Cherry Time!

At this time of year it's always interesting to see who (or what) can get to the cherries first!
We have had a few days away and not thought that there would be any cherries ripening yet. But when we walked up to check the moth trap a couple of mornings ago the birds were already feasting on the slightly under ripe cherries.

And this is the problem- the birds take them before they are ripe so picking them early means they don't ripen at all, the tree is now too big to net so it's a bit of face off!

So, over a period of a couple of days we have picked all the ripe cherries we could safely reach, leaving the others to the birds. We still rescued about 11lbs and faced the delicious task of deciding how to consume them!
Our go to recipe is always a clafoutis, a firm favourite now whenever there are cherries to be had but a more recent recipe is a delicious cake passed on from daughter Rebecca from the cookbook "Honey and Co" by Itamar Srulovich.

Cherry, Pistachio and Coconut Cake

100g sugar, plus 20g for the topping
90g light brown sugar
180g ground almonds
30g ground pistachios
45g desiccated coconut
50g self raising flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp ground mahleb
150g melted butter
3 eggs
300g cherries
50g roughly chopped pistachios for the topping

Heat the oven to 170 degrees (fan oven).

I use an 8 inch square cake tin with a loose bottom for this but the recipe suggests a 22cm round tin.

Mahleb is the ground up kernel of a cherry and not that easy to get hold of but I used a mixture of almond extract and vanilla extract which apparently gives an acceptable alternative.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, pour over the melted butter and mix in the eggs and extracts. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and  smooth the top.

Remove the stones from the cherries- we have a handy gadget to do this but you can just cut them and use your fingers, as there can be a fair bit of juice it's good to do this over the cake batter so the juice goes into the mix.

Put the cherries on top of the cake mix and sprinkle with the sugar and chopped pistachios.

Bake for about 40 minutes, turning it after about 20 minutes. check the mixture is golden and firm to the touch and allow to cool in the tin before removing from the tin.
I have frozen the cake in slices and it seems fine after thawing.

A delicious cake, very easy to make, that has become a favourite with us!

Shetland Bumblebee

Recently we were lucky enough to spend a week on the Shetland Isles. We had been before about 12 years ago and had a great time. This time it was slightly later in the year but we still hoped to see the birds and wildlife that the islands are famous for.
Having become more conscious of the impact farming, especially grazing has had on the countryside it made a real impact on me that the landscape in these islands is completely shaped by the sheep that are found almost everywhere. The result of this is very little diversity in the way of wildflowers and so the resulting insect life, in particular bumble bees. The nature in Shetland website lists only 4 species found today in the islands and although the weather is probably a factor to limit the number of species, sightings of any pollinators were few and far between.
Nature in Shetland suggest the decline in bumblebees over the past decade may be due to agricultural practices, it is difficult to see how this can be reversed if agricultural practice does not change to improved enrich the range of plants allowed to regenerate.

Shetland Bumblebee

The "Shetland Bumblebee" occurs only in shetland and the Western Isles.

www.nature-shetland.co.uk/brc/bees.htm

There and Back Again! Drone layer or Laying Workers?

OK so it's been nearly 3 years since my last post but I have not been idle!
Mostly the absence has been because of technology issues and not being bothered to sort them out, but now hopefully they may be resolved and I'm going to give it another go!

Bee news- over the last 3 years I have been desensitised to bee stings and we started keeping bees again in the autumn of 2014, in a lovely new apiary at Cordwood thanks to the generosity of Jill, Rob, Judith and Roger.  We had a good year in 2015 with no swarms and collected some lovely, welcome honey.

This winter we successfully got 3 colonies through the winter, having sold one, we had 2 good colonies to start this year with.

Now, in June, we have artificially swarmed these and should have 2 colonies with last year's (blue) queens and 2 making new queens (white).

However, as usual the bees don't always do what they should and in one of the blue queen's hive we found this.....

This new frame has all drone brood - as well as being a real mess!

The only way this happens is if the queen becomes a drone layer- which means she cannot fertilise her eggs any more so they are all male (drones) or if for some reason the queen fails completely and the workers begin to develop their ovaries and lay eggs. If this happens the worker eggs are all unfertilised as well so will be drones!

It's a bit complicated and disappointing to find as it usually means the hive is not going to survive1

If the brood is still orderly and neat then the queen is usually to blame but in this case the brood is random and as one beekeeper friend commented a bit like "the craters of the moon". The culprit here is in all probability laying workers. As if to confirm it we also found brood in the supers (where the queen would not be) and multiple eggs in each cell.

