Hopesay Glebe Farm

Bees and the warm autumn

2011-11-22T03:41:00.000-08:00

Last week the hive in our garden, a self positioned swarm had pollen loads coming in, presumably from remnant Ivy flowers. Although if this weather keeps going for much longer we will have spring plants in flower and Rhubarb growing. We already have grass growing at a rate close to that of this summer (slow).

All is fine for the animals and vegetables, the leeks are growing well and the tunnel crops are developing quickly.

The bees though are a worry, warm weather means bees will be active and consuming honey stores possibly rearing young so eating into pollen supplies.

So what to do? Feed and potentially stimulate more activity or leave them and risk starvation? The answer I think is to check all and feed were needed, there may be some increase in activity but the coming cold weather will soon put a stop to that. we are going to get some cold weather aren't we?

Organic production and morality

2011-11-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

The economist Shaun Rikard has stated that Organic production is morally indefensible, on the grounds that we are impeding progress, by holding back the introduction of GM crops. Which presumably he sees as the savior of conventional agriculture and therefore the human race. (Farmers Guardian 20 Oct 2011)

I am astounded that Mr Rikard has pulled out the moral argument, talk about venturing on shaky ground.

The basis of his argument typically ignores the inconvenient fact of peak oil. We as food producers cannot ignore the implications of diminishing oil stocks and the resultant impact on food availability and cost.

The economic advantage of conventional agriculture over organic production depends on the availability of cheap oil based inputs. These financial benefits will disappear as the oil price rises.

80% of an average arable farmers costs are oil based compared to around 20% for organic production it is not difficult to see with a doubling or more in the cost of oil that organic production systems start to approach parity

It is surely the height of folly to put all our efforts into a system of production which relies so heavily on one finite and diminishing resource.

Commercially released GM crops to date have increased the dependency on petro chemicals, they are not a break from oil based agriculture but a continuation along the same track producing evermore intensive growing systems. Resulting in the consumption of increasing quantities of oil based inputs.

Organic production while not free from the use of oil (tractors, poly tunnels etc) reduces massively the reliance on oil, improving rather than diminishing our food security. The moral imperative must be to invest in forms of food production which provide at the opportunity grow food in an oil poor future.

The moral imperative must be to investigate and develop food production techniques which enrich peoples lives by the quality of produce and by an equitable share in the income generated.

The new lambing year starts here

2011-10-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

We are breeding only from 10 Hill Radnor ewes this year, and aim to slowly build our flock from our own replacements. Once the present Tup's daughter ewes are over two years we will replace him with the young ram we are bringing on at the moment.

Hey up, who's this

The new kid on the block, our tup is introduced to the ewes for the first time since last autumn.

A quick getting to know you time

And we're off, a new season starts

Job done, nice green mark on her back shows all is well. One down 9 to go.

It is important now not to run the ewes around for about two weeks or they could loose the embryo before it is set.

Bees ready for winter, almost

2011-10-04T05:03:00.000-07:00

Every year at this time we boost the bee colonies stores by giving addition stores we give the equivalent of 15 lbs of honey to each colony to get them trough to Feb when we will give them another 5lbs each. This winter feed we find very useful in preventing starvation and giving the opportunity to do a winter check on the health of the colony.

All our hives have these frame feeders in all year round (seen here on the right of the brood box) As a result we don't have any problems storing bulky feeders and if we have a sudden starvation issue we can feed at a moments notice.

Also in a hot drought summer (remember them?) I can feed water which prevents workers being taken from foraging duties to collect water. thereby reducing stress on the colony.

Feeding the bees is finished for this year, we use Api-invert which is a pre mixed liquid with a sugar levels roughly equivalent in weight / concentration rates. We buy it in pallet tank loads of 900 or 1300kg. A significant advantage of using this pre mixed sugar solution is that it will not ferment even if left in the feeder.

All our colonies are now reduced to one or two boxes now with some of the smaller colonies put into 5 frame nucleus hives.

Just one more job this year, to treat all colonies with Oxalic Acid for Varroa. This will be done by applying 5 ml of sugar solution oxalic mix to each seam of bees in the brood box during late November or December.

