Swarmzzeee!

April was extremely dry and cold.

May was extremely wet, but the last week at least saw temperatures rising. 

This has made for an insanely busy half term for me here on the smallholding. The logjam of young plants is finally starting to clear and the garden is filling up, but my efforts have been somewhat disrupted by the honey bees who have been waiting for this weather to swarm.

In fact I have taken on the pseudonym SWARMZZEEE!

Since the first swarm which I mentioned in my last blog, we've had quite a few more, peaking at three in one day. Our plans to reduce the number of bee hives we keep have been well and truly scuppered. The smaller and medium swarms we offer to other beekeepers or we house them in a small hive known as a nucleus. As the old queen who left with the swarm continues to lay in the nucleus hive, we transfer the eggs into the original hive which is waiting for its new queen to hatch, undertake her mating flight and start laying.

The whole swarming phenomenon is amazing. It's like snow, I never tire of seeing it and just sit and watch in awe. We don't always see the whole process, but when I'm working in the garden I'll hear the bees being unusually noisy. A quick look will reveal many more bees than normal swirling around the hive and flying over the garden near the apiary. Gradually they'll start congregating on their chosen perch where the queen has landed and the tight swarm steadily grows as more and more bees settle. It's possible to get within feet of the swarm if you're brave enough (and ready to leg it if one gets too defensive!)

Once they are settled, they send out scouts in search of a permanent home. Sometimes they leave after a couple of hours, sometimes a couple of days. If we want to catch them, it's a matter of getting them into a nucleus or more usually a cardboard box. If they're hanging on a branch it's easy. You just give the branch a sharp shake so the swarm drops into the box. If they're on the trunk, you have to scoop them in.

If you've got the queen, the rest will head into the box. Some will position themselves at the entrance to the hive, point their abdomens into the air and vibrate their wings. They are fanning the pheromones from the queen as a signal to the other bees. It really is quite astonishing.

If you've missed the queen, they'll go back to the branch and you start the whole process again.

A couple of swarms this year have been absolutely massive, too good to give away. 

The long and the short of it is that we are now up to ten hives, all doing extremely well. With no honey to collect after a disappointing April and May, they are finally starting to make enough to share some with us.

A wet May has meant a larger than usual slug population in the veg plot. I need to encourage more ground beetles in. Until I manage this though, slug hunts are the order of the day. My motto is Show No Mercy! They really can do a lot of damage to tender young plants which I've spent ages raising. So I've developed a routine.

First I clear the ground and scrape off any mulch. I mow the surrounding grass short and clear the edges. This gives the slugs nowhere to hide. Ideally I leave it for a day in the sun. Basically I am removing the slug habitat. 

When the ground is ready for planting, the more vulnerable plants get a pair of woolly slippers made from scrap fleece. I'm using organic slug pellets too, though I only use these sparingly. I'd rather not.

Fortunately we are not short of scrap fleece. The sheep were sheared last week which is one of those annual events which marks the passing of the year. We had to bring them in for shearing as it was a day of heavy showers. For a few days afterwards they were quite cold but when the hot weather arrived they will have been thankful for the trim.

Insects have started appearing in the garden now too. I am seeing lots more butterflies, with orange-tips and brimstones predominant. If I notice anything different I like to take a snap and identify it. This glorious specimen is a red cardinal beetle I found. The variety of insect life never ceases to amaze me. If they were large animals they would be astonishing (and quite fearsome).

The two young turkeys have finally vacated the old shed in the veg plot, along with just two young chicks. Unfortunately one was not strong enough to make it through the first night, so we now have two turkey hens looking after just one chick. I managed to lure them into a temporary set-up in the stables where they have settled in nicely.

Meanwhile the older clutches are growing fast. Here they are trying to establish the threat level of a lettuce.

Dark Clouds

Our weather seems to come in month-long blocks now. I guess it's something to do with how the jet-stream has been disrupted. After bone dry April we have May downpours. 