Not very clear but some of these cells have 2 or more eggs!

The solution sounds a bit barbaric but otherwise the hive will just slowly die out.

The advice is to smoke the bees well, take the hive some distance away and having removed all trace of the origin hive on it's site, shake all the bees out.

Smoking the bees encourages them to fill up with honey, so when they fly back the bees in the nearest hive will let them as they are bearing gifts! Apparently laying workers can not fly because of their developed ovaries!

Well the bees were duly shaken out and let in the nearest hive with no fighting- this hive is very full now, so we shall see how it develops from now through the summer!

Beekeeping

On a recent visit to Attingham Park near Shrewsbury we came upon this old way of keeping bees in this bee house- the bees are in Skeps- a traditional woven basket - originally the colony would have been destroyed to collect honey at the end of the season, but here the beekeepers are trying a method using removable combs!


After a slow start to the bee honey bee season here in Notts things don't seem so bad- although I have no bees of my own this year I have been going to the apiary at Woodthorpe Park - things have been more settled than last year and it looks as if there will be a reasonable crop of honey from these urban bees. My injections are going well- no real reactions - so looking good to return to beekeeping in the future.
The bees I passed on are building up well, which is good to hear, this is the photo I took of the yellow queen in that colony before they went to their new home- she is not too clear but you can see the yellow dot that marks her as last year's queen!

In the field of opportunity.......

It's harvest time again!

The strawberry bed yielded a great crop this year - enough for jam and picking for a good 6 weeks with the odd everbearer still giving a few.

Still struggling to find a good setting strawberry jam but used redcurrant juice as last time and a very gentle set- but still lovely with croissants or on scones!

The cherry produced over 7 kilos of fruit- so a mass freezing, sore fingers from stoning and a search for new recipes- clafoutis always a favourite but cherry and almond pudding and hot cherries with cherry brandy and spices was lovely too.

We have had great success with broad beans, french beans are just beginning but onions only mediocre and garlic pretty pathetic again this year.
Potatoes so far- Internation Kidney and Charlotte good yields but Kestral huge potatoes and a good weight - hope these store well for jackets in the winter!

I made Elderflower Cordial again this year , and rather than waste the lemons and limes decided to try marmalade with them after the soaking and draining- what a success- I used a basic recipe and was slightly worried that because all the fruit was there it would produce a bitter result, but I pulped all the fruit in the blender and used that as the starting point, cooking the fruit with water then adding the sugar and boilling until setting point was reached.

Hot Bed

When we demolished the shed we saved as much wood as we could ( don't like to see any waste!) with the intention of making cold frames and raised beds . During the prolonged cold spring we made  a start.

The sides were made from old walls - easy enough to cut to size and the sides of the cold frames just cut through at the angle we wanted the cold frame cover to be.

The covers were simple frames that we covered with reinforced polythene kindly donated by Rob as a by- product of the building of Cordwood . www.sustainablegarden.blogspot.co.uk

April 2013

With what was left we made a " hot bed" - the sides about 2 feet high and filled with a mixture of manure, leaf mould and compost. The idea is to generate heat from below as the contents rot down and the plants get a good boost. We set seed in this bed - salad leaves, herbs, salad onions and beetroot and the results have been great, we have been picking leaves and herbs for nearly a month with plenty more to come.

Hot bed   - April 2013

The cold frames have really helped us get tomatoes, courgettes, squash and other tender plants off to an early start . The other cold frame we have used to plant up squash to see if it helps bring fruiting on earlier; one of the problems we have always had is the short growing and ripening season for squash.So in this bed we have put - Crown Prince, Golden Hubbard and Musquee de Provence, and because they are in a frame I have been checking for female flowers and giving them a helping hand to pollinate- just in case the bees don't find them!

May Sunshine

I know it's a long time since I last (I want to say set pen to paper! ) wrote an entry on the blog, but we haven't been idle in the allotment or garden. The first of May is officially the beginning of summer and the weather rose to the occasion- lovely and sunny although a slightly chilly breeze. After such a cold start to spring I reckon the gardens are about 3 to 4 weeks behind last year. The weather has been so cold there have been hardly any flying insects to pollinate the plants so it's just as well they weren't out sooner.
Our new cordon fruit trees are just beginning to shoot and in the garden the greengages and cherry are flowering; and luckily we seem to have an influx of pollinators -a mixture of bumble bees, solitary bees and other flying insects. This year of course we have no hives in the garden but still have seen some honey bees.