Hill Radnors ready for the tup

2011-09-30T04:53:00.000-07:00

Just one more week and we put the tup in with the ewes, this time we will only put the Radnor ewes our Radnor Tup. Last year we tried a Lleyn Radnor cross but were disappointed with the results. We were hoping for some hybrid vigour with the resultant lambs but their growth rates were less than the pure Radnors.

The ewes and the Tup are both on our best pasture in an attempt to 'flush' the ewes and so improve conception rates. We recently had blood tests done which showed up a Selenium deficiency which we have rectified via a Selenium injection.

As we have such a small flock we don't have teasers,( sterile rams which help to bring all the ewes into season together) so we have kept the tup and our ram lamb in the field next door in the hope of synchronising the ewes seasons. Next spring will tell.
Millie as always is keen to help with the final sorting of the Ewes before the tup goes in, once he starts serving the ewes we won't move them for a few weeks. Any disturbance at that initial period before the embryos are set can result in loss of the embryo and the ewe will be at least one complete cycle out from the others.

Bees, Queen laying pattern

2011-09-28T03:30:00.000-07:00

The bees have started flying again, we've just had 4 weeks of cold dry weather and the bees have reduced foraging to the extent that in over half my colonies the queen has stopped laying.

As soon as this happens I always try to feed all colonies firstly to stimulate laying for a supply of young wintering bees and a lack of laying can be a sign of starving bees.

Well I fed last week and this week I now have only 2 colonies not laying, one with a virgin who probably won't make it and the other looks OK and will probably start in the next few days. So things looking good so far on wintering the bees

Laying Hen problems

2011-09-21T04:48:00.000-07:00

Unsuspecting hens

What do you get when you mix the above with the below? In our case it is 2 dead chicks and an ongoing headache. These beauties are pure killing machines and could present a serious threat to our Laying Hens enterprise.
They are also protected so even if we wanted to we can do nothing to interfere with them, Not sure how we deal with this one, we can't allow the hawk to establish a pattern of hunting our birds but we cannot take any direct action on the bird itself.

Image from: http://savewesternwildlife.org/wordpress/183/

I think the way forward is to provide low shelter in which to feed the birds and put up a scarecrow and have human and canine presence until the killing stops. We shall have to see..........

Seasonal update

2011-09-09T05:58:00.000-07:00

Been a long time since my. last post, so a bit of an update on where we are, the photos are from a visit by a friend in Shrewsbury who offered to do a poster design and print that can be used in the market hall.

The vegetable crops have been acceptable this year, poor growth rates due to the dry and cool conditions we've had this year but they have just about bulked up in time for harvest. That is apart from the Cucurbits, we sowed all the squash, marrow and courgette left them in the tunnel to harden off..../every last one was bitten off just above the soil level, a complete write off. You have to accept some failures every year.

Chickens so far progressing well, we raised all our replacements from day old's again this year and have so far had no repeat of the sheep dog attack of the past two years. Egg sales are also keeping up but feed costs at over £500 per tonne stop us making too much profit from the birds.

The sheep are progressing as planned we put 8 Radnors and 7 Lleyns to the Radnor tup and got 22 lambs, the Lleyn cross have been a bit disappointing with poor growth rates but we have been very happy with the pure Hill Radnors. As a result we will convert the flock to all Hill Radnor's this year.

No Bee related pictures but the bees have been struggling this year without any sustained period of plus 25c temps so the harvest has been mediocre, somewhat down on last year. On a bright point we have acquired three extra colonies as swarms who helped themselves to out empyu boxes, one gave a crop of over 60lbs welcome in a poor year.

we will set to work soon preparing them for winter and topping up their winter stores.

Spring in the vegetable plot

2011-05-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

We are getting good early growth this spring with conditions good for cultivating and planting, established plants such as Rhubarb are growing well putting on weight.

The season is running about three to four weeks ahead of what we have come to expect. The spring is hot and dry which so far has progressed things well.

But the soil moisture levels are dropping and without rain in the next week or two the growth of many crops will be compromised. Already we are seeing slow growth rates on the pastures and poor establishment on seeded areas, both pasture and green manures.
Tunnel crops relying as they do on artificial irrigation are going along nicely but with a tendency to run to seed quickly.

