Stirring Up a Hornet's Nest!

No pictures for this one. Read on and you'll understand why.

Remember the wasps nests from last week? Well, the saga goes on. Not a single wasp had emerged from the first nest after Sue squirted nasty white powder into the entrance hole.
So yesterday morning I deemed it safe to dig a big hole about a foot away in which to plant the oak 'sapling' which I had rescued from someone's garden. (It was actually about 8 foot tall when I got there. I dug out as much tap root as I could, but I don't rate its chances of survival. Trees are best moved when very small and in winter.)
So, there I am digging away when my foot gently breaks through the ground with an unfamiliar crunching sound. I had broken through into the underground paper caverns of the wasps nest. Not really a problem, except that dozens of wasps were sleepily crawling around and beginning to emerge!
I didn't really take the time to look at them closely when I first saw them, but I could now see that these 'wasps' were massive, about an inch long. They weren't wasps, they were hornets!!!
I had just plunged my foot into a hornets nest!

I guess that at this time of year many of them must stay in the nest and tend the queen and the brood. Anyway, I felt a bit guilty about this, but I liberally dusted the new hole I had made with white powder. I stayed to watch as more and more of these remarkable creatures emerged from underground. I then broke up the nest with my garden fork. If you've never seen a wasp or hornet nest, they are amazing - a huge paper teardrop and inside a multi-storey conurbation, layers of perfect hexagonal comb. This nest must have gone down about two foot. It was amazing. Even to excavate that much soil must have been quite a feat, let alone to fill up the underground space with such a wonderful structure.

But I had come along and destroyed the whole thing then waged chemical warfare on the entire population! The more I watched them, the more guilty I felt. So, to justify my use of weapons of mass destruction, I took to Wikipedia to find out a little more about hornets. I found out that in late summer there will be up to 700 hornets in a nest, but that only the fertilised queens survive the winter to start new colonies.

I also read the following, which I have copied here:

Hornets have stings used to kill prey and defend hives. Hornet stings are more painful to humans than typical wasp stings because hornet venom contains a large amount (pkp,5%) of acetylcholine.

Hornets, like many social wasps, can mobilize the entire nest to sting in defence, which is highly dangerous to animals, including humans. The attack pheromone is released in case of threat to the nest.

In light of that, I would advise that you never use a garden fork to destroy a hornets nest, and if you do attempt such an act, at least make sure you are wearing full protective clothing!!!

The queen hornet, back in the spring must have thought she had died and gone to heaven when she came upon this location to found her city, conveniently close not only to an orchard, but to a small group of bee hives too.
More information from Wikipedia:

Prey

Adult hornets and their relatives (e.g., yellowjackets) feed themselves on nectar and sugar-rich plant foods. Thus, they can often be seen on the sap of oak trees, rotting sweet fruits, honey and any sugar-containing foodstuffs. Hornets frequently fly into orchards to feast on over-ripe fruit. Hornets tend to gnaw a hole into fruit to be totally immersed in its meat. A person who accidentally plucks a fruit with a feeding hornet can be attacked by the disturbed insect.
The adults prey on various insects as well, which they kill with stings and jaws. Due to their size and the power of venom, hornets are able to kill large insects such as honey bees, grasshoppers, locusts and mantises without difficulty or much effort. The victim is fully masticated and then fed down in the form of slurry to the larvae developing in the nest, rather than consumed by the adult hornets. Given that some of their prey are considered pests, hornets may be considered beneficial under some circumstances.

On balance, I think that hornets and their nests are amazing creations, but sadly there is not room for them here on my smallholding. Too many conflicts of interest.

Now all I have to do is find the source of the wasps which are still raiding the middle hive. I have tried following their flight path, but it comes to an end at the top of a willow tree. I'm pretty sure their nest is not in this, so they must be using it as a stopping off point before heading home.
If I do find the nest, I'll make sure I put a bee suit on before I tackle it!

Fog and a Short-eared Owl

Yesterday morning, the view from the bedroom window was like this...

