Bee Patch Catchup

The 'Bee Patch' was better than expected with wild flowers providing a rich source of nectar and pollen for all types of bees and other insects. It was also lovely to just sit by the bee patch have a cup of tea and just relax after hard work elsewhwere on the patches.

At times there were 100+ honey bees and a surprising number of 'bumble bees' all challenging for the flowers. Overall I think that the wild poppies would be my choice if I was a bee, yep my favourite from the wild 'bee patch'..........but just didn't beat my overall best flower grown last year --- Double Shine Sunflowers! they were a  'wow!' so this year we are growing four large flower beds of just Double Shines......can't wait! (update on Double Shines soon)

Bee cafe.....not open yet!

First flower opened

Poppies just coming through

Nice! and the cupa too.

Old Drone Bee's work has paid off!

Shake & Patch

Old Drone bee has worked his socks off and finished the first of our raised beds, this one is just for the bees (well butterfly's as well) It has been sprinkled with mixtures of selected variety of flowers chosen to attract bees into our 'bee friendly patches' these flowers we will not be cutting and taking to farmers markets.

Expected to bloom June - Oct, if not we need a new Old Drone bee who knows how to garden :-)

 

Two boxes! going to be dense flowering

 

 



Bee Friendly Café.................

 





I need a Toad, or a small Frog.....not fussy!

Er, the Ripelys are not moving it's been nearly three weeks now and not a single shoot. Even dug up a couple of seeds to make sure they are still there, yep still there!

Think that fella from USA has had me over :-(  so being a good Wanna Bee the back up plan is already swinging into action -- thank god for the Russians, even if they are straying into the Ukraine a bit. We've got some good Russian Soldiers ready to go into battle on our behalf for winning sunflower competition, only thing is that I don't like using slug pellets and greenhouse has a lot of slimey trials hmm, worrying times can't wait till get them up to the patches.

    

Teddy Bear Sunflowers...........cause they're nice.

 

 

Ripleys........"Come on, or your sacked!"

 

 

My Boys............first batch of Russian Giants, think gonna do more batches then no chance of loosing!

 

 

 

"Get off the Boys!"

Plan Bee small b!

Ok, Plan Bee has been completed before we caused too much inconvenience to our neighbours. Now we have some sort of structure to the Bee Friendly Places and not just a field we now have a couple of paths, shed and a hut so now we can move on at a pace.

 



Small 'b' plan next for us is to put up a new to us Polytunnel, starting off our seeds for cut flowers and the start of our Sunflower Growing Competition with group of old friends £10.00  all in, with £1.00 for the bees and then winner takes all!

Of course we need an edge and so are going to use............wait for it.............. "Ripley's" World Record Giant Sunflower Seeds specially imported from USA (had them since 2009 hope they germinate!) this wannabee is going all out to win, might even give out a few top rated secrets for growing sunflowers........... updates throughout the year on the Ripley's, "Come on Ripley's get going!" yeah, first secret is that you need to talk to your plants :-)

 

2009.....Worried? Not Wannabee!

Our Own Plan Bee!

Up on the Bee Friendly Place early Friday morning we had a good view for the eclipse due at 9.25am didn't have any sunglasses, was a touch cloudy but still had a great experience. It didn't go pitch black for us, just as dark as about 10.00am in high summer, the birds stopped singing and it was really quite for 10 minute or so, great experience.

9.25am........ 20/03/15

 

 

Everything was going great, until our plan to get some sub base to create a path and base for the new to us summerhouse went wrong, delivery was due 1.00pm but didn't arrive till 2.00pm and then the truck got stuck and couldn't reverse up to our patches, the truck also couldn't go forwards! as the tyres kept spinning churning up the grass, the only thing we could do to get the truck out was to tip the stone.........8ton of crushed brick and concrete right there but it was in the middle of the main gateway to the field! but there was nothing else we could do or think of.

 

When it tipped out, our heart sunk it was a LOT of stone and in the wrong place our neighbours were sure going to say something about it!

 

 

 

 

We franticly started shovelling, but one old 'drone bee' and a 'wanna bee' needed at least 5,000 more worker bees to move the stone if we were to clear the entrance way for others to use the field, did they come and help? no chance the girls are still in the hive :-(

 

Only thing for it was Plan Bee to come back really early, really early at 6.30am next morning and start to shift it all who says that drone bees are good for nothing, that statement needs more investigating drone bees probably do a lot of good things for the hive!

 

 

 

"Who says the girls do all the work! 

 

 

Put it in here......easy, except for the distance!

 









Bee Friendly Patches

7.30am :-).........thought I would record the first spade going into our bee friendly patches.

 

11.30am ......hmm I've made a new best friend today - Mr Wheelbarrow :-(  only problem is he's a bit tipsy most of the time! and that's not helping.

Will wait a week or so to show how we have progressed, us Drone bees don't seem to be doing much just fathing and flying around as always, need to get a buzz on......



Couch Pollen............

It was quite this morning, I had got distracted concentrating working on laptop before leaving for work (last few weeks of work!) when it was one of those occasions when the silence is demanding your attention, something was wrong.

Poppy and Harvey our two dogs were the cause of the silence so something was up! I stopped typing away and went in search of the dogs. Poppy was halfway down the corner of the couch with just here bum sticking out and Harvey was sitting next to her with the treasure they had found............. a hair grip, bit of chocolate buttons wrapper, and a 20p piece.

Poppy after mining and after being told off :-)

After sorting them both out and getting back to my laptop work....which was bee related, I had a thought. 20p -- I know from my work in waste world that the lads on the Waste Transfer Site and likely anyone in waste world dealing with old couches and armchairs know that there is money to be found at the bottom of an old sofa! as they always turn them over, cut the bottom fabric away and collect the stash of money.

Well the thought was, why can't people do that now? follow Poppy's example go mining for 'couch pollen' as if you were a bee and get the cash that is doing no one any good except the lads on a Waste Transfer Site. Why not save that cash and use it to support us on our Bee 365 plan, paying for a bee a 1p per day details on our new web site (only waiting for Andy to do last couple of techy things!)

I'm sure that if you went mining you'd find more than £3.65 so that would be good for the bees and rewarding to yourself with the extra stash.