And gosh we have had some downpours! 

The First Swarm of the Year

Last week I had to go into self-isolation again so that I could go down to London and have one of my regular hospital check-ups. Due to Covid it was two years since my last visit so it was a relief to find nothing majorly wrong. The procedure did leave me a little wiped out though, so it was a week of pottering about in the garden.

When we arrived back from London Sue came across our first bee swarm of the season and it was an absolute monster! We were half  expecting it as we found queen cells in a few hives when we inspected them. Muggy May days seem to be when we get our swarms. Sue had just managed to take us down from ten hives to eight by amalgamating weaker hives, but this swarm needed a whole hive to itself.

In general the bees are doing very, very well at the moment, though it looks like we won't be getting much early honey as it's been a cool year so far.

Poultry News
The ducklings and chicks are growing fast, but they do make a mess! So when we can they go onto the lawn for the day. It won't be long before they need an accommodation upgrade. We're not quite sure where they'll go though as the stables are taken up by geese and turkeys. We'll sort something out.

The young turkeys are doing really well too. We lost one to a sad accident, but all the rest survive, fingers crossed, which is actually really hard to achieve with turkey poults. Quite a few are spoken for so we just need to keep hold of them until they are old enough to leave their mothers.

On The Plot

Out in the veg plot, we have hopefully had the last frost now. I'm moving young plants into the ground as quickly as possible. The only thing stopping me is the wet weather. All the onions are out, interspersed with beetroots as they make good companions. Brassica netting is up and I've planted out my collards, a new crop for this year. I'm busy earthing up potatoes as they appear. With no dig, I simply dump a forkful of compost on top of the emerging leaves.

Going Cheep

April's Showers Arrive Late

I wouldn't be English if I didn't open with the weather.

We've finally has some of this...

Rather a lot. In fact I've had a butt full of it. Water butts of course! I've managed to fill two IBC containers, that's 2000l of water collected. 

Frost-free?
Not only that, but following an overnight frost on the morning of 7th May, we now have a frost-free forecast through until 20th.

I've finally started moving some of the plants out of the conservatory. Chances of anything apart form a light frost are now very low.

Chicks, Ducklings and Poults

The week has been all about baby birds though, We suddenly have 53 extra little mouths to look after!

We bought in a score of ay old chicks. These are hubbards which grow at a medium pace and are well suited to free range life. They are meat birds but we don't place a huge priority on bringing them to weight as fast as possible. The fastest growing birds, as used in the poultry industry (and by unthinking smallholders), just grow too fast for my liking. They are genetic monsters which can easily become too heavy for their legs or hearts to carry them. On the other hand, some of the more traditional breeds really aren't economically viable, producing scrawny birds which take ages to get to weight. This is fine if you are in the privileged position to pay considerably more for your meat, but it is not a viable route.

So we strive for a happy medium, birds bred to grow faster than normal and to put on more breast meat, but which can still lead a happy and healthy (if short) life. The shortness of a meat bird's life always comes as a shock to those not in the know. A commercial meat chicken will have no more than  couple of months of life. 

Gut instinct is that we want our chickens to have a much longer life than that, but this is where reality kicks in. For no chicken bred for meat would go much past 6 months. For starters, it would be very expensive, but more than that any chicken older than that turns to rubber. Imagine eating one of those chicken dog toys!

There is obviously the option to go vegan, and I wouldn't criticise that choice at all. In fact I was a vegan for part of my life. For me the important factor is the quality of life an animal has while it is still alive and keeping our own livestock gives me complete control over that. 

Hot on the heels of the chicks came the ducklings. Indeed it was a lot hotter on the heels than I had anticipated and it had me scrabbling around for somewhere to keep them. Again the ducklings are destined for the plate and will grow quickly. I searched around the smallholding for a suitable container in which to keep them. Finally I found the perfect solution, a large and strong plastic post office sorting box which we had been gifted and were using to store logs.

