water containers, and are hung up in a tree, a short distance form the Smallholding. If they were too close, it would probably lead to robbing of the weaker hives, as the returning foragers would not be able to give a bearing and distance to the new food source, only a message that it is close to the hive, leaving new foragers to investigate the immediate vicinity of the hive, including other hives.

In the pictures you can see that there are a few other insects taking advantage of the free food source. What the pictures do not convey is the noise, and level of activity. There were bees all around me as I moved in to get some close ups. It’s my 50th Birthday next month, and I’m hoping that a camera with a better zoom might be on it’s way, so that I can get better pictures. Watching the bees leaving the feeders, all of them were heading back towards my hives. There are two other beekeepers close by, but their bees don’t appear to have found the free food source.

Bees on Feeder2

More bees on Feeder

Yet more bees on Feeder

Take Care

Deano

Swales In Lincolnshire

Back in August I hosted a get together of friends that I made on my Permaculture Design Course. We have been meeting regularly, taking it in turns to host it, and using it as an opportunity to throw a lot of bodies into a task that would have taken the host ages to finish. Despite it always appearing as if most people are just chatting, it always amazes me how much we get done. After most of them had left on the Sunday, those of us remaining used a Bunyip (water level) to mark out three lines of bamboo poles on contour, so that I could construct some swales.

Swales are the opposite of drainage ditches, dug level, along the contour of a slope. Instead of taking water away quickly, the swales capture water, and allow it to percolate down into the soil, where it is available to plants. Reducing runoff and evaporation. One of the potential effects of climate change is an increase in rainfall during our Winter, with less during the Summer, with the Summer rain falling in larger downbursts. Here in Lincolnshire we have pretty dry Summers, and I wanted to make sure that the  trees that I’m planting will have enough water to sustain them, which will then help to sustain me.

I hired a mini digger for a weekend, and dug three swales, and have since transplanted some of the perennials from my vegetable beds onto them. This is OK, but after I dug them, I had another read of some of the books in my Permaculture library, and I should have propagated the plants for the swale bank before digging it. Oh well, nobody gets it right all of the time.

This is a picture of one of the swales. Because the bank is on the South side (downhill), and the sun angle is so low, there is shadow in the bottom. If you follow it along, you can see that the swale continues on the other side of the fence, and into the trees.

One of the swales

 

In the centre of one of the swales I dug a six foot deep hole, with the hope that it would become a pond. We are on a thick clay subsoil, so I was quite optimistic that it would work. One of my Permaculture mates, Leon,  did some dowsing, and one of the potential water sites was next to this swale so I dug down, and found no water. However, I did bust through an old clay field drain, which will feed water into the whole. (In fact it already has, and there is three foot of water in the ‘pond’ now).

 

I still have to plant up the swale banks, and will probably sow a mixture of annual/perennial bee plants on them, until I decide what to finish them with. I also have to add organic matter into the bottom of the swales, to encourage worms to create more holes, otherwise water will just sit on the clay, and become breeding grounds for mosquitos. I may also add some wood ash, or lime, which should speed up the process. Rather than wheel lots of stuff up into the field, I’m going to mow the grass uphill of the swale with my scythe, and drop the cut grass into the bottom. That way I do two jobs at the same time.

 

Another Swale

The second picture shows another swale, which has Welsh Onions, Chives, mallow, Poached Egg plants, and Wild Rocket planted on the bank.

Having completed the job, I was also struck by how easy it would be to deepen the swales into an aquaculture system. the long narrow shape of the ponds created would maximise the effect of edge, one of the principles of Permaculture. As most of the food for a system like this comes in from the land, the increased edge would make the thing more productive. Whilst I don’t eat meat, or fish, others do, and it would allow me to grow some edible aquatic plants too.

Increasing the water surface would also allow me to increase the Winter light levels for some plants, using reflected sunlight, perhaps with a backdrop of stone/rock, although that would mean hauling it up into the field. The downside of all of this water is that it will probably lead to an increase in dragonflies, and they eat bees:-( Still, maybe if I have enough fish, they will keep the dragonfly larvae under control. As I spend more time near the water, I think about more ways to expand the ‘waterscape’, hopefully to increase the sustainability of the Smallholding.