The spring time is my favourite season in the garden, I love to see the fresh new growth and early flowers. This year we are rejuvenating a couple of areas in the garden and have made some changes in the allotment, of which I am aiming to get up to date with soon on the blog! 

February Orchids in Flower

Orchids in flower this month in the house!

Dendrobium kingianum

Maxillaria picta - fantastic fragrance

Coelogyne ochracea

Cordon Fruit Trees

For Christmas this year we bought ourselves fruit trees- last year at the Southwell Apple Day we had been tempted by two apple trees, so it seemed a good idea to add some pears as well and build a frame work to grow them as cordons. The frame is simply made with fence posts with wire at 2 foot heights .

Cordons are grown at a 45 degree angle and the spurs are kept pruned so the trees only fruit on these short   spurs along the trunk. If possible the tree should face north or east to encourage the short spurs to turn to the sun, so obviously tip fruiting trees are unsuitable as each year the growing tips will be removed. Pruning is carried out in August time, the spurs are cut back to either 2 buds- or about 4 inches long. The growing tip is rubbed out when the tree is between 6-8 ft and kept this height.

The trees are supported by bamboo canes at about 3 feet apart. The pears we got were bare rooted so we put them in straight away, but the apple have been in containers so these will go in during the next week or so .

The pears are on Quince C root stock and the apples on M9- we choose Beurre Hardy and Concorde pears- these give different fruiting qualities, will help to pollinate each other and spread out the harvesting time.The apples are Pixie- a small fruited apple but with a good flavour and Reinette d'Orleans - a heritage variety that has a russet look to it, apparently it can be variable fruiting but the flavour was great so we thought it would be worth a try.

'Chitting' Potatoes

A couple of weeks ago we collected our order of potatoes for this year- usually we plant them on Good Friday which this year is the 29th March, quite early in the growing season so we shall have to see how things progress. However the process of 'chitting' the seed potatoes has started- they have been placed in old egg boxes with the best looking 'eyes' or potential shoots facing upwards to the light. We put them out of the way in the spare room so it is cool but getting the light. Gradually green shoots develop and begin to grow until they are ready to plant out

Although there had been rumours of poor quality or scarce seed potatoes for this spring ours seem fine; we have gone for old favourites:

International Kidney- a lovely new potato that we have found develops good sized tubers if left in for longer and is great for jackets.

Kestrel-  a good all rounder

Charlotte- a waxy salad potato that has stored well for us.

Cara- we have not tried Cara before, but last year blight was such a problem that this variety that claims some resistance seemed to worth a go.

Things to do with wax

This year we have for the first time used a home made solar extractor to melt down wax to show - May 2012 - we were successful in getting good clean wax that only needed filtering and setting in moulds , it smelt and looked great. We weren't just biased because we won the wax categories at our local honey show and the Moorgreen Show this year. It was a lovely surprise to find that a trophy went along with this success!

I love the smell and feel of the blocks of wax and have used it to ease sticking wooden drawers - but it takes a lot more skill to make things like cosmetics or polish with the wax. Not surprisingly it also involves some legislation if these products are to be sold or used by other people- so this area takes some dedication. We have only dabbled in using wax for obvious things like candles, wax blocks and like other bee-keepers cleaning up wax in order to swap it for new foundation.

Christmas Cards

This year at the December meeting of  NBKA, Linda Jordan generously handed out Christmas themed moulds of wax- these gave an idea for another craft idea- Christmas cards. These are simply double mounted on card with a loop which enables the decoration to be removed and hung on the Christmas tree!

Fudge and Florentines

It is always good to receive hand made presents so this Christmas we began to think of treats to make - we love chocolate and we have honey so it is logical to think of combining the two. This recipe for Florentines adapted from  Nigella Lawson was delicious -

Honey  and Almond Florentines

100 grams flaked almonds
1 tsp. chopped peel
2 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. honey
2 tbsp. plain flour
150 ml. double cream
100 grams dark chocolate

1. In a heavy pan, melt the butter, sugar, and honey until smooth. Stir in the flour to form a paste, then remove from heat and whisk in the cream. Once the mixture is smooth, stir in the almonds and lemon peel.

 
2. Drop heaped tablespoons on the mixture on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof, leaving lots of room between them as they will spread. Bake at 190 C  for about 5-8 minutes, or until golden on the edges. Leave to cool for a few minutes before lifting, gently, with a palette knife onto another tray to cool fully. 

3. Once the florentines are cool, melt the dark chocolate then spread the chocolate on to one side or dip half of the biscuits in to the chocolate. Allow to set before serving.