The season has started much dryer than previous years so we hope to get rain to stop many of the field crops getting stunted, and the pastures burning off.

Beekeeping year so far

2011-04-26T04:44:00.000-07:00

Started this year looking good for the bees, then lost 10 colonies due to Woodpecker damage during the very cold part of the year. Also couple went due to lids blowing off and chilling the hive. I've fed Fumidil for Nosema in Feb as outlined on the label.

In what was my best site checked in mid march I found 10 colonies dead from 17 seen two weeks previously, the medicated feed untouched in many hives classic symptoms of Nosema cerana. I've seen this in two other sites in previous years, could be that the disease is spreading north west taking apiaries in its wake.

The season since then has been very early, colonies building up rapidly in the unusually warm and dry spring, I,m hoping this will give the the opportunity to split the larger hives and make up some of my numbers. I've starting cell raising before April 23, earliest ever so providing the weather holds we could make up some of the ground I've lost, time will tell.

My first breech

2011-04-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

Was left at home with toothache while Nicky did the market, she left our latest ewe giving birth to what I thought was twins, both healthy although Nicky had to intervene due to a "leg back".

So this novice was left with the after care of mum and babies. Then the ewe produced a bag, Oh oh, I think this means another lamb. Still should be OK provided there is no complication then that is probably be fine provided its not a breech. Quick check, just a tail.... its a breech
OK the main thing is not to panic, luckily my son Sam has just turned up. He being a joiner also has no experience of lambing.
We check the book, get the gloves, soap flakes, warm water, iodine and take the book to the shed.
With Sam holding the ewes head I get up close and personal with the ewe pushing the lamb back into the womb so I can bring the two back legs pointing outwards and delivered her out backwards. All was well she was soon up and suckling after some encouragement. Just to be certain that she had colostrum, we made some up and fed her from a bottle.

What a buzz my first difficult delivery and we were duly delivered one healthy ewe lamb that otherwise would not have made it.

Some of the earlier lambs out and about with their mothers.

More Hill Radnor lambs

2011-03-25T03:48:00.000-07:00

We had this pair yesterday, two of the tiniest lambs I have seen.

I'll be interested to see how they get on, I've heard that they can be born small but develop well despite this.

Nicky put them in the shed last night thinking they were too small to survive the night and tried to give them a supplementary feed too boost them. But they were having none of it and mum who is a first timer was getting a bit stressed so she left them too it.

In the morning all three were in the middle of the field looking fine.

We are bracing ourselves for a rush of lambs this weekend and next week, typically with our busiest week of the month with the monthly Moseley Farmers Market on Saturday.

Lambing has started

2011-03-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

The first lambs of the season and the first pure bred Hill Radnors born on the farm. These particular lambs were bred by Juliet from Ystrad Organics two healthy boys.One of which depending on how they develop may become my stock tup in a couple of years.
I got way too excited by these new arrivals as they mark the new flock and a change over from the more commercial Lleyns to rare breed Hill Radnors. This will give more options with local outlets. She lambed unaided and the lambs were up and moving around before we got in to check them. All we had to do was dip the cord in iodine and leave them to it.
The Radnor lambs are born with a thick covering almost felt like which would protect them against almost any weather.
Although the mother is very defensive the lambs are very trusting and are quite unpeturbed by being picked up and handled.

2011-03-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

Millie has continued with her training, now just over 2 years old she is driving well, flanks are OK but could be wider and her fetch is acceptable but she needs to keep a back off the sheep more. Seen below I stopped her on the drive to avoid the helter skelter run and chase you get with the dog trying to catch the sheep and the sheep running faster to keep in front. She will (hopefully) get to understand that she can control the sheep from a distance.

Millie has got to the stage when she can help me with the sheep on a regular basis, you can see her here 'walking the troughs.' When we start feeding the ewes before lambing they become less repectful of the shepherd and can be a problem trying to get to the trough before I've finished putting the feed in. Millie keeps the sheep back until I've finished putting out the feed.

Forced Rhubarb

2011-03-11T06:44:00.000-08:00

For the fisrt time we tried forced rhubarb under the propagation bench.
We had some success but had too many thin shoots which don't sell so well. Next year we will pot up the roots after lifting and giving the right amout of frost this will allow us to water more effectively so providing better growth rates.
The roots will be divided and grown on for pot sales in the autumn.