Here is a picture of my pond. To give you an idea of scale, the top of the chicken hutch in the background is about head height. The swale extends beyond the pond, but is not connected to it yet. I’m waiting to decide whether I need to bridge the swale there, leave it as it is, or join them up and walk around. The water level is continuing to rise. I added some shallow ditches leading forward and back from the pond, to increase the amount of edge, and shallow water, and these are starting to fill. There is a pond in the next field, and we used to get lots of frogs, and toads in the field, so I’m hoping that the numbers will increase, especially as I’m planning to move the chickens out in the Spring.

My small pond

 

 

 

 

Pond from the North

The second image of the pond is taken from the North (uphill) bank, and shows the shallow arms of the pond filling up with water. To the left (East) the other part of the swale runs into the pond. I’m guessing that in the Winter and Spring, this will provide a long stretch of shallow water linked to the pond.

If you want to see an amazing system of water capture, storage, and use, I can recommend the DVD ‘permakultur’ by Sepp Holzer. Although it is in German, with subtitles, it shows what can be done with a bit of forethought.

Take care

Deano

Back to the Keyboard at The Sustainable Smallholding

I have been shamed into posting again by Poppy, whose blog can be reached through the link below.

http://alifelesssimple.wordpress.com/

She quoted this blog as one of her favourites. I love the title of her blog, because the majority of people who look at what I do here think that I’m leading a simple life, whereas the opposite is true. The more that I learn about the way that things interact with each other, the more complicated life is revealed to be. As I make decisions now, I have to really think them through thoroughly, in order to assess the impact that different options will have. In reality, the daily routine of the majority of the people in the developed world is the simple life.

I have been planting trees this week, but have been ‘rained off’ this morning. I think that it’s deliberate. I’ve been working hard recently, and could do with a break, and I need to catch up on the blog too, so when I saw how windy it was outside, I was tempted to get on with this. In the end I decided to do some more digging, but as soon as my morning chores were over, and I went up into the field, it started to pour down. I have articles planned on my SWALES, new bamboo nursery, tree planting routine, Permaculture Design, and a DVD review. The Swale article is almost ready, and I’ll put it out tonight, but I’ve just noticed that the rain has stopped, so I’m going to give it one more try.

Take Care

Deano

Permaculture Courses

Well the last few weeks have been focussed on preparing for running an Introduction to Permaculture Course, which along with another Lincolnshire based Permacuture designer, I ran at the weekend.

The Introduction to Permaculture Course followed a taster session, which Nick Vowles and I ran in August. That session was for the Lincolnshire Organic Gardeners’ Organisation.

LOGO WEBSITE

This meeting, held in August, was also attended by members of the Lincolnshire Smallholding and Self-Sufficiency Club

LSSSC WEBSITE

and by members of Transition Horncastle, Louth and Lincoln. Here is a picture of the audience during the first session, Permaculture Ethics, taken by Nick

Audience at Permaculture afternoon

Nick and I were asked to teach the Introduction Course, which was held last weekend at the Riseholme Campus of the University of Lincoln. Twenty people came for the weekend, and judging from the feedback it went pretty well. As this was our first course, there were things that we can tweak to improve things, but the feedback was pretty good.

Here is a picture of us at the end of the weekend, taken outside the fantastic building that we were given to teach in.

Students on Introduction to Permaculture Course

I have to say that it was a fantastic place to teach, and I hope to get the chance to repeat it.

Preparing to teach something also helped me to broaden my understanding of Permaculture, which has already fed into my own plans to re-design my own smallholding. So I’m pausing with my current plans and taking a few more weeks to think about it.

If any of you would like to check out Nick’s blog, you can use the link below.

Nick’s Blog

Now I need to find some good, cheap/free Landscape Design software, to use in my future projects.

Take Care

Deano

Sustainable Transport

Well, I’ve finally got rid of my van. I figured that whilst there were many good reasons to keep it, the reasons for letting it go were more compelling.

Most of my traveling is fairly local, and we have a decent bus service, roughly one an hour. So many of my journeys could be done using public transport. I have a bicycle, but it’s pretty hilly here, and I’m not as fit as I used to be. Nevertheless, I gave my van away to the Doris Banham Charity, who rescue dogs. They have a shop in Horncastle, and I was moved by the work that they do.

Their website is here

Website

The home page shows my van, which has been sign written.

The site shows a number of dogs looking for homes, and as our greyhounds pass on, I’m tempted to rehome a Staffie. I’m not sure that my wife will approve, but that’s something to look at later.