I fashioned a lid from strong metal mesh and suspended a heat lamp from the rafters in the garage. The poor little things were very sleepy and would just collapse asleep. A week on and they are almost unrecognisable. I am really pleased with how strong they are. If they feather up and the weather warms it won't be too long before they can enjoy free-ranging around the smallholding. For the moment they wouldn't survive the cold and wet, not to mention crows and rats!

Back to the chicks. Just a day old, they went straight into an old gerbil cage we scrounged off a friend. Here they had warmth, food and drink and safety. But their rate of growth is phenomenal and it doesn't take long before the smell  becomes somewhat noxious.

So already, after just a week, their accommodation has been considerably upgraded. We managed to scrounge another post office sorting box so they have moved into the garage alongside the ducklings.

As if that weren't enough to keep us busy, the turkey hen who was siting on eggs under a pile of sticks by the roadside paddock has hatched out al her eggs. I returned home from work to see her leading nine poults (baby turkeys) through he long grass.

I quickly sprang into action scooping the fluffy little balls into my coat pockets while mum did her best to fend me off, flying up at my face with claws outstretched. This is a dangerous lifestyle! 

We had prepared a stable in anticipation so I led mum towards it as she followed the calls of her babies. Again it is much safer for them to be reared indoors until they can fly up onto a perch.

There's more! A week later the other hen who was sitting on the straw bales hatched out her own clutch. Interestingly these chicks look completely different. One mum is a Norfolk Black, one a Bronze, but dad is a mix. However, the poults seem to have taken on the genes of their mums. We had no idea how many eggs she was on so I was pleasantly pleased to fin myself scooping up a dozen baby birds. Just one didn't make it out of its egg. Mum will be a very good parent. I can tell by the tenacity with which she sat for four weeks and by the tenacity she showed in jumping onto my back several times to defend her young.

Pegleg's Veg

Meanwhile in the veg plot some plants have finally started to be transplanted outside. Broad beans, onions, turnips and radishes are the first out. None of thee mind the cold too much, but I've been waiting ages for rain to wet the soil.

In the polytunnel, Florence fennel I sowed last July is just now coming good. Its the first time I've had success with this crop.

I've also been busy creating a new area to attract and feed wild finches and buntings. In general they won't come too near the house but we have really good numbers of Yellowhammers on the holding this year. To attract them I've sown some of the mixed seed we feed the birds into an area bordering the sheep paddocks and orchard. It's already working as there are regularly several birds feeding there, though they are showing a remarkable ignorance of farming. Each seed they eat could potentially have produced many hundreds later in the year!

One For Sorrow

Now for some sad news on the nature front. Having watched the pair of long-tailed tits busily constructing their delightful nest, I went outside to see a pile of feathers on the floor. Something, I suspect  magpie, had found the nest and pecked a hole in the top. The long-tailed tits have abandoned, leaving their tiny eggs in the nest. Nature can be so harsh.

Nature's Undertakers

One of my favourite jobs is turning the compost. It is a thriving city of minibeasts beavering away. Last week I unearthed a large beetle, maybe an inch long, with notable orange blobs o its antennae. A minute later there was another. They scuttled a bit too quickly to get any decent pics.

I looked them up and they are black sexton beetles, nature's undertakers. They sniff out small dead animals then dig underneath them until the corpse is buried. These two had sniffed out a dead rat! Smallholding's not always as glamorous as it seems.

2021 Week 8 - Final preparations for outdoor growing

Spring is most definitely in the air! We've had warm, dry winds all week which have done wonders drying out the land. It's left the soil in the veg plot nicely pliable too, not that I dig it much now that I have converted to no-dig. It does make for good weeding though. Oh the satisfaction of pulling out a couple of foot of couch grass root in one go!

The veg plot is gradually taking shape as winter debris is cleared and beds are covered.

