Hello All
I'm sorry that I have not answered your comments. I have only just got my laptop back from laptop hospital. Hopefully all is well now. I have been bereft and really missed you all. I will be on catch-up for several days, reading my favourite blogs and a few new ones on the way. You know how that goes don't you? you visit blog A and see a comment by a follower B and click on their face and suddenly you have been all over the world and several hours have disappeared.
Anyway here I am and I must welcome Janice Foehring on Bloglovin and Lilacgumtree and Matt Jarvis on the Follower bar. Matt is a neighbour of mine, so I bet you will get the the inside story now and then from him!!
I am in some haste tonight, we have been really busy in the gardens and with the bees, having had two more swarms this week. This is the end of July for heaven's sake! Mind you there is a strong honey flow which does seem a little late. We have been unable to collect the second swarm and it is still high up in a tree. We put out a bait hive to encourage it to house itself, with no luck as they are still stuck up there for the second (cold) night. I'll let you know how they get on.
We have a busy weekend in front of us. Tomorrow we off to the World Hen Racing Championships which are held at the pub where our grandson works. It is also our youngest granddaughter's birthday weekend, so we will be over there for tea. We also have to move some bees to Hathersage were they are to have a new home with some first-time beekeepers.
Tomorrow morning I have a bucketful of redcurrants to process into wine, a bucketful of honey to jar for sale and some lumps of wax to melt and pour into ounce bar moulds(?) for an order. I do love this time of year. It is what we work all year for!
Must go now, my hot milk calls.
Gillx
My nephew in Wakes has one hive in his small garden and he's had a fantastic year regarding honey.
ReplyDeleteThat's good. Not as good this year for honey as last year, but still not bad. VERY good for bees here though, which seems to be against the national trend
DeleteAnd over here I shall begin processing all my Tomato based preserves. First are the bottles of TCP (toms, courgettes, and peppers).
ReplyDeleteI don't think anything looks better than a row of jars, full of your own produce. I remember seeing your tomato produce from last year, very useful it looked too. Any ideas for cucumbers?I'm overwhelmed with them!
DeleteYour life sounds wonderfully busy! So many productive things going on. I hope your laptop stays better.
ReplyDeleteSo far so good with the laptop. it has taught me a lesson though. I have Civic Society stuff on it (I'm the secretary) and it wasn't backed up. So I have now bought an external hard drive for it.
DeleteI love this time of year though it does seem to get a little harder each year!
Loved your post taking us around your holding.
Just to let you know what the summer has been like here bee wise. Last year our friend got 240lbs of honey - this year he has got 9lbs and has already been feedin g the bees.
ReplyDeleteCrikey that's a drop!. We aren't doing quite so well for honey this year, but a couple of hives have done really well. The rest seem to be holding their own and probably will need feeding to help them towards winter.
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