Been a muddled and odd couple of past months,---was just about to start grumbling and whining about the past couple of weeks ---but i have just watched the greening of the desert youtube clips ,and just listening to how Alba kept her head up and stayed true to course , her achievement is humbling---sometimes the silly little shitty patches that we sometimes go through ---in my cozy western european life just pale away---and can hardly be compared---gave me so much to be gratefull for. Well now on my 3rd new ---old --pc and have temporly lost the technology to load up pics ---until i have a donated i4 phone sorted , but managed to keep planting out seedlings and dealing with a few rats and voles eating my germinating seeds and saplings , in each stack of 2 tires i have about 8 milk carton seed pots ,a piece of bird mesh on top held down by a couple of cut out tire sidewalls---this stops the little birds eating the organic slug pellets and getting into the rat traps i have spaced around in some of them. Also in heavy downpours i was able to lay a sheet of clear plastic over the mesh and under the sidewalls to hold it down ---this stopped some of the over watering and kept temps up a bit as well at the time.Got some burr oak , black hybrid walnut , pecan , buart hybrid walnuts ,coming up and lots of hazel ,chestnut, ginko and sweet oaks germinating---waiting for lots more varieties to start showing
no luck with any bees yet , i have just placed some liquid attractant sprayed onto cotton wool--friend had some spare ---inside the hive ---but he had no spare bees to offer---its becoming a worry as although people are keeping bees about 2 miles from me there are none yet to be spotted around my place and a few keepers i have met are all reporting a scarcity in swarms and falling numbers of hives. But this is not just a climate change or farming practices or pesticides at play , its also fewer people living in rural areas who practice rural traditions and around our area just a slow decline in people willing to live in it. My piggy bank is currently mothballed ,so i cant purchase a nuc of black bees either, and we are now in june so swarms will be less likely as well
oh, that is disappointing. I was looking forward to hearing how great it was going. Did your friend say what was on the cotton wool? Its probably something like Lemon grass oil. I wish our native bees were the sort i coud put in a box and look after but they arent and all I can do is try to plant out as many native species as I can to try to give them something to forage on. In some ways, a slow decline in people can bring about a more diverse eco system due to lack of interference. My piggybank has a lock on it at the moment too.
Touchdown-----just arrived a few hours ago at home ---back from a weeks holiday break in sunny algarve,-----and our weather here at home was glorious ----which must have set off some bee swarming ---went to checkout a low buzzing noise---and theres bees in the hive ---large dark coloured ones---with plenty of activity --- one coming in and one leaving on a continual rota---so nearly a year later almost to the date ---bees have moved in.
hello, its been grand weather here for the past 5 weeks , for us at least ,anything over 12 degrees C and only the odd rainfall ---is a summer by our terms , of course its been even better than that over a few days , and lots of bee activity ---i cant get a good close up picture of them ---the hive is 14 feet or so above in the tree---been able to set up a spotter scope some distance away so i could focus in , onto the top entrance hole ---and identify the bees as very dark , furry and with very faint yellow bands---but with out a positive dna test to absolutly state these are 95 to 100 percent irish black bees ---i am going to say they are dark bees living on my place in ireland . Seems quite a few keepers in the early 20th century bought in dark european hives ,and combined with later italian imports and buckfasts ---we would now have feral hives with mixed dna---fortunately our weather has been selectively breeding only those that can adapt to it for us .Went round to a local keeper ---2 kms away --and had a look at his bees ---all are honey bee types---lots more yellow banding --although he has lost a few hives to swarming away --mostly they move into several vacant hives he keeps nearby---he has a strict feeding regime of sugar syrup to get the queen laying and brood build up---of course he valiantly offered to remove my swarm ---followed up by they must be some of his that recently swarmed and left---oh how we laughed at these two statements---although i think he might have been a bit serious.A plus side was he has planted up some manuka and has brought on enough of it to establish a hedge , with more cuttings and seedlings coming along---onto the bee lure i used ---i have no idea what it was ---it was a pale blue fluid --which i dropped onto cotton wool ---but that was done a month or more before the swarm moved in . On the use on lemon grass oil as a lure ---its more hit and miss from what i have read ---repels some bees and attracts others only temporary---on the same hive swarm ----many keepers dont use any swarm lure at all---so i am starting to doubt its effectiveness.---
heres one i have never gotten as far with before, its a jarrah, been able to germinate them but they usually conk out after about 6 leaves are up, its up on a mound/ditch so free draining soil, and still growing
and swarming happening---on a warm and mild day -the previous---last years -- hive of bees has been relocated --into a more conventional borrowed hive---as my plan was to trim the tree branches around this one and build a platform for better access and try to modify the top and bottom lid/plug for easier hive work. But the project got delayed as my telehandler ---which is required to lift and place the hive onto the ground, blew a hydraulic hose ---so the hive stayed up in the tree-----and this lot showed up around 3 o clock in the day . my kids and i were able to stand at the tree base and watch them come in waves all around us and in the trees . Intense buzz---- sound and experience ---bees landing on hands and in hair but no stings ---and all of it repeated again the next day at around the same time ---2nd wave came in ---we could hear them approaching and ran out to greet them---possibly the old bee smell and wax remains in the hive were the perfect bait for scouts
well , no excuses ,had to reset a few things ,between a faulty memory bank and laziness, its been awhile , some pics of drones,they have been coming out and practice flights the past few weeks in their hundreds ,these poor boys are done for ,all their energy spent and time up ,they cant fly anymore ,that they made it back intact means they were unlucky in love as well, hive is very busy and can be heard as they murmer and hum away, some mor pics later of them feeding on a damp mud spot
bees in the mud puddle, they had heads down in the mud and kept coming back to the one spot mostly , past couple of days have been warm so i presume its water they were after, but they ignored the clean water in the bird bath