Propagation season

2011-03-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

The seed sowing season is going full rate now, onions are done lettuce shallots and leeks are being completed. We increased the capacity of the propagation bench and have surrounded the whole thing with white polythene. The result is that we can grow on 20% more trays with the same number of lights. We aim to maintain a temperature of about 15 to 20 C and use only incidental heat from the lamps. These burn 20hrs per day.

These onions are sown 3 to a cell which gives us the right size of bulb for our customers, and being from seed we can store them through to April.

Winter on the Farm

2011-01-18T04:42:00.000-08:00

We had the hardest winter I can remember here with -18 or 20C on several nights.

We lost several Tunnel crops, all the early winter salads and the Celery the main casualties. Outside the Late Sprouts suffered from frost damage and the Purple has given up. Leeks came through OK but we lost about 10% with outer leaves damaged on the rest reducing weight by another 10 to 20%.

The Sheep came through unscathed but ate about a third of our winter hay store in 6 weeks, glad to say they are eating a good deal less now the weather has warmed up. We hpe to have them scanned in Feb with any barren ewes going for Mutton.

The bees have suffered mainly from Woodpecker damage, this can often happen when it is so cold that the bees can't fly and see off the Woodpecker as it raps on the side of the hive. I have plastic frames so once inside they do little physical damage but the colony rarely survives.

I was totting up the ways I've lost winter colonies over the past few years they are:

Varroa & viruses

Poor queen mating previous summer

Nosema

and Woodpecker damage

Can't wait till next year and see what novel ways we can loose colonies.

Changes at Shrewbury Market

2010-11-03T03:23:00.000-07:00

As Shrewsbury has become our main income stream we have decided to attend all four of the full trading days. This means two extra days at the market and the opportunity to change the layouit of our stall. Below is the old stall taken in Oct this year.
So far we have built a small tiered shelf seen below which gives a better view of the produce and more display space. With the aded advatage of giving more space behind the stall for scales, bags etc.
Our next job is to change the price labelling of the produce to which end a friend and customer has offered some help, more on this in a couple of weeks.

Last vestiges of summer

2010-10-29T06:30:00.001-07:00

Taken before the last heavy frost, these Asters are providing a late season forage supply for our local Butterflies.
The warmth of the summer season dictates the range of species we have here we can see Red Admiral, Comma and Tortoiseshell.

Hill Radnor flock expansion

2010-10-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

First view of the farm

I just spent a very pleasant Sunday afternoon choosing and buying four additions to our Hill Radnor flock. The William's near Brecon, Wales have what must be one of the largest flocks in the country. We chose a fine yearling ram who had been shown as a lamb consequently he is amazingly easy to handle (once caught). I was putting on his raddle harness before loosing out with the ewes and he stood stock still. Trying to fasten the buckles around his chest was like hugging a giant ovine teddy bear.Our new tup, big hansom chap all dressed up ready for action, he has made a start already and has covered one of the new Radnor ewes.

We picked up four ewes to go with him, this added to the three organic in lamb ewes we ordered for Feb 2011 will get our flock off to a better start after last years problems. Will update on progress

The Radnors settling in with the rest of our sheep.

Autumn in the Apiary

2010-09-23T02:51:00.000-07:00

A common frog making his or her living around the base of the bee hives, no doubt eating fallen workers and drones dropping around the hive base. As son as he saw me he moved between the hives out of reach. These trees are at the entrance of one of my Shropshire sites Crab Apple and Viburnum, Wayfarers Tree. The whole feel of the season now has turned autumnal and the bees have responded.
The Drones are all gone I have seen three hive with drones, which usually spells trouble in the form of a queenless colony or with a virgin. Both mean the colony will not survive the winter so have to be united to make use of the bees and stores.

Wasps can be a problem but this year we have had very little trouble only seeing an attack where a colony is queenless or otherwise weak. Below you can see a wasp being ejected by a worker. A strong colony should be able to defend he entrance even though none have been reduced as is the custom in UK bee keeping.