I’m Fifty later this year, so my mother, when she discovered that I was giving my van away, offered to buy me an electric bicycle for my birthday. I accepted, and here it is.

The battery is where the water bottle would be. So far I’ve been reasonably pleased with it. The motor needs some pedaling assistance whilst climbing the steepest hills, but it’s easier than pedal power alone. I’ve been using it quite regularly. It’s very cheap to operate. I charge it at night, when we get a cheaper tariff, and we use 100% renewable electricity, from Good Energy. My rough calculation reckons that I’m saving £50 per month, without taking into account what I would have spent on diesel. As I get a bit fitter, I may start to use my normal bike more frequently. My wife has just bought a normal bicycle, so I’m probably going to have to keep her company on some riding from now on.

Where will I find the time?

All of the best

Deano

Sustainability in Human Terms

Well it’s been two months since my last post, and there have been quite a few days when I have taken pictures for an article, but not actually written one. There have been lots of individual reasons for that, but the simple answer is that I have been too busy, and the reason for that is that I have been trying to do too much, and that isn’t sustainable.

A little background information might be useful here. Up until five years ago, we were breeding and racing greyhounds here, so the smallholding was designed in a way that suited that purpose. It was a good system, logical, and well thought out, but it used up all of our cash to do so. About six years ago I had started to grow vegetables again. I had wanted a smallholding for a long time, but was sort of side tracked by the dogs. Once I started to grow stuff again, I knew that the racing wasn’t for me, so we re-homed most of the younger dogs, and kept about nine, mainly the older ones. Being short of cash, and having unused fenced enclosures, we utilised these existing structures for growing stuff. That wasn’t a problem for some time, but as I added to the stuff that I did, the amount of work needed to run it went up too.

This year I guess that I reached the point where I realised that something had to change. There were a number of things that contributed to that. Firstly, I increased my involvement in outside stuff. I became chairman of the Lincolnshire Beekeepers, and a member of the steering group for Transition Horncastle. I was also fortunate to get some work helping to keep bees. This was great, but took up another six or seven hours a week of my time. On top of that I was mentoring some new beekeepers, ran some scything courses, and growing a lot more experimental plants, principally in pots/modules, all of which needed watering etc. Typing up stuff for my blogs added to the workload.

I had a plan of what I wanted to achieve here, but it became increasingly obvious that I didn’t have any extra time to implement changes. In light of that, I asked some friends of mine to come up with some ideas to help me out. So the weekend before last,seven friends who did the same Permaculture Design course as me, brought their families here, camped, did some work, and contributed some ideas.

Many of the suggestions that they made were things that I was already considering, but one or two new ideas did come out, mainly whilst chatting during work. I’ve had time to think about all that they have said, and the stuff that I had already concluded for myself, and have decided on some of the steps that I’m going to take.

Firstly, I need to take some immediate action to reduce the number of hours spent on cyclical tasks (weeding, watering etc.). These steps could be permanent, or temporary. The aim is to give me some time free, which I can then use to implement longer term changes to reduce the workload. One of the ways that I can do this is to mulch the paths between the raised beds. These paths occupy nearly a third of the growing space, but due to compaction, are harder to weed. A small amount of one off work, should yield a long term reduction in labour, perhaps by as much as half, which is a saving of about six to eight hours a week. Initially I was going to use a permanent mulch (geotextile), and probably still will, but I’m not going to cut it up too much as I’m not sure how much of the growing area to retain, so would like to be able to use it elsewhere later.

This leads me to the second area to look at. I have nearly 1500 sq metres of growing area. Nearly a third of an acre, but there’s only two of us to feed, and much of what I grow is either given away or wasted. This needs to be reduced, as it is all managed alone, by hand, with no machinery or chemicals. I don’t want to just let it go back to wilderness, and I have some ideas for ways to use it that will be more efficient, using Permaculture principles, but I need to find some time, and finish the designs, before that can go ahead. In the meanwhile, I’m going to cover any space not used for growing, to cut down on the weeding. It was always my intention to grow using mulch for weed suppression, but the sheer volume of growing area made the finding, and moving of so much organic matter seem difficult. I’m going to solve that by growing more trees and shrubs close by, and using them to provide mulch material. Increasing the proportion of perennial plants will reduce the amount of sowing/watering needed, and using white clover as a living mulch should help to reduce weeding. I also need to look carefully at whether the benefits of scything three acres of grass, justify the time that it takes to do so, and to clear the grass, when I no longer have animals.