Needless to say these did not last long and we made a few batches for Christmas!

Another recipe adapted from Nigella was for fudge- not true fudge but delicious and easy to make.

Chocolate and .......Fudge

350gm dark chocolate

1 tin ( 375gm) condensed milk

30 gm butter 

pinch of salt

150gm of flavourings

Melt the chocolate, condensed milk , butter and salt in a heavy saucepan until melted together.

Add flavouring of your choice- we tried cranberry and chopped macadamia nuts, sour cherries, and crystallised ginger ( in different batches) .

Pour in to a 23cm square tray lined with foil ( makes it easier to lift out) and leave to set in the fridge. 

Cut into mouth sized pieces.

The fudge needs to be kept in the fridge, but I made bigger batches and froze some as well so it was easy to make up gift bags - cellophane bags tied with ribbon and a tag- these made ideal gifts for Christmas.

Winter Wonderland!

It's funny how a fall of snow makes such a difference to the landscape- it all looks very pristine and clean out there. We have had a few days of snow- laying deep and crisp today it was an obvious invitation to get out there. Most weeks since the bees have moved to Woodborough we have walked over the fields to check them out. After an initial plod on the roads it is a lovely walk down the fields with a view towards the Trent valley in the distance. A bit misty to start with today but it soon cleared and the walk back was cloudy but better visibility.

We had great views of  flocks of field-fare, a green woodpecker, sparrow-hawk as well as the usual corvids and wood pigeons. These Jacobs sheep are always in the field at the bottom of the hill - today they were just standing in a line and were still there on the way back!

The beehives looked fine, last time we had been we hefted the hives to see how heavy they were- the 2 that had always been small colonies were still light but the others felt reasonable. Today we just wanted to check the entrances weren't blocked with snow and everything appeared fine- its impossible to know what's happening inside .We just have to hope they have enough stores and are not too cold to move to them.

Sometimes in snowy weather bees think it is bright outside because of the glare on the snow and come outside only to get too cold to get back inside- there were a couple of bees in the snow but no more and all the entrances were clear, so things are looking as well as they could be for now!

Compost Corner

The recent wet weather has meant we have been unable to get on the ground at the allotment so we are pleased that the compost bays were complete before a stream began to flow through the middle of the plot.

There are four bays allowing for rotation and turning, leaves are delivered to the allotments in the autumn and these along with layers of manure compost down in about a year or so. Leaves on their own give good soil conditioner but not much nutrition so mixing them with manure gives a good all round finished compost.

In to the other bays and 2 black bins go annual weeds, trimmings and prunings and some of the compostable rubbish from home. Along with the wormery we are doing fairly well in cutting down what we ahve to throw away!

Mead

Unlike some bee-keepers this year we had a reasonable crop of honey, especially considering the bees didn't settle to any normal pattern of behaviour. But some of the honey we had taken off late this year was still 20% water, usually we hope the water content goes down to around 18%. The higher the water content the honey does not always keep so well and may ferment- we have had a couple of jars look a bit doubtful so decided to check out the others and use them before they went the same way- the obvious thing to use them for was to make mead!

Like many people our age (!) we had gone through a home brewing stage and at the back of the cupboard under the stairs we have a cluster of demijohns and a box of wine making equipment. So really there was nothing to lose! Out they came and were sterilised- new wine yeast and yeast nutrient were bought and a simple recipe found.

After reading a lot of recipes I decide to just try a really simple, basic one:-

1.5 kg honey
1 tspn yeast nutrient
1 tspn wine yeast
Water

Heating the honey with cinnamon and cloves

I heated the honey with a litre of boiling water until it reached 140 F and kept it there for about 25 mins- this was to kill the natural yeast which can be unpredictable flavour-wise. Then I left it to cool down, added the nutrient and yeast, gave it a good shake, poured it into the demijohn and topped up with filtered water. I made 2 batches, one of them I put a cinnamon stick and a few cloves in as I heated it- just out of interest to see if it would pick up the flavours.
 Just in case the fermentation got too vigorous I put the demijohns in the bath so it wouldn't make too much mess!
After about half an hour they were both bubbling away and today- after 24 hours , not overflowing but steady and strong! It seems that it is now just a matter of time to wait while the fermentation stops, then letting the wine clear and racking it off - all of which will probably take a few months- I need to find somewhere else for the bottles to go for now though!

New Shed

Once the old shed had been demolished the tricky bit of levelling the site remained. Luckily Mike and Eileen were there to help - a big thank you to them both for their help in taking down the new shed from its old plot, moving and re-assembling it on Plot 87!

