Hopefully this is the last frost we will have this year. The potatoes just got a nip but they are now getting too big to earth up anymore.

2006

Bind weed control!

2005

Wednesday 19th May 2005 I Housed Sunday's swarm of bees in a brand new hive with brand new brood frames in it (except one short frame that the queen had laid in that I position in the center of the box) and took them out to the countryside. Once they were sited I put a feeder on to give them some incentive to draw out some the new foundation. I don't expect to get any honey off these bees this year but hope to go into next year with a strong hive ready to do well. As the queen was a swarm queen last year she will have to removed in the next few weeks.

Tuesday 18th May 2005 I Replaced the base on the WBC hive. In one of the standard national hives I found the queen that has been hiding from me for weeks and now she is no more. I don't like killing queen bees, especially when they breed calm, good natured worker bees, but after a few years they do start to run out of steam and have to be replaced.

Monday 17th May 2005 What a difference a day makes! Suddenly summer has turned back to winter - no good for the bees but not so bad for planting out cauliflowers. Autumn cauliflowers a gross feeders and I planted mine out with copious amounts of muck under them -- and near the tap as they will need plenty of water throughout the summer.

Weekend Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th The weekend was dominated by swarming bees and opening up hives to remove queen cells and queen cups with eggs in. Sunday was particularly still, hot and sunny and I was sitting sorting out the dried off tulips bulbs listening to the buzz of the bees coming and going and making honey. When I stood up to dispose of the rubbish there seemed to be a lot of bees in the air and sure enough bees were pouring out of the front of my biggest and strongest hive and the air above became increasingly full of flying bees circling round and round eventually they started to settle in the middle of my wildlife bramble patch and I was able to get them into a large cardboard box and reclaimed them.

Lucy brought me some of Jonnie's brassica plants to plant out - quite a selection.

During the last week we have suffered from frosty nights that have done considerable damage to those potatoes not earthed up - although some of the more advanced bigger plants seemed to have come through undamaged.

2004

20th May. Yesterday's cool breeze from the North has set in and become stronger - rain is on it's way. Built up the burning barrel with the weed that has dried off well in the last hot and sunny dry week and set it burning.

19th May 2004 There was hardly a light breeze in the allotment this evening - but what little breeze there was came from various points between north west and north east - things are on the turn and rain will arrive in a day or two so I am trying to prepare enough empty ground to plant out sprouts, cabbages and cauliflower.

My zero tolerance weed free zone is still not yet weed free. The warm weather has brought the bind weed to the surface again and as fast as I dig bits out more bits emerge from below.

Picked the first small beans and peas for a salad.

18th May 2004 Extracted first honey of the year today.

Sunday 16th May Went to gather a swarm of bees but was too late to get them. That annoyed me.

I took my strongest hive out to the countryside to sit next to two large fields of oilseed rape. It has been there for over two weeks now during which time the weather has been less than perfect a lot of the time. But today it was perfect, hot and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky.

Inside the hive there were no capped frames of honey, although there was a fair amount of honey in the four suppers that were on there. In the brood box the queen had laid up to the two outside frames so I have extended the area for the queen to lay in by putting an empty super under the queen excluder as well making it 'a brood and a half'. I put three new suppers on and took the bottom one off. This had some drone brood in it so the queen has been out of the brood box at some time. It was well capped so the eggs had been laid some time ago and there was young brood in the brood box but I didn't see the queen, so I can't be 100% certain that she is where she should be, If this hive was closer to home I would check it again in a few days time, but as it is over an hour away it have to be left alone for another week or so.

I am still digging out bits of bind weed in my zero tolerance zone but at least they are easy to see as they thrust through the surface. Hopefully I will get the last bits out this year and be able to start planting there again.

Saturday 15th May 2004 Hot sunny day. checked out the one remaining hive at the Apiary. Although it has a laying queen it is not a strong hive and hasn't made any honey yet.

The three varieties of spring cauliflowers sowed last year worked really well and gave me an abundance of cauliflower over quite a few weeks. This year's plants are already up - so the seed sowing dates I will have to have to keep a watchful eye on. I'm still planting potatoes - Maris bard and Pink Fir Apple. Sowed more beans - broad and runner.

Made a visit to the nurseries and bought bedding plants.

Friday 14th May Rose's plant sale - bought 3 morning glory and a tomato plant.

2003

4 queens and rain - a beautiful sunny evening changed into a thunderstorm and hard rain - planted three rows sprouts one row red cabbage - peas ready soon. The cottager now has a laying queen with capped brood already.

Sowed three different spring Cauliflower varieties Medallion F1 Hybrid crop Feb. to early March, St George crop April May, Wainfleet Early April. Maybe a bit of overkill -- now hoping for rain

2002

May 19th 2003 I took a frame from the 'cottager' hive (it will be after tomorrow) and put it in the hive of the virgin queen. I will take a look in a few days to see what the results are. The other hive in the allotment has got a queen in from last years mating although she is currently laying in a super rather than a brood frame so I have now switched the two boxes and put the brood frame above the super. It is to be drawn out as they haven't touched it so far.

May 17th Yesterday was a warm sunny day as the forecast promised and today is still pleasant even though the sky isn't a cloudless blue. Today my month of waiting to check the hive with the (hopefully now mated) virgin queen. No signs of egg laying so what to do next? Put a frame of brood in from another hive. That will entice the queen to lay or start the whole process of again. The allotment needs weeding the young weeds that are pulled up then go into the liquid feed dustbin that is now providing a steady supply of liquid feed that today was given to the onions, shallots and sprouts.