The first fog of the autumn was a sure sign of high pressure. It soon cleared though and the day that followed was a good one. Firstly, we got the mower back, repaired. Even better, Errol is going to fix my Allen Scythe and my trailer too! Then remarkably I found another wasps nest, in the dyke. I was clearing some nettles when I started getting buzzed. Another lucky escape.

One of the guinea fowl keets didn't have such a lucky escape though. Late morning it was struggling to keep up with the others and by early afternoon we were down to ten. We started with twelve, so losses thus far are about what would be expected. The biggest surprise was that of the 20 eggs which were left abandoned, at least a dozen contained fully grown chicks. I'm not sure what happened there. Anyway, ten is enough and there are signs that the other two nests might be hatching soon.

 

As for the wasps, Sue donned her bee suit again and destroyed the nest (nasty powder puffed into the entrance hole). However, there is still a fairly steady stream of wasps heading into the middle hive. Despite introducing a new queen, I'm not optimistic about the colony's chances of survival. I've already found two wasp nests in three days. Chances of me finding any remaining nests are slim but I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Anyway, back to that high pressure. Hopefully it will mean that the next couple of days stay dry and warm enough to allow me to make headway into the grass which has now grown rather long. I have put the geese into the veg patch to nibble it down a little. They are well happy!

The high pressure extends right over Scandinavia too, and at this time of year that means birds! A large female Sparrowhawk shot low over the farm yesterday. I've not seen one for a good few months and I'm guessing it was a migrant. Could explain where the slow guineafowl keet went.
The Swallows are still with us, though they are out of the stables now and beginning to congregate at the tops of the Ash trees, chattering constantly. I reckon they're giving directions for the journey south.
When I woke up this morning, the garden was alive with birds. There must have been a dozen blackbirds in the Ash trees and a similar number of Great Tits - too many to be accounted for by our resident population. The first lapwings of the autumn were flying over too. But it was to get much better. For when I wandered down to check on the sheep, I took the opportunity to scan the freshly ploughed fields and up from a dyke, chased by a raucous crow, came a Short-eared Owl. A buzzard quickly got in on the act, chasing it into the sky as it flapped lazily over my head and over the farm. As it went over the chickens, quite high now, the swallows all rose to harass it. It's not often that these two species meet here, for the owl is an early one and the swallows will be leaving very soon.

With a bit of luck it will be another good winter for Short-eared Owls. I'll never forget the sight of three hunting together over the farm a couple of years ago.

Barcelona Beans

Barcelona have Messi, Neymar and Suarez up front. A ridiculous embarrassment of riches.

I have a similar embarrassment of riches. I have Borlotti, Rocquencourt and Cobra, plus Tendergreens, Canada Wonders, Pea Beans and Blue Lake - an embarrassment of beans.
They all grow well (as long as I am patient and leave sowing them until uncomfortably late in the spring). They all crop well. They all taste delicious.

I also grow runner beans, two types. I feel I should grow runner beans. Every veg patch has runner beans. I can't be a proper gardener if I don't grow runner beans. If you know your football, runner beans are my Fred. In the team, but nobody quite knows why.
To be honest if you put a runner bean and a French bean next to each other, I'd go for the French every time. And there's no risk of ending up with a mouthful of stringiness (even 'stringless' runners end up stringy if you neglect picking them, which I inevitably do when all those crisp, fresh French beans are growing right next door.)

I do like the flowers, though, as do the bees. So the runners survive in the plan, but just for drying and using through the winter.



The French beans
You'll have to excuse the long grass - the mower's broken... again.

The French beans fall into two categories. Borlottis, Pea Beans and Canada Wonder are all grown just for drying, for the beans inside the pods.

