Sutton Mawr Farm Bed & Breakfast

Thursday, 9 June 2011

Thursday morning hive inspection

It's really important to inspect hives on a weekly basis to avoid the bees swarming - not good as you not only lose the old, laying queen, but you also lose half your bees.

Today was a beautiful day and it was a pleasure to be out with the bees. The two hives I inspected with Vicki, were calm and happy and very productive. The queens in both were laying well in a beautiful ovaloid pattern surrounded by pollen, nectar and capped honey for use in producing the food the developing larvae are dependent on.

We are busy building stock on this site. So, over the last two weeks, we've isolated the productive queens and split them away from the rest of the hive. The two hives that are now queenless by design, will have drawn down queen cells from larvae of the right age by now. One hive is a week ahead of the other, so the virgin queen should have emerged. With the poor weather over the last week, today would have been the first opportunitiy for her to attempt a mating flight so hopefully when we inspect next there should be evidence of eggs.

The second hive should have a queen cell in the final stages now, ready to be capped for the final stages of development before emerging next Friday. Hopefully if the weather continues to be good, there should be evidence of eggs in a fortnight to three weeks. Fingers crossed.

These, plus the two 'queenright' colonies make four on the site, with room for development later in the season.

For those of you buying honey from Mark and Vicci, you should know that my honey kitchen has been awarded 5/5 after a Food Hygiene inspection. Furthermore, the Regional Bee Inspector for Wales has done an inspection on one of my apiaries and there is no evidence of disease in my hives - hurrah. After all the hard but gratifying work to survive a harsh winter, early spring and now the June gap, here's hoping that we have a good summer so that the good work can continue positively.

The June gap is where the Spring flowers have stopped flowering and the Summer flowers haven't yet started. However, there is some blackberry and some clover, and poppies are a good source of pollen. If you can spare a patch of garden and you don't mind your lawn having some clover in it (heresy, I know!), then bramble and clover will live happily in many situations. Besides, picking blackberries later in the year and cooking them in a pie with apples is one of the highlights of my Autumn, reminiscent of my childhood with real shortcrust pastry made from scratch - yummy.

Jeannie Hainsworth Lamb

8th June 2011

Today we decided to clean out the free range chicken sheds. It was a massive task as there was evidence of red mite. Red mite is a very common insect which lives in the nooks and crevises. Every year you should remove absolutely everything from the shed, remove all debris. Two shed took 12 man hours. They are now as clean as the day they arrived. We put down some herbal parsite prevention power and sprayed all the woodwork.

In the middle of this major operation, we were visited by Ashgrove School. They were a great bunch of boys and they were soon picking the eggs

driving the tractor....

and picking up the chickens..

we finished with feeding the piglets. Jamie and Micheal are coming again next week, which we are all looking forward to.

Tuesday, 7 June 2011

7th June 2011

I sheared the last sheep on the weekend, with the help from Denise. It made a massive difference having someone holding the sheep. First, I tried to shear them on their back, then I tried them standing up, which was so much easier and kinder on your back. Below is a photo of the last ewe I sheared, and I have to say I am quite proud of it.

Now I can not wait till next year, to try again....

We are sending all the wool up to Hull to Pat who will work her magic. I know what my family will be getting for xmas..

The Elderflower cordial has be resting for over 24 hours, we know need to filter off all the solids and bottle. It smells delicious!

Sunday, 5 June 2011

5th June 2011

Early start this morning, the guests doing the Dragon ride needed breakfast at 6.30am. Vicci did aga porridge. Fat free and great for releasing energy slowly over the morning.

The Shaun Griffith team.

Nick Hopgood and his daughter

We had a few families staying at the farm, so we arranged a tour of all the animals and the kids collected all the eggs.

Today we are going to prepare edlerflower cordial. So I have cut 50 heads of elderflower mixed it with a boiling water and sugar syrup along with citric acid. It needs to be left for 24 hours. I will let you know how we get on.

Saturday, 4 June 2011

4th June 2011

Yesterday we had Share Forrester here, who is doing the Iron Man in Tenby. This consists of a 3 mile swim in the sea. 120 kilometer bike ride followed by a marathon. She is 52. Lovely lady but must be a bit mad! She will be doing a trial run this weekend so good luck.

We are full at Sutton Mawr this weekend. Today we have to change over all but one room, so it will be a bit manic.

We have Nichole Lehmann staying with her husband Robert and mother in law Joy. They have enjoyed 3 lovely sunny days here and are going today. They live on Vancouver Island and are doing a quick tour of Wales. Last night they stayed in the Gyspy Rose and had the best nights sleep of the holiday!

Very romantic, not with the mother in law who had a luxury room to herself.

It is the Dragon Ride tomorrow. I did it 3 years ago. It is 80 miles or 120 miles depending how brave you are. It comprises of 3 massive climbs. The countryside is beautiful, the hills are painful! We have a few cyclist staying with us. So breakfast will be extra healthy and early.

We have the Wong family staying from Singapore. Who have come especially to Sutton Mawr to be close to the animals. Where they live there is no chance of visiting a farm or seeing farm animals. The kids thought that chickens came from the supermarket!

We had our first honeymooners. Emma and her husband stayed 3 nights. With the weather being so fantastic they could of mistaking thought they were in the south of France.

Darling Darcy to be known as Henry now left today he has a lovely home with the Cole family locally. All upset again!

Bertie also left Wales today for Victorias's sister Charlotte in Suffolk who has taken a sabatical to bond with the little thing and enjoy her young family over the summer. Think he is going to be very spoilt.
Sure both Henry and Bertie will have lovely homes and we hope you enjoy them we miss them terribly already.
We only have Flower left now so she is lapping up all our love and attention.

Friday, 3 June 2011

2nd June 2011

Today was lovely with a slight breeze and rising temperatures - ideal for the bees. They could fly after a week of wet weather. This means that the boys (drones) can fly to their mating areas and the virgin queens can be mated. The mating flights are the only flights a queen will make (other then swarming) and the first sign that she has been successfully mated will be eggs in the hive, laid in the middle of cells in the comb. Beautifully little grains of 'rice' signifying the survival of the colony.
I recently took some honey off the hives and Vicci and Mark have some for sale if you'd like to try it. It's primarily from Rape, with a texture like toffee and a taste that bursts on your tongue. It's too precious for cooking as it's little filtered and cold extracted so as many of the pollens and oils remain intact as possible - just as nature intended. Great in porridge or even by the spoon - yummy.
If you'd like to more about the bees, just let Vicci know as she intends to run some courses and come and share my passion for these wonderful, fascinating creatures. Otherwise, follow this blog on Thursdays after I've inspected my colonies on the Farm.