May 14th 2002 The wind fell away by the evening. Yesterday was wind and rain as promised by the forecast, but not as much rain as one would wish for (with our sandy allotment soil we are always wishing for more rain than we get). This evening I planted out another row of John's red onion seedlings. I thought that some of my Japanese onions looked OK until I had a look at his. He grows on a raised bed system and planted out the seedlings in the autumn. They make mine look underfed and definitely underdeveloped - and I gave him the seed in the first place. I will have to pay attention this year if I'm ever going to claim that I know my onions.

Geoff and I moved a hive of bees from the apiary to his new allotment plot down the end by the South facing fence. These bees are going to go into the 'cottager' hive and are the most mild mannered of all of my bees -- so the queen, who is in her third year now, is the one I want to keep breeding from. I am awaiting until the 17th or there about to see if her grand daughter has made it back to the hive and successfully mated. I only have one daughter and one granddaughter from her so far and want get some more daughters before she is too old.

2000 Friday 12th The day had been sunny the evening was warm and still. A chance to check over the bees in the allotment, who seemed surprisingly calm on opening. I left them last weekend with loads of space in an attempt to prevent them from making queen cells and swarming. I had a shock when I got to the supper that was full of honey (now next but one to the brood box) - or so I thought. Because it was full of honey I hadn't checked through every frame for the last couple of visits. A big mistake. Several of the center frames had well capped brood comb in them and there they were, two right next to each other, well developed, sealed, queen cells.

On checking the brood box there were plenty of newly laid eggs on the second frame in and on going through the frames there was the queen. There were many queen cells in a variety of stages of development. I decided to remove the frame with the queen cells and rubbed out one that wasn't as shapely as the other. Next year at this time I will be prepared with a complete new hive. I wasn't prepared for this I had to improvise with less than perfect spare bits and pieces intending to sort things out the next day, Saturday.

Saturday didn't work out that way and it wasn't until Sunday afternoon that I got a spare brood box to the allotment. I housed the queen cell that I had removed on Friday, still on a shallow supper frame. I had a look through the brood box and had the feeling that all wasn't well as I looked for the queen. There were new eggs in new queen cups but I didn't think she was there.

Leaving the allotment, I had to take another trip to the apiary, to check the hives there. The small hive that hasn't had an egg it so far this year was still without eggs but there was the earliest beginnings of a queen cup. For the third time this year I switched a frame with the 'Cattier' hive next door. These bees were not appreciating the help of a full frame of eggs and were angry for the first time this year.

I had a much better experience with the 'Cottager' hive. There all was well and normal just as it should be. Two of the three suppers were filling up well with honey and the queen (small and dark and marked green) was there to be seen and laying. The few queen cups that were, still had no eggs in them.

After an hour or so of weeding I returned to the allotment. On the way I had decided that Queen was definitely missing from the allotment hive and that I might as well put the queen cell back with the main hive. Deciding to do one last check I found the problem. In all my checks on the last three occasions when I was looking for queen cells I had still missed one! There, as large as life, was another capped queen cell. No wonder she had decided to leave and no wonder the hive was full of drones. Defeated I moved the super that had had the eggs laid in it to the secondary hive intending to increase it's compliment of bees. Now, all I can do is leave well alone for a month, and hope for the best.

Spring is leaving the garden and it's time to start planning for the summer. Several bags of very well rotted horse manure have been brought in. And large quantities of white comfrey has been dug up and taken up to the allotment. Even the front of the garage has had it's dead leaves from under the hazel nut trees cleared up and made into a potential hedgehog hide out. It's too near the road to be a nest, I think.

The tasks in the allotment are now increasingly, hand weeding, watering and liquid feeding. Weeding carrots has to be done with great care and if possible in very unpleasant weather conditions. I think the best conditions for weeding carrots is a cold, wet, windy evening when the carrot fly is inclined to be keeping it's head down.

Carrot fly is unavoidable in an allotment situation all one can do is try not to attract them before the carrots are ready to harvest. Once one carrot is pulled they will be in there, laying eggs and in no time the carrots will have maggots in them. Commercially you could pull the whole row, but in allotment, we want to pull them as we need them. I think fleece is the answer and one day I will buy some.

The next few weeks should be dominated with planting out - lets hope it rains!

1999

May 16th 1999 Planted out marrows, sowed more runner beans and repotted geraniums after winter storage. More hoeing, weeding and feeding.

May 15th 1999

Just a perfect day After the rain of the last few days the the sun was out all day. No excuses could be made to stay inside on a day like this.

Weeding, hoeing, weeding. The garden has turned, in the last few weeks, into a mass of growth and finding space for the plants bought from Rosie's charity plant sale means pulling up fading wallflowers and any dandelions that had made a space for themselves in the flower borders. It doesn't feel like we are going to get any more frost this summer and the bedding plants have been staying outside for some time now and are beginning to find a permanent home in the flower borders.

In the allotment I dug up the tulips under the apple tree, more because I wanted to get rid of the weeds, than because the tulips tops had died right off. Sowed yet more radishes instead as I still want to have clear ground when the apples are ripe.

I've begun to liquid feed, starting with the onions, shallots, garlic and strawberries. Dug the spare ground for the primula's temporary home. Will try and move them the next time it rains