The rest are grown for the pods, to be eaten fresh or sliced and frozen for later.
Cobra beans are climbers, which crop early and heavily, but which are gone all too soon. Blue Lake are similar. There's nothing between them really, but I suspect that if I measured the yield carefully the Cobras would just edge it. Besides, they have wonderful black beans inside. The Blue Lake have white beans.
Then there are the Rocquencourts. Dwarf yellow beans which snap crisply and have a wonderful waxy texture. Even with a failure first time round (too cold, too dry, didn't make it past the slugs and rabbits), the second attempt which I netted has yielded several bags of beans for the freezer.
So that just leaves the Dwarf Tendergreens. These came in a mixed packet from Poundland or some such shop, so I wasn't expecting too much. In fact, I forgot about them until yesterday when I noticed bunches of beans hiding below the leaves. So I picked a few to try and they were disappointingly good, even the ones which had grown a little long and fat. I say 'disappointingly' as this leaves me with my Barcelona bean situation. A ubiquity of quality.

Then there are the broad beans and, just for the extravagance, the Yardlong beans in the polytunnel.

So, here's my team. The final eleven.

Borlotti Bean 'Lingua de Fuoco'

French Bean 'Canada Wonder' (kidney beans)

Pea Bean

Runner Bean Armstrong (red)

Runner Bean 'White Lady'

Climbing French Bean 'Cobra'

Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake'

Dwarf French Bean 'Tendergreen'

Dwarf French Bean 'Rocquencourt'

Broad Bean 'Bunyard's Exhibition'

Yardlong Bean

 

Just don't make me choose one to leave on the bench.

There's A Buzz Around The Place

Last week a strange package arrived in the post. A sealed, padded brown envelope... and it was buzzing!

Believe it or not, live bees actually get sent through the post. But this was not just any old bee. This was a queen, along with a small gang of attendants to look after her on her journey. They come in a plastic box, sealed in with candy.
Upon arrival, they are placed in the hive, but first contact with her new subjects will only be after they have eaten through the candy. This hopefully gives enough time for the hive to get used to the queen's pheromones and not attack her as an intruder.



You can just make out the queen,
marked with a green spot.

Ideally we wouldn't be buying a queen and getting her sent through the post, but for a while now one of the hives has contained no eggs and no brood. There are still, however, plenty of bees inside so it was worth saving. The alternative would be to unite it with one of the other hives to bolster up the size of the colony ready to go into the winter. But both of the other hives are doing very well indeed without reinforcements.
Twice Sue has tried to introduce frames of eggs to this hive, in the hope that the bees would make one of them into a queen - for remarkably they are able to do this - but neither time has it succeeded. This could mean that there is already a queen in the hive but she is not laying. If that is the case, then our expensive purchase of a new queen will not work, for she will be killed by the old queen. But Sue has searched and searched and not been able to find a queen.

It is getting late in the year to introduce a queen, but the colony would not survive much longer without new blood. Already it is being raided by wasps. Normally a strong colony can repel them, but as it weakens, so more and more make it past the bees' defences and into the hive to steal the honey. Sue has narrowed the entrance to make it easier for the bees to defend. It's like war. To further help the bees, for we are most definitely taking sides and intervening in this war, there is an array of wasp traps hung around the hives. They catch a lot of wasps, but there must be a nest nearby so we'll never catch enough of them.
There's also a new-fangled device hanging next to the hives. It's called a Waspinator! It's basically a mock wasp nest and the idea is that visiting wasps will see it and stay clear. However, it does not really work at this time of year if there is already a real nest in the area. The manufacturers do make this clear, but we've put it up anyway just in case it helps.



Here you can see various wasp traps hanging around the hives.
The grey bag hanging up is the Waspinator.

Last year I was fortunate enough to locate a wasp nest - just a hole in the ground from which emerged a steady flow of yellowjackets. Remarkably yesterday I managed to locate the source of this year's wasps. I actually had a lucky escape, for I was just about to start digging to plant an oak sapling when I noticed a hole in the long grass. Initially I thought it to be a rat hole, but then I noticed a stream of stripy black and yellow bodies crawling to the entrance and heading off to do their worst - either to the bee hives or to the orchard.



No apologies for the quality of the picture.
No way I was getting too close!