Further efficiencies could be made by creating a new protected area for plants in pots/modules, big enough to allow me to keep all of the stuff that I’m growing together, and near to roof spaces that could be used to harvest water. In the Summer, watering was taking me two hours, but nearly half of this time was spent walking between the water butts, and the plants. I’m using some of my time to help create this new area, and expect to have it up and running by the end of the year.

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of this  for me, is that it has reminded me that it is worth spending time, energy, and money  getting the placement of things right, even when I’m busy, as the long term saving of energy, is far greater than the energy expended getting it right.

On that note, I  think it’s time to finish.

Take Care

Deano

Scything, Wheat, and Bees (again)

Well it’s been another busy fortnight, with the emphasis on Scything, but with some good news on both my bees, and Wheat.

The main focus has been Scything. I have helped some friends, taught and competed at the West Country Scything Festival, conducted a workshop in Kent, and run one of my scheduled courses here in Lincolnshire. I’ve just put details about the Scything on my other blog, and if you want to read more about it, please visit The Grinning Reaper

for more details.

The bees seem to be happy to help me out. I was called to a swarm just over two weeks ago, and managed to get a helper to take some pictures. here’s the sequence.

An Easy Swarm

Probably the easiest swarm ever.

Spread a sheet

The swarm is cut away from the tree, and lowered into a box.

Cut and Lower

The box is inverted, and a gap left for any stragglers to make their way in, before tying up the sheet.

Invert Box

The swarm is shaken out onto a sheet, placed on a ramp, leading into the hive entrance. the sheet helps prevent the queen getting under the ramp, and just hanging there.

Shake onto Ramp

Once the first bees go in, and decide that it’s a good home, they come to the entrance, and fan pheromones to call the rest of the swarm inside. Here the move in has just started.

The March begins

We tried to get a picture of the queen, but I’m not sure that we got her, and the clarity is poor.

Bees marching

Most of the bees are inside now

Almost in

I had promised a friend a swarm, but wasn’t sure whether to keep this one, or take it to him. My generous nature won out, and so these bees ended up with him. It seems that there is some sort of balance to doing good deeds, because a couple of days later this happenned.

Arriving

An effortless swarm

Going

Swarm Entering Hive

Gone

So much easier than collecting them, isn’t it. If you get the bait hives right, the bees will come to you, providing that you are the right distance from an existing colony. To put an even bigger grin on my face, I had another take up residence today. It was a smaller swarm, possibly an unmated queen, but I’m not complaining. Tomorrow I’ve got to put together some more hives just in case there are more to come.

Finally a quick word about the wheat. I counted the ears on one of my plants today, and there were 72. What an amazing result. I don’t know how much will escape the birds, but it certainly proves that the Bon Fils method works.

Take Care

Deano

Bees almost all in

Scything, Wheat, Bees, and Time

Again it has been a while since my last post. The things keeping me busy are Bees, Scything, and Planting out, and all are linked.

One of the things that has occupied me of late is Scything. I ran the first course here on the 23rd May, am teaching at the Scything festival next weekend 13/14 June, running a workshop in Kent on the 18th, and another course here on the 20th. In addition to that, I have my own grass to mow. You can read a little more on my Scything Blog, the Grinning Reaper

Beekeeping has also been keeping me busy. I introduced four new queens last week, and so far all are OK. I still have to locate a queen, who somehow managed to get above the queen excluder. I found no evidence of eggs/larvae in the brood chamber, assumed the worst, and ordered another queen, which arrives tomorrow. Today I found larvae and queen cells in the supers, and will have to hunt through three boxes to find the queen, before splitting the hive, and introducing another queen. I have also been helping other people with their bees, and have to get everything fitted in so that all of the swarming checks, fit around my scything schedule.

