Get a grip woman!

foxgloves

I really enjoyed reading about the swarm, @Suffolk_lass. The old days of me fancying myself as a potential bee keeper have long passed........I think I just got a bit over-excited when a friend offered me a load of bee-keeping equipment he no longer uses. It all sounds like a lot of hard work to me & not without its dramas, but I love reading about other people doing it.
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Suffolk_lass

@Merlin's_Beard "Question from a clueless: how would you march bees into a hive?"

More bees
Once the bees accept that the hive you have put next to the box or skep is a suitable destination for the swarm they signal to the others by fanning (bums up and wings fanning) to say "this way" and then they move. Here is a short video that shows it better than I can explain it. Once the queen is in there, they will all follow. In our case, instead of that round entrance in the video, we have put a queen excluder above the entrance that we will remove today (QE is a mesh panel, with a wooden frame that is the same size as the hive dimensions, that has holes too small for her to get through), just until she has settled down and started laying.

Today we will go and put a syrup feeder over them to give them an easy source of food and water to help them draw comb (as all the frames are new foundation) without them having to fly in the rain. I have just made up 6 litres of thin syrup (4 litres of water, 4 kilos of granulated cane sugar) - I have not added thymol solution (which stops it going mouldy) as they should use it immediately over the next few days. Just because I have none made up and none made.

So the bees were moved at 10.00 yesterday and we opened the entrance up. They will orientate to that location and use the stores they filled up their tummies with to start producing wax and draw the flat sheets of wax foundation, so the queen can start laying. It is a good idea to let them use what they already have before we feed them as this will reduce the possibility of disease (we think these were ours though so we believe they are healthy.

I went to the farm house and took two QE with me to see what they are up to. I inserted QE between the different boxes so I can determine where the Queen is. I had larvae in two of the three boxes but they were not happy, and so I stopped looking for eggs and closed them up. Then I was followed for ten minutes by angry guard bees and our dog was stung in the ear and on the leg. DH was holding him too close by. Dog was given half an antihistamine wrapped in pate to reduce the itching and irritation and he had a very quiet day after that, only perking up at walk and then bed-time, as they do

Suffolk_lass

Yet more bees
With the weather threatening I ran over to the swarm to feed them before dog walk, only to discover they had absconded. This happens. My fault for only having new foundation in the box instead of at least one frame of ready drawn comb. I will have to move some bees over there now, as our neighbour thinks he has them. It happens. Bees don't read books, as they say.

I had already been and collected my wrist band for the forthcoming agricultural show where I will be helping, and I have that to look forward to.

Gardening
I quickly weeded a couple of raised beds in the veg garden and then I found a Queen European Hornet in my greenhouse - DH took her to the woodland nearby and released her onto some bluebells so that she had access to nectar, to feed on. It is far too hot in my greenhouse now and she would have died. I had to come in then as the dog had a little panic when something buzzed near him again and he insisted he needed to be on me (I was on a low stool, weeding paths). Thank goodness DH planted out the strawberries I bought just over a week ago, so we have 12 in a freshly weeded bed, and a collection of stragglers in the neighbouring bed. 

There is so much to do out there, I need to intersperse it with beekeeping every day really. All my squashes are germinating at the moment, and I will need to pot on the pumpkins, as their roots are out of the bottom of the pot already. I need to plant dwarf beans in the soil and runners and borlotti beans in the soil and in pots, now the seed tray covers are free. I also have sweetcorn I could try in the ground, but often the mice get them. 

All the gooseberries and blackcurrants have set fruit, there is loads of rhubarb and a modest amount of asparagus (enough to have pac choi and asparagus from the garden, steamed with our burgers and mash for supper last night). The apple trees are in full bloom now and I can see hedgerow plums have set fruits too. Just loads of weeding to try and catch up with

Money
In money news, the follow-up to DS separating our mobile accounts with EE at the end of March is that last month I went from paying for both, to paying nothing, and today I have paid £2.98. I was expecting to just pay about £10 for my phone and for DS to be paying for his. They are hopeless, and I still can't speak to them as when they combined the numbers into linked accounts, they put them in DS's name, being paid from my account. Apparently (according to the call handler), they want me to send my marriage certificate and a letter we must both sign, to separate the accounts. Good grief, and why my marriage certificate?