I'm afraid that, remarkable creatures as they are, wasps are not welcome here on the farm. So it was that at 5:30am today Sue donned her bee suit and headed toward the hole in the ground armed with a tube of white powder. A few puffs down the hole resulted in the emergence of a small gang of wasps, which is why we (Sue) were performing this operation at first light.

Now all we have to do is wait and see if it has worked. In a couple of days, Sue will be able to look in the bee hive again too. If all has gone well, there will be newly laid eggs. If not, we'll be heading into the winter with just two colonies of honey bees instead of three.

Sweetcorn decimated

Just a quick one. Thank goodness we harvested these when we did.



192 sweetcorn cobs in a wheelbarrow

For, although some of them had not had sufficient time to properly ripen, they certainly ended up better than these....

















As predicted, the harvesting of the fields drove the rats across the dyke, with catastrophic results for the sweetcorn. Fortunately, they don't touch any of the other crops. Besides, they've started taking the bait I put down, so the problem should soon be eradicated.


Guinea Gnanza

"Money is the seed of money and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million." I think Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have been confusing his guineas.

I really wasn't holding out much hope so I didn't mention this before. The appointed time has been approaching, but I wasn't sure when they started sitting. They just quietly slipped off and were only conspicuous by their absence on the roosting fence at night.
Last year they laid dozens of eggs but we did our best to disrupt them. We didn't want a whole population roaming around the place. We decided that a family of eleven was enough. Eventually some did sneak off and sit, but it all came to nothing.

This year I decided to let them sit, on condition that if any hatch we start eating them! (We will, of course, wait until they are a bit bigger). And so, for a while now, there have only been five guineafowl sitting on the fence at night, presumably the males.

There are three nests: one in the corner of the chicken pen where three fowl have been sitting on 32 eggs; one under the soft fruits, containing maybe 15 or so eggs sat upon by two fowl; the third took some finding. I presume it's the oldest female who has buried herself deep in the grass in the young woodland. I have no idea how many eggs she is sitting on.

A couple of days ago there was a false alarm when all five males were in close attendance of the nest in the chicken pen. I was half expecting to see stripy heads poking out from under the wings of their mothers, but when they moved there were just 32 eggs to be seen.

Anyone with any ability in maths has probably worked out that we could end up with rather a lot of guineafowl! But I've not been optimistic about the chances of any hatching and even if some do, they will run the gauntlet of rats and other predators. Guineafowl are brave and protective parents though. More of a threat will be long, damp grass, for this kills more guineafowl chicks than anything else.

Well, if you've been reading carefully, you've probably guessed that today the hatching has begun! I went to give the chickens their afternoon feed and collect eggs when I noticed that only one guineafowl hen was sitting in the corner. Half the eggs had disappeared and there were eggshell remnants in the grass. Not quite sure what had gone on, I guessed that maybe something (rat?) had disturbed the nest. But as I approached close, the hen got up and there, on top of all the other eggs, were three extremely small guineafowl chicks.

I quickly retreated and left them in peace. Only another 29 to hatch. That's from this nest! Pictures to follow.

Big, Bouncy Recycling

I collect as much rainwater as I can, of course. I am, after all, on metered water. There are some green reasons too, and water quality. Plants, unlike us, would rather their drink wasn't cold, hard and treated.

I have some green water butts, but they are getting old and need a bit of attention. When we moved here, there were also two 1000 litre containers balanced on pallets. They are industrial / agricultural and fairly easy to get round here. If I remember correctly, they are known as IPCs, though it could be three different letters!
Anyway, the guttering from the outbuildings had been cobbled together to lead the water into these. The trouble was that when they filled up the water just spilled out of the top. Not a problem in itself, except that a tower of pallets with a tonne of water on top does not last long, especially when it is being constantly dowsed in water.

Eventually I had to take the IPCs down and since then I have been trying to come up with a way of raising them up. Sleepers was an option, but not a cheap one. Concrete plinths was another option, again not cheap and I don't really like using concrete unless I have to.