In the Vegetable Garden I have been planting out as much as I can. Most things are growing well, although something is eating my lentils, and clover. The wheat experiment is going well, with most plants having between Twenty and Thirty Tillers, each of which should develop into an ear of Wheat. here is a picture of one of the beds. Sadly I didn’t include anything to give you an idea of the height of the plants, which have reached about three feet. One or two of the plants have blown over in strong winds, but most are growing really strongly. I will sprout and grow the next batch after the Summer Solstice, and plant them out later in the year, perhaps after lifting main crop potatoes. The lentils are growing well in the gaps between the wheat, and I think that peas would also grow well there. I’ve started the tedious job of potting on nearly two hundred Eucalyptus seedlings, some of which will be planted out in the Autumn, depending on how big they get. The smaller ones will wait until next year. I have the same to do with Mimosa and Passion Flowers. All for the bees. My work would be much less if I didn’t have bees.

Until next time

Deano

Small Scale Wheat growing

Hectic, Honey, and Happy

Things have been hectic again, and I cannot believe that it’s been so long since my last post. The aspect of my smallholding life that has been keeping me so busy has been beekeeping. This is a hectic time of the year as far as the bees are concerned, but the changeable weather, and a breakdown in communications, has made it even busier.

Firstly the good news. I extracted my first batch of honey for this year. 37lbs from one hive, which came from two supers. That is all of the honey that we will use in the next twelve months, put into jars in mid May. There is still a full super on, plus a spare brood body, which is being filled as well. The brood body is to give me frames of food to give to new hives, when I make increase. That should have been last week. I ordered four new queens, from an importer who has always been good in the past, with instructions to let me know if there was going to be a delay. No message came, so I created three new hives, and removed an old failing queen from another, ready to introduce the new queens the following day. They didn’t turn up, and will not get here before the end of this week, nine days late, at least. I have had to buy a product called Bee Boost, which is an artificial pheremone, designed to replace one given out by the queen. I’m hoping that this will keep the queenless hives working, and believing that there is a queen present, until the new queens cam be introduced. I’ve not tried it before, and it’s not what I would have chosen to do, but I don’t want to lose them. The bees for the three hives all came from one huge colony. Each hive has six frames of bees, including stores, but not much sealed brood. The colony was preparing to swarm, and I think that they had stopped the queen from laying, and were trimming her down to fly. The parent colony is still very strong, and I will need to monitor them, to see if the removal of so many bees has deterred them from swarming, and that the queen is laying again.

I have also been helping a local business with their bees. We have carried out a shook swarm on one colony, and moved it to a new location, and I have to do the second hive tomorrow. Weather permitting. The work is helping out my finances, and it’s nice to work with bees in a situation where cost is not a concern. I’m hoping that this will develop into something really special. The bees are being moved temporarily, so that a better apiary can be constructed. The bees will go back onto a 500 acre Biodynamic farm, and we may be able to adjust their planting regime, in order to provide additional forage. They already grow acres of good stuff, and the farm is just over the road from my own bees:-)  I’ll keep you posted.

I have used essential oils in my feed, hoping that it would help with my varroa regime. I came across this article recently, which you might find interesting.                                                                               varroa article

It’s dated 1996, so I’m not sure how up to date it is, but if you look at some of the treatments offerred these days, they are just essential oils, either natural, or synthetic. the same goes for some of the feed supplements.

Here are some more useful links. Varroa Control

Essential Oil again

I hope that you find them useful. I got the most from them by reading them, and then following all of the links, and reading those too. It helps with doses, methods, etc.

As I’m not looking to sell honey, but would prefer to raise more bees, I’m toying with the idea of only having two colonies at a time producing honey, and keeping the remainder for bee breeding. This would allow me to keep feeding with essential oils, without worrying about them getting into the honey. Having said that, I would rather have them in my honey, than some of the other chemicals. This regime would allow me to create strong colonies for splitting, with plenty of stores. The stores would contain the oils, which would then be used to raise young bees. The benefits of that are apparent from the first link. Less varroa, more bees, clean bees.

I’ve been making new hives, nucleus hives, a swarm box, and a couple of bait hives. I have liaised with a local pest control company, and arranged to collect their swarms, and put leaflets through doors in my village, to let people know that they can contact me for swarm collection. I suspect that when this windy, wet weather breaks, swarming will start in earnest, and I might run out of hives. I should be so lucky.

There are some things to update you with, that are not bee related, but I’ll save that for later this week.

Take Care

Deano

Soil Microbe Article

I have written a post about soil microbes on the BugBrewer blog, which some of you might find interesting. If you would like to read it just follow this link       BugBrewer

I hope that you find it interesting.

Deano