There is some flying going on, it is noticeable that all my colonies in Shropshire and Herefordshire are bringing in nectar from the Himalayan Balsam, Impatiens glandulifera (I think). This is a garden escape that is rapidlt taking over river banks and damp areas across the region and country. Its an ill wind as it provides much needed nectar and pollen for pollinators at a time of scarcity. I will try and remember my camera next time I visit a site where it grows.

These are my final visits to the bees before the winter treatment for Varroa and Nosema, I gave them a final feed that's four in total since taking the honey each feed is about half a gallon. I will feed again in February when I will include Fumidil B for Nosema and will treat for Varroa in December with an Oxalic Acid drizzle. Final count this year is 45 colonies going into winter. Lets hope we get better survival this year.

Millies first go with the whistle

2010-09-15T04:53:00.001-07:00

Millie's first introduction to the whistle, not that interested in the house. will have a go outside.

I am using a standard shepherds whistle which goes inside the mouth when blowing, takes some getting used to. You need to develop your whistles for stop,come here, left, right and walk on. there must be consistency with each whistle command to avoid confusion for the dog.

So far after one lesson she understands stop and come here and responds much quicker to the whistle than voice command. I suspect that she is finding it more interesting to learn new skills.

Compost problems

2010-09-07T05:37:00.000-07:00

We have been having problems germinating seed this year, especially lettuce so decided to do some pH tests. We used a standard pH and nutrient testing kit which uses liquid a pH test reagent.
The picture (sorry its a bit fuzzy) shows the various materials we have used. The second from the right is the ready made organic Coir based compost which is a very acid pH 4.5. This may explain the poor germination.

We have in the past experimented with mixing our own compost using Coir and our own sterilised topsoil. We tested our batch of top soil which came out at about 6 to 6.5 pH which is OK for our uses. The soil will to some extent act as a buffer holding onto moisture and nutrients while the seedlings are still in the modules as well as neutralising the acidic effect of the Coir
A small batch of our intended mix was made up and when tested it came out at pH6.0 which is perhaps a bit acid so we will by adding lime at about 50gm per 40 litres.
The other additives are perlite which both come out at about pH6to pH6.5.
The results of our pH tests, the mixed compost is extreme right showing pH about 6.5.

Queen cells have gone out

2010-08-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

I aim to replace most of our queens this time of year using the supercedure impulse. At this time of year many colonies will replace an older or poor performing queen by raising a single cell, allowing it to hatch and mate resulting in a young healthy queen to go through the winter.
The method I use tries to replicate this by placing a sealed and protected queen cell in each hive which will hopefully be accepted by the colony as their own. The virgin then emerges from the cell, mates and I have young queens going into winter.
This system has a fail-safe in that if the virgin fails to emerge and mate we still have a viable queen established in the hive.
Not the situation when replacing existing queens with new mated queens as the resident queen has to be removed or destroyed before her replacement can be introduced. So any acceptance problems of introduced mated queens will result in a queenless colony.
The bar of cell cups before grafting, six days before they are installed in the colonies.
Each cell is wrapped in tin foil to prevent the colony ripping out the side of then cell and destroying the larvae. We have used electricians insulation tape but stopped when a local bee keeper lost three batches of sixty cells due to some fire retardant on foam he was using. I suspect that electricians tape will have some fire retardant so decided not to take the risk.
When installing the cells I open all the hives on the pallet, fill the feeder then prise apart two frames in the centre of the brood nest and push the cell in, put the lid back and jobs a good'un.

The success rate of this method will vary according to the weather but I estimate it to be between 50% and 75% of cells introduced becoming mated queens.
Will check again in three weeks and any colonies without a laying queen will be united for the winter.

Just a quick check

2010-08-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

As usual on a Thursday I was in a rush to, check the Hereford sheep, pick up the additional items for the market, collect chicken food from Batchley Mill then up to Shrewsbury set up the market and back for tea at 7. Bit late setting off should have just enough time arrive at Stoke Prior 2.30pm

So First stop Millie and I walk into the orchard to check the sheep.

Away she goes rounds up the sheep ready to be checked, OK seven healthy sheep no lameness,scouring or other obvious problems, that's good ....except, there should be 16. Nine sheep gone. With a rising pulse rate I check all the fences no holes, they must have been nicked.