But last week I had a bit of a brainwave. What about tyres? What about tractor tyres? A quick look on ebay and I'd placed a bid. £1 for two. Two days later and I'd won them, for 99p. Three days later and I'd got the measurements and figured out they wouldn't fit in my car or my livestock trailer!

Over to Don the friendly neighbour, and yesterday morning I was heading over to the other side of Kings Lynn to collect my tractor tyres. When I got there, they were huge! Goodness knows how big the tractor had been. Not only that, but they were heavy, especially as the rims had filled with water. We had about an inch to spare across the trailer, but unfortunately they wouldn't quite both fit in flat lengthways, which made for a somewhat bouncy drive home. I certainly drove gently, especially along some of our bumpier fenland roads.

An unusual load

I kept a careful eye on my bouncy load on the way home.

 I got back to the farm and set about hauling and rolling the tyres into position.


Giant specs

There was always the chance that they would be too big for the IPCs, in which case they would make impressive raised beds. But actually they were a pretty good fit.

The next test is whether or not they will support 1000kg of water. If not, the plan is to fill them with rubble and soil. If that still doesn't work, it'll be back to raised beds and trying to figure out how to raise the IPCs off the ground.
An afternoon of teaching myself how to route guttering and I now have a way of capturing two cubic metres of water at a time. A little more plumbing and they will be connected to hosepipes and have overflows leading to a pond which is not yet dug.

All I need now is a good rainstorm

Something New With Tomatoes

Read on to find out what I've down to these tomatoes

 

It's been a great year for tomatoes and we have all shapes and colours pouring out of the polytunnel. Sue usually cooks them up, removes the skins and then freezes them. We use them through the year in the same way as tinned tomatoes.
But when another basketful came into the kitchen, we had a problem. Freezers full, plenty enough tomatoes for the coming year.
So I decided to try something different. We recently purchased a steam juicer. It's basically just a steamer with a tube. The steam breaks down the cells in the fruit and pure juice trickles down the tube ready for collection.
And so I loaded up the tomatoes and turned on the gas. It wasn't too long before I'd collected half a pan of translucent tomato juice. I kept steaming until the tomatoes looked pretty sorry for themselves and I had a whole pan of juice.



With my mind on freezer space, I left Sue to watch the pan as we reduced it further and further until it fitted into an ice cube tray.









I wasn't sure what it would taste like, but a dip of the finger and a lick of the tongue was enough to know that we had created something with a vibrant zing to it. A bucketful of tangy tomatoiness in a tiny package. It packed a real punch and will really add a new dimension to our cooking.


As for those rather sorry looking tomatoes, they still had too much flesh inside to ignore.
I wasn't sure whether or not all the flavour would have been already extracted, but decided to push everything through a sieve and see what I got. Again, I reduced it down, though not so drastically. Again it was really tomatoey and will make a great sauce for pasta or to go on a pizza. Alternatively, I can just use a cube instead of tomato paste when I need.

Sheep Scare

Every day I visit the sheep at least twice, often much more. It's important to keep an eye on them, for if one is afflicted by flystrike it can go downhill very quickly. Last week I headed down the land in the morning and my heart sank when I saw a bundle of wool just laying in the grass. It just didn't look right to be sleeping or resting. Something was up. But all the sheep had been fine the previous evening. No illness could strike this quickly, could it? It reminded me of when I found the goose after a fox attack a couple of years ago. But surely the sheep are too big now for this to happen. I clapped my hands hoping that the bundle would lift its head and get to its legs, but nothing. As I approached further, I could see that it was number 6, always the smallest and the weakest. It had only just recovered from a limp which seemed to go on for an age.
As I approached closer, it moved. I ran over and found it fatigued but wriggling and unable to right itself. How can a species survive which is more than capable of rolling onto its back and getting stuck? I lifted number 6 to its feet expecting it to run off ungratefully, but instead its legs gave way and it flopped back onto the ground. I was worried but frustratingly could see nothing obvious to cause this. I lifted her again, this time supporting her, and she managed to stay upright, but quickly sat back down and rolled onto her side when I moved away. I began to contemplate calling the vet for advice, but decided to try just once more. I stayed with her for a few more minutes, steadying her when she wobbled, and then she just waddled off as if nothing had happened.

