Get a grip woman!

trix-a-belle

I'm glad your leak has been fixed, we now have a new one that I spotted on my way out yesterday. Reported once I stopped, notification while out that they were then heading to check it & saw the van finishing up when I came home & it had received the ominous blue paint then phonecall shortly after to say it had been escalated and should be fixed within 3 days believe that when I see it but it conveniently has burst just a day after they have finished fixing 2 in the village up the road.

What a shocking attitude from the seller, at least they have no longer cost you anything, sadly just time and effort to chase them.
My evri delivery person tries to make the same sarky comment everytime he delivers to me so they are really not my fav either.
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to find some garden materials I needed at a much cheaper price in one of the independent garden centres I passed by and popped into than the big orange or blue warehouses.

Suffolk_lass

Yes, we are off to the local Harrods (pound store) to look for bamboo canes this morning and if not, I will get what I need from a local independent.

Snagged myself a TGTG bag last night from Morries and managed 3 nets of oranges (!) I will slice, box and freeze some for cocktails but I might get some more eggs and make a few of those orange, courgette and carrot cakes I made last week as I'm told they freeze well (without icing). It also included a pouch of pre-cut Basil leaves so I will be making pesto when the current supplies in the fridge need replenishing.

Thank goodness my occupational pension was paid yesterday. I was down to under £30 after the first of the month DDs had been taken. My Tilly Tidies have reduced a fair bit now too. All feeling a bit tighter financially. We have DH's car service and MOT this month and DS's too (both Jazzs).

Suffolk_lass

Mad and non-stop "stuff" here at the moment. Washing is completed, dried and put away, although I will do the white stuff having added towels overnight on night tariff electricity.

Bees cannot find forage. It is so dry here there is hardly any nectar so we have added feeders. The first lot of sugar syrup went in 12 hours. My goodness they must have been desperate. More made and filled up the feeders again and DH modified one of the roofs and a vent as wasps were getting in and out through gaps too small for bees. There are just so many wasps. I really hate them at this time of year
Garden produce is almost full time to tend, tie, harvest and process at the moment.

Money? a bit dire. My credit card goes out in the next 2 days and that and the electricity DD will wipe out the balance in the bills account. I just directed the maturing RS to that account. That will be on or about the 20th. Phew. Thank goodness that got put to one side.

I ordered the flooring for DS's kitchen (we are responsible for that) and some water based adhesive to make sure it sticks). While DS remains Covid Positive we can't get on with that job (and would not in the heat tbh. We agreed to have the same in the bathroom on the floor as the while tiles have had it. The white ones owe us nothing. Literally the cheapest available and have lasted five years. So these are not the cheapest but still budget ones. Fingers crossed they are as durable. I added white gloss and some waterproof white paint to repaint the bathroom as part of a little facelift. The shower will be steam cleaned and then the glass will be treated with one of those car windscreen sprays that stops the water (and soap-scum) sticking to it. I must go, the cat is muscle-ing in on the keyboard

trix-a-belle

I was going to ask how your bees are, one of the guys up the road has lost 4 hives from his batch, partly they are starving & partly wasps. The wasps are definitely desperate too, i've done a bit of garden tidying today and found several dead dotted around & a few following me too closely for comfort probably hunting for any moisture going.

I hope DS hasn't got the lurgy too badly

Merlin's_Beard

I never thought of bees starving in the heat, but of course. Is there anything non bee keepers can do to help local populations?

LadyGnome

You can water your flowering plants if you have any and if you have herbs that look like they are about to bolt if you can let some of  them do so that helps.  We also put out dishes of water with stones in so the bees can get water to keep the hive cool.  The forage situation isn't so bad here in London as urbanised environments tend to have a wider mix of flowering plants.  As a longer term strategy plants like malva and borage are pretty reliable.  I've noticed our bees foraging on the borage even though it is quite close to the hive along with a variety of other types of bee.

Currently the wasps are distracted by the fig trees as there is enough over ripe fruit to keep them going but I am going to make some wasp traps this weekend out of old plastic bottles.

Suffolk_lass

Yes, @LadyGnome knows this stuff! My preferred wasp traps are cheap full fat cola with a bit of crumbled minced beef or cheap burger in the bottom half of a pop bottle, with the top half, minus the cap pushed in upside down. I accidentally bought sugar free pop and not a single wasp but the second attempt, using leftover simple sugar syrup from bottling gages, worked brilliantly and there is an inch of wasps in there.

The top tip is a birdbath of water with a few pebbles in or a plate under a dripping garden tap or hose for water. In addition to watering to promote nectar in flowers (washing up water is fine if you aren't too liberal with the detergent), bees and wasps will be attracted to sugar syrup (hence that is what beekeepers feed them) they will "finish it" in the hive by storing it in brood frames and capping it, but when forage is low, they will consume it very quickly when the colony numbers are high in summer (50k bees is an average colony)  while 20k is the average a colony needs through winter, summer gaps are very dangerous for them.

foxgloves

That is all very interesting information. I'm going to make a pebble bowl today, as suggested. We are still watering our veg garden but have cut watering flower beds down & are using bath water. I've bailed out 8 or 9 cans onto the front courtyard beds first thing. I planted those with bees in mind - buddleja, cosmos, salvia, lavender, etc, but the clear winner among the bees is echium 'Blue bedder'. Easy annual to grow from seed, long flowering, attractive & there's never a time I walk past it without seeing bees. Agree with the recommendation to let herbs flower to help bees. I always cut what oregano I require for drying, then let it flower & it is covered in bees. They also like the flowers on our bronze fennel. 
Re wasp traps.....that reminded me of being at my Nana's house when I was a little girl. She had a cherry tree & to save her precious crop from wasps, she used to put a tablespoon of jam in a jam jar, add about 3cms of water & attach a lid made from foil punched with holes. She'd hang these around as decoys & the wasps would fall for it every time. 
F x

Suffolk_lass

Thanks @foxgloves. The Echium is in the Borage family. Like you, we have let mint, thyme, marjoram and mint flower to help pollinators. Clover has been fantastic at the farm but is too dry to be providing nectar now. Bramble just about flowered but the berries are mean round here this year (except the ones next to the potatoes, where they benefitted from leaking irrigation sections.

Other things that are good to plant (normally) are Russian Sage (Perovskia blue spire), Borage or Phacelia, also in the Borage family (because the nectar replenishes really quickly) flowering lime trees, late summer rudbeckia. Also popular here is variegated porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata elegans) which is a really pretty, slightly tender climber. Wasps also love this though. Bees "see" blue more easily than red so I plant lots of blue, violet, purple and white. Other pollinators benefit too - for instance bumble bees are great for tube shaped flowers

foxgloves

I didn't know Echium was from the borage family, @Suffolk_lass. I do have a few self-seeded borage plants which pop up every year, but have never grown Perovskia blue spire. I always think it's an attractive plant when I see it, so maybe it's time to find room for a clump. We must be doing something right re various bees, as our new bee box on our front courtyard only went up in May & already has more than half its holes occupied. The old box out the back on our pear tree is full of leaf cutter bees & we have tawny mining bees turn up to nest in our lawn each Spring.
I do like to see a healthy insect mix in the garden. We have lots of ladybirds atm who are hoovering up the blackfly on our french beans.
F