There was a lull in the seed sowing schedule this week so instead I've been concentrating on getting all the beds ready. With no dig, this mainly involves just shifting all the compost I managed to make last year. There's not enough to apply a thick covering all over, so I focus on using it in the polytunnel and on this year's potato beds. I've also been harvesting and chopping back the willow growth. Some is used for structures to support climbing plants and the like in the veg plot. The rest will be shredded and can go on my new perennial beds.

The mangetout has been planted in the polytunnel beds

We were back at school this week. Actually it was our bubble's turn to be teaching from home, but our broadband has been behaving like a temperamental small child which meant that I had to go into school every day just to connect to broadband so I could Zoom into pupils' homes and classrooms. I mostly had to work in a classroom on my own so I didn't do too much bubble crossing. 

The nights are really drawing out now though and it's easily possible to get a couple of hours done in the garden when I get home from work. This makes a really big difference.

Home from work and still plenty of light left

One of the principles of sustainable smallholding is never to throw anything away and to accumulate anything that might come in useful one day. This policy was vindicated this week as some incomplete polytunnel frames which I had collected quite some years ago (and had been moved around the smallholding several times) finally found a use.

With my new found interest in growing perennial plants, I have lots of pots over-wintering. They are fine in the polytunnel over winter, protected from the worst of the wind and frost, but temperatures in the polytunnel have been soaring whenever the sun shines, These plants are much better outside now, but a modicum of protection from the wind and the birds is still useful. So I have build an extension onto the back of the polytunnel and converted a previously wasted space into a nursery area. I just need the bird netting to be delivered and it will be complete. There was an old scaffold platform making the place look messy too. This I have repurposed into staging for plant trays.

I am really pleased with the new space I have created.

Boris and Arthur help out
with plucking as usual.

Bird flu restrictions are still in place so the poultry remain locked up. But the turkeys have started to fight as two young males have been strutting their stuff. There always comes a point when rearing birds when the boys have to move on. With this more aggressive springtime behaviour came a bit of wanderlust too. One morning we discovered they had got out and ventured into the field next door! This was the cue to round them up and for one of the boys to be freezer-bound. As usual I got a couple of wing-whacks in the face in the process of catching him. I've learned to take my glasses off.

I've been a busy boy this week. I've also built a low shelter for the chickens, again using old bits of polytunnel frame. I've got some old polytunnel cover sitting around that I scrounged too which should make this into a perfect shelter from the wind and the rain. It will also give the poultry some dry, dusty ground to bathe in once they are all free to explore.

The Silkies have had a major home improvement too. I purchased several large sheets of welded mesh. This was mainly to stop the rats digging under and into their pen, but it has also served to keep the chickens up abuve the mud. They seem very happy with the new arrangement.

More happy animals.

We have let the sheep back out of the stables. They were ecstatic, the old ewes running and bouncing and leaping around the paddock when they were let out. Rambutan got very over excited too. He is not in with the girls this year, but decided that ramming me would be quite a good game. I can tell you it hurt! It did remind me why they are called rams.

The geese responded to having all their stable straw changed by almost immediately beginning to lay. The first goose egg is one of those markers of the seasons for us. Next up will be the return of the swallows onto the farm.

Of course, I can't go without giving a Covid update. There is seemingly light at the end of the tunnel as Boris revealed his road ma. As expected we get all the children back at school in  a couple of weeks time. But I won't be around for the first week when they come back. For I have finally got the hospital appointment I've been waiting over a year for. This is one of my regular cancer checks and it has been a worrying time not having these checks. Hopefully nothing nasty has developed inside me while the hospitals have effectively been closed for normal service.

As well as the twice weekly lateral flow tests I am now taking for school, I will be required to take a proper test before I go into hospital and to self isolate for a few days beforehand. This time exactly a year ago I was one of the first to self-isolate in this country following my return from Thailand with a persistent cough. How things have developed since then.