A little wobbly and a little messy. But still standing.

I guess she had rolled over and tired herself out trying to right herself. Obviously her two left legs had gone to sleep which explains why it took her so long to be able to stand and walk again.
But it shows the importance of checking on the sheep.

Anyhow, back to today and moving the sheep. I keep my sheep on a strip-grazing system. This sounds complicated but it's not. All it means is that I divide the grazing land into sections and move the sheep around the sections in rotation. They munch one area until there's not much left to munch, then they get a fresh green area to gorge on for a week. By the time they get back to the first one, there should be plenty of lush grass in there again.

Ready to move to a new area.

One section seems to be enough to last the sheep for a week, so every Friday it is time to move them on. The operation today would be interesting, for one sheep, the White-faced Woodland, has taken to crossing the line. It has worked out that the electricity only pulses through the fence every second and that if it puts its head down and goes for it, those horns and the coating of wool will see it safely through to the other side. (I'm not actually sure it has quite worked out all the detail, suffice to say that every time I go down to the sheep it is on the greener side of the fence!) It doesn't really matter, as he still stays with the flock, just preferring to eat the greener grass on the other side. Unlike the Shetlands, he doesn't destroy the trees and if I need to he is tame enough to catch.

There's always one!

So I duly created a gap in the fence and called the sheep. Once the first comes, it doesn't take long for the rest to follow. "Hang on a minute! He's eating the green grass over there." Of course, a couple were so busy munching that they didn't notice. Another couple of ewes were engaged in a tussle until they eventually noticed and trotted through the gap.

 

In no time at all, 18 sheep were moved onto new pasture. That just left one. White-faced Woodland was running up and down bleating. Where were all his friends going? He still respects the fence enough that it is some kind of barrier. I let him worry for a while. Maybe it will be a lesson not to keep crossing the fence.

Eventually he found his way through and all was well. But I expect it won't be long until he decides that the grass on the other side is greener!

White-faced Woodland reunited.



And that just leaves two sheep unaccounted for. My Shetland ram and his wether companion. I have moved them into the pigs' old quarters, which has rapidly become overgrown with weeds, in the hope that they will do me a favour and munch it clear again. But I always have to give them a helping hand, chopping most of it down with a grass hook. I guess that some of the stronger tastes must dissipate once the weeds have wilted a little. Anyway, they seem happy enough in there and haven't tried to escape (yet).







Barnsdale Gardens

Every now and again we deliberately try to have a day away from the smallholding, for as much as we enjoy it, we can still fall into the trap of not stepping back to appreciate what we've achieved.

Last Sunday was the Veg Group's summer outing and we had arranged to all meet up at Barnsdale Gardens, just up the A1 near Rutland Water. These were the gardens from where Geoff Hamilton presented Gardener's World when I were a lad.










Fortunately the weather held, just. At a leisurely pace (we don't spend enough time at this pace) we strolled around a series of 39 gardens, each holding trinkets of inspiration.
Some of these ideas will be appearing in my garden soon, maybe.

I returned to Swallow Farm full of plans. So far I've not spent much time on the ornamental side of the garden and what I have attempted has been seriously undermined by the rabbits (as an aside, I have seen a couple with signs of myxomatosis of late. I knew it was near, so it was only a matter of time before it hit the out of control population here. I have 'myxed' emotions about this.)

But I was not lured by the Barnsdale nursery. Instead I have started searching out the seeds I need and looking around for suitable subjects for cuttings.
A trip to a local plant cash'n'carry resulted in the extremely reasonable purchase of 17 box hedging plants and 6 lonicera nitida. From these I have taken a fair multitude of cuttings.

 















I reckon that in another twenty years or so Swallow Farm will be ready to open to the public!