The thing is to keep calm do not panic... a whole 12 months worth of sheep work lost. Check the neighbouring field. That's clear only another farmers sheep about 1/4 mile away 9 in a 20 acre field. Wait a minute 9 sheep in a massive field,the little buggers have legged it and taken up unauthorised residence in a neighbours farm, look pretty relaxed for gate crashers.

Off we trudge Millie rounds them up narrowly avoiding mixing them with a flock of 100 sheep in a nearby paddock, we get them back by lifting the fence line and pushing reluctant ewes under, a temporary job on fastening the fence down. Now what to do, can't leave them here or they will be off before the morning. The only option move them to a secure field before the night is out. Time now 3.00pm

Plan one off to the owner of the field and borrow his trailer and move the sheep now, just changed my mobile so don,t have his number. Nothing else for it I'll have to drive up there and talk to him. Needless to say he's gone on holiday and the house sitter doesn't have a key "don't worry he'll be back next Thursday" she helpfully suggests. Next Thursday they will be halfway to London by then. Wasted time now its 3.30pm

I know Batchley Mill have a trailer I could pick up the fruit from Phoenix Organics, as usual they are well organised and I get loaded quickly and then hot foot to Batchley pick up chicken food and the trailer move sheep jobs "a good un". Arrive at Batchley load feed but no sign of John or Mary so no trailer. Time 4.00pm, market closes 6.00 so need to be there before 5.30 to have time to unload

Plan C go to Shrewsbury set up as planned (although time is running out) and borrow Ken's trailer from the village. Call him, no answer leave a message hope he's not on holiday.

As fast as legally possible drive up to Shrewsbury Millie is loving this rushing around and chasing sheep. First thing to go better than anticipated arrive at Shrewsbury market 5.15 so enough time to unload.

So back home cup of tea to keep me going then with Nicky over to Ken's to hook up his trailer, but not before he shows us his Downs cross lambs now 7.30pm. Right we're off the Stoke Lacy, pick up the sheep still in the field thank goodness and over to drop them at Butford. Back home to put the chickens away (late) at 10pm. Not bad for a quick check.

Extracting finished for another year

2010-08-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

I have completed extraction for another year, here is our Thomas 12 frame radial extractor I chose it because it had the biggest motor while still being able to take it through a standard door. Its bolted to a 2' wooden platform for stability and takes about 4 to 6 minutes to extract a full load. Allour honey is stored in 10litre tubs which take about 30lbs each.
We had about 90 full depth supers this year , slight improvement on previous years and have extracted a total of 1,500lbs over the season. The honey season was shaping up to be a good one this year but July all but failed completely, judging by the supers I put on at the end of June which were all but dry.
We use standard Langstroth boxes throughout our operation, most of which are plastic which is much easier then making up wooden frames but can be quite hard on the hands when extracting. They are also very robust, I haven't had a single frame break this year for the first time. The wooden frame you see there has a a plastic foundation sheet rather than wax.

Vegetable update for July Aug

2010-08-11T03:34:00.000-07:00

The season is now moving from weeding and planting to harvesting and seed sowing for autumn and winter crops.
We have finished harvesting our garlic which we have been selling as fresh bulbs, they will continue for a couple of weeks then we will be selling them as dried bulbs until they run out. This is our first year growing garlic, we've found them much more popular on the market than the bought in bulbs and we've been pleased with the quality and size of bulbs. Next year we will grow more in the tunnel to get the earlier crop as well as the outdoor bulbs.

Leeks are progressing well the variety on your right is Hannibal on the left Atlanta, Hannibal is a late summer autumn crop while Atlanta will hopefully take us through to April next year. We used bio mulch gain this year but we are concerned that late summer rains are not getting to the roots so are considering using a woven mulch next year which will allow any summer rains through to the crop.
Onions have suffered from mildew this year, the first time we've experienced this. The bulbs have however reached a reasonable size so we will harvest them as normal and hope that they keep for long enough to sell them.