foxgloves

I am also feeling very behind with the garden, @Suffolk_lass. Rain forecast here from about 11am, so I was out at 8 planting out cerinthe & echium. I'd planned to do a bit more later but have now heard I have a parcel arriving, so will have to stay in or v close to the house so as to hear the door. No indication of delivery time so bah to that. If I can, I'll resume planting out but not as hopeful as I was.
More bee drama for you. Interesting about the hornet. Things do rock up in greenhouses now & again. We once had an enormous privet hawk moth & a wood wasp in ours, though I seem to spend quite a lot of time rescuing bees. They go in, enjoy having a browse among the plants, then seem unable to find their way out, even if the door is wide open.
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P.S Marriage certificate for sorting out mobile phone contract seems well OTT.

slm6002

Similar situation with silly companies.  I changed my name due to divorce and therefore my email address.  British Gas can not just transfer it to my new email, oh no they need me to set up a third email address to send the new email from before they will change it.  It is bonkers.  I have told them I will not get reminders from them then as not doing that

Humdinger1

@Suffolk_lass I had a similar couple of conversations re proof of name.  One with a life insurance co, the other with a bank.  I had to point out that important as they were, life insurance co was demanding more proof than the passport office re original marriage certificate rather than a copy.  In the case of the bank, I had to state that while money laundering was serious, it was not more so than child trafficking...setting up a pocket money account for my daughter when we have different surnames.  Common sense prevailed in the end but oh my goodness, the officiousness of some people over 'rules' that can be varied as I pointed out. Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx ps adoring the bee talk

Suffolk_lass

Haircuts this morning. I will shower as soon as I get home as I always itch like mad - it is a dry cut and I end of with hair dust in my hair, on my scalp and down my front and back, impregnated in my clothing! I want to inspect the bees in the garden again and take swarm prevention measures so I will report later

Suffolk_lass

No bees as they get ansi when it is going to storm, and it was!

A bit of fundraising preparation (advert, emails, messages and a chat). Pleasing that seven couples are already on my list for the fundraising event.

We spent too much in the garden centre when I was sure it was about to rain (it didn't, but it was threatening, and waited until DH raised dog's walk expectations, before it did!) Dog got his walk and I got the replacement pelargoniums for those that failed to survive the winter this year (they often do). I noticed quite a few of my chimney housed terracotta pots have frost blown too. Nothing recently purchased, but wet, followed by freezing seems to cause them to flake. And their contents fail.

We have the national collection of creeping wood sorrel here. God how I hate it. It wraps itself around other plants and weakens them, spreading by deep tap root, brittle stalks that snap and multiply, creeping stems that regularly drop another tap root and seeds that explode. I wonder that the whole of Suffolk isn't covered in tiny bronze leaves and innocuous looking little yellow flowers.

The cleavers (sticky willies) are less invasive this year but nettles, bindweed, St John's Wort and Periwinkle are all more invasive, but they have nothing on the milk thistle and the creeping thistle this year, along with brambles. All rather depressing.

I booked a train ticket yesterday. I used the local train company web site and chose the evening out fare. I had to refresh my password as it has been a while, and I realised my old JL credit card would no longer work so elected to pay using Paypal. What I have is a booking for 1st December, instead of 17 May, for a different price and different train times. After a long conversation with the web (not very) support team this morning, I have emailed with screen shots of what I should have got and what I received, asking for a refund. Naturally the tickets I have since bought could not give me seat reservations on the same trains so it will be pot luck. What a PITA

Time to go and be calm and zen in my greenhouse now, since it is piddling

themadvix

How annoying about the train ticket - I hope you can get it sorted.

The weeds do seem to be loving this warm and wet weather (as do the toadstools, which is ridiculous for this time of year!). My allotment plot is looking a mess, mainly because my bad back has meant I've had to severely limit my weeding. Fortunately, because it's no dig it doesn't take long to get it tidy again. But it'll only be temporary as the mare's tail is just never ending (and the bindweed and couch grass). We really need some drier weather!

foxgloves

Our worst garden weeds here are bindweed (both varieties) & hawkweed, which spreads in a similar way. Cleavers (goosegrass) is a nuisance but neighbour removed a load of it while digging out the old hedge prior to the new fence, so it isn't as bad this year. 
I once read a letter in a gardening magazine from a reader who said she liked an unknown yellow wildflower which had appeared in her garden so much, she'd propagated it & planted it liberally throughout. The photo supplied showed it to be hawkweed. Aggggh! I remember thinking "You will never ever be free of it".
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