Finally, my forest garden has arrived in a couple of boxes this week. Well, it's just part of what will hopefully become a food forest in the future (more of an edible copse really). For now this unusual mix of trees and shrubs has a little growing to do.

I'll tell you what the plants are in detail next week. I'll leave you with a mystery. What are these?

Sowing, Hoeing, Mowing, Growing

I got the grass mowed this week for the first time this year. It's always a relief when the mower starts up. Until now the geese have been doing the job for me, but the warm weather and a bit of rainfall have spurred the grass into action.
On the whole grass is a pain. I have no want for a green carpet so welcome moles and weeds. But since I've got it I might as well make the most of it, turning it into meat and eggs via the sheep and poultry. And when there's so much that I have to mow it then it makes a good addition to the compost heaps or direct as a mulch, so it all ends up indirectly in my tummy!

I leave some of my grass to grow long. This irritates Sue but is a joy to me.













The thermometer in the polytunnel has soared this week, creeping up into the high 40s. The early sown turnips bolted but the mangetout is doing wonderfully. I have now planted all my tomatoes, peppers and butternut squash in there too. I am trying a variety of squash called Butterbush in the hope that it won't take over the whole polytunnel!


It has been perfect weather for hoeing. Within a couple of hours any weeds that have been chopped off at the base lie withered and dead. I'm gradually working my way round all the veg beds. The ones that have been previously mulched are much easier to do.

A forecast of frost for the next few mornings has been holding me back in the veg patch. As soon as this next cold spell passes the garden will fill with young bean plants, sweetcorn, squash and tomatoes which I have been raising for outdoors. Until then I am trying to hold them back in the polytunnel.

Self-seeded Poached egg plants,

wonderful for bees and a great

companion plant for broad beans.

The vegetable patch is starting to look gorgeous at the moment. I have left a lot of self-sown and naturalised plants to flower and the willow arches are coming on great. These seem to be a magnet for bee swarms and so it was that the third swarm of the year, almost definitely not from our hives, appeared on our last hot day. The swarm was huge.

And the reward for 

longest swarm

goes to...

Having already successfully housed two swarms and moved back up to 8 hives, any we collect from now will be given to fellow beekeepers. This swarm has gone off to Thorney, about ten miles down the road.

Our turkey hen who has been sat on eggs under a patch of borage and flowering rocket started clucking three days ago. I suspected that either chicks had been born or the eggs were pipping.
Sure enough, the next day a little head was poking out from under her feathers.

Our first view of our turkey hen's offspring

She sat tight for two days but was thinking of moving off the nest this morning. With the local crows loitering, we decided to catch her and any chicks and transfer them to a vacant poultry pen. There were just three chicks and three unhatched eggs. Sue retrieved the chicks while the hen slipped my grasp and proceeded to defend her family quite resolutely!
All are now settled into their new home.

Meanwhile, after three Silkie chickens only succeeded in constantly swapping the four ducks eggs they were sharing, we have put one of the Silkie hens on her own with four new eggs. Hopefully we'll have some success. Two of our Muscovy duck girls have now vanished. The optimistic side of me says that they may appear at some point with ducklings, but it is surprising that we have not seen them at all.

Finally there have been more night time capers. It seems tawny owls have moved into the neighbourhood. I regularly hear them when sat outside at night. This may be at the expense of our barn owls as I rarely see or hear them now.
A couple of nights ago as I sat outside under a wonderful full moon I could hear a female tawny nearby. I speculatively imitated a male hooting and within a minute the unmistakable silhouette of an owl flew up into one of the trees in the roadside paddock. Then it flew right over my head and into one of the large ash trees in the garden. It may have been one in the morning, but the full moon meant that it was easily visible against the moonlit sky as it passed over. Then another!
The pair started duetting really close by. Amazing stuff.

And final finally, a couple of lockdown images. One of my new lockdown hair and one my Google timeline for the month of April which tells its own story.