Film about Haitian sustainable development

2010-07-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

This may be if interest to those supporting sustainable development. Click on the title or this link for the introduction and pitch for the film.

http://www.vimeo.com/13301985

Sheep and dog

2010-07-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

Millie bringing the sheep to me at Stoke Lacy, she is still too fast and close but is improving slowly. The main problem is with the "Lift" when she gets the sheep moving, the sheep tend to get spooked a little and start a helter skelter movement with Millie in hot pursuit.But she is slowly getting under more control. To the extent that she can keep the sheep close too while I check for fly strike or lameness, so far as you can see we have kept clear. We are using an organic fly repellent based on garlic and haven't felt the need to use harder chemicals such as "Vetracin" which is allowed under organic rules with a derogation.
Close up they are looking good, they will probably go over the winter months for mutton to a local butcher.

Shrewsbury Market

2010-07-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

This is me standing on my stall at Shrewsbury Market. Since the decline of Farmers Markets we have concentrated on the retail market in Shrewsbury. Every Friday and Saturday will find me stood here selling our wares. The advantage over farmers markets (apart from the falling trade at farmers markets) is the option to sell bought in produce and even imported fruit and vegetables as seasons dictate. The farmers markets in our area are monthly or at best twice monthly which restricts the build up of trade by preventing a regular weekly shopping habit.
The weather has been the best for four years and for the first time in that period we have been able to sell courgettes with the flowers for frying with tempura batter or stuffing and deep frying.

One of our favourite lines salad packs picked fresh every morning, they have proved very popular with our customers at all our markets.

Beekeeping

2010-07-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

So far so good with the bees, the warm summer has provided an improved spring crop on last year 300lb as opposed to 200lbs last.

The big harvest comes at the end of July and is so far looking good, things could yet change but if the weather stays fair we should considerably improve on the past three years yield.

Some hives are looking very good this is after I took 20lbs of each of these hives.

Thinking about developing the bee side of the business next year I will have to treat for Varroa (as usual) and Nosema which took about a third of my colonies this year as well as reducing the viability of a good number of others. I suspect we have had the relatively new disease Nosema cerana for a couple of years which would explain the poor spring build up as it kills adult bees so weakening the colony with no obvious symptoms in the hive.

So in addition to treating for disease I am going back to splitting hives in spring before they start thinking about swarming. I have been using checkerboard techniques to spread the brood and provide an open brood nest but in a big swarming season like this year it is rubbish at controlling swarms. So I will split as soon as I can put 3-1-1 frames in each split brood- food-pollen, then introduce queen cells into each half. If I find the queen I will make a nucleus up with a single frame of brood as back up.

Update sheep

2010-07-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

We have had a mixed year with the sheep, only one lamb we suspect that the tup is firing blanks. But that lamb has shown us that early lambing is both possible and preferable avoiding as it does the really busy April period when the bees and vegetable are demanding attention.

The sheep are all sheared in timely fashion the local sheep by Ken while an organic farmer friend of mine did the sheep in Herefordshire.
The hay is in and stacked safely in the barn via my trusty truckMillie of course provided proper supervision, she loves being involved with everything on the farm. Special mention to both Bryony on her way to Manchester and Mark who runs Setonaikai.co.uk in Shrewsbury, who came all the way to south of the county to help load and stack the bales before the rain.

Bee Inspection

2010-05-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Monday the bee inspector checked all my hives (about 50) every frame was gone through all suspect cappings checked. One was suspect (had a ropey consistency when pulled from the cell) and was tested for American Foul Brood using a new testing kit similar to a pregnancy test.
The larvae is macerated in a jar of ball bearings four drops placed in the kit the wait for 2 minutes. One line is clear (control) two lines is infected. That's the longest 2 minutes of the day. If positive hives will be killed and the hive parts burned or sterilized. After two minutes only one line so we are in the clear.
I got some good advice about losses in my Bromyard apiary we seem to have an infection of Nosema, which kills the adult bees in the spring. I have lost 17 out of 20 colonies in that site. But next year I will be better prepared.
Nosema is a strange organism with characteristics of both a bacteria and a fungi. There are two strains, N.apis which ahas been around for many years and the new kid on the block N. cerana which seems to be responsible for many colony deaths in the USA and Spain. It is normally treated with Fumidil B, but I expect I