It makes a big difference- there is potentially more space at the top of the allotment- we hope to open it out and move the blackberry and tayberry to have a bit of standing ground for plants and maybe a potting bench- all plans for the future. We have already started work on the new compost area at the bottom of the allotment and hope to get the new cordon fruit trees in before too long. 

On the bee front - all the hives seem busy whenever we see them, I am not completely happy that the supplies they have taken in are going to be enough, we have hefted the hives to gauge the weight and will keep a close eye on them to see if or when feeding will be necessary. Some of the colonies were very small which is an added concern, we shall just have to wait and see! I have had my 2nd dose of venom in the de-sensitisation program and so far no problems!

Shed Demolition

So this week the shed demolition began- it looks old, rotten and ready to go -but whoever put it up had made a good job, using 6 inch nails all over the place!

Windows gone and stripped out.

The corrugated tin roof did not want to come off - but we hope to use it in a new compost area.

Just missed the greenhouse, but mostly down!

It took nearly 2 days to get to the cutting up stage- luckily the association was having a tidy up of other gardens and a fire was planned and we were able to burn all the bits that were rotten or couldn't be used again. The next step though is probably hardest- clearing the ground and levelling for the new shed- watch this space!!

Autumn on the Allotment

Over the past few weeks we have been fairly busy - a relaxing holiday in the Cotswolds with Gemma, followed by a lovely  visit from Rebecca, Adam and our Grandsons.

Another Cotswold village!

Sherwood Forest

The bees have been treated for varroa and fed until they seem like they're full- oddly the hives we have experimentally tried feeding with their own honey don't seem to have taken much down and we are not sure why. Some of the colonies were quite small as they had decided to re-queen late in the year- they have taken stores down but still have space to keep warm with fewer bees- it remains to be seen how they will fair over winter. The weather has been mild and every time we have visited them they are busy flying- lots of ivy is flowering nearby so they will have been collecting this to add to what we have fed them.

When we took over our allotment plot about 7 years ago there was a resident shed- slightly at an angle and the sort of arrangement often seen on allotments - 2 sheds cobbled together!  The general consensus was that it wouldn't last long! Over the years though it had settled and stood it's ground. This autumn though it was leaking, our seed had been eaten and we decided to replace it. to look at you'd think it could be pushed down but the shed wasn't going to go without a fight!

Moorgreen Show

August Bank holiday must see lots of local agricultural and horticultural shows around the country- in Notts the Moorgreen Show is the popular one.

Usually we are away visiting family, but this year we were at home so we had the chance to enter the honey show and we were keen to have a go at wax. We had good results earlier in the year with our solar wax extractor- recently the weather has not been as sunny so results have been a bit hit and miss, but there was enough wax to try and make the 6 one ounce bars needed to show.

Results - we entered the Light Honey, Set Honey and Wax classes , first prize for wax, and thirds for both honeys. The next show is Lowdham at the beginning of October- I am hoping to enter honey, wax and cake!

(Note   : I wrote this post and scheduled it on the 24th August so not sure what happened here, but this post seems to be out of the timeline!!)

Bee Holiday

Today the weather is awful- rain and windy- so we can't get out to work in the allotment or garden, it's a baking day, as well as spinning the last of the honey this year and melting down the wax.

In preparing the bees for winter we had taken off the last super and started Apiguard treatment to combat Varroa - this takes a month to complete and then it's time to make sure the bees have enough stores to see them through the winter, so usually this means feeding to top up the stores. Last year we didn't have to feed the bees in the garden they managed fine to fill the hive- urban bees have the luxury of lots of late garden forage. Bees in the countryside often struggle unless there is Himalayan Balsam or ivy flowering nearby. Feelings are mixed about ivy as forage- it can set very hard in the comb meaning that the bees may have trouble accessing it when needed.

Himalayan Balsam

We had begun to unite our hives and our intention was to go into winter with only 4 as last year. Unfortunately - as the saying goes sh** happens- and while working with the bees about 6 weeks ago I got stung. Not unusual you may think for a beekeeper, but this time I had an anaphalaxic reaction and ended up in hospital, with a 'don't go near bees' and an EpiPen from the doctor.

So Trev, along with some fantastic people from the Notts BKA have taken over looking after the bees in preparation for winter. Ultimately it means that we will have to have a holiday from the bees - I am hopeful that venom immunology will work for me and that it will not be too long before I can work with the bees again, but it will be at least a year from what I understand so we are looking for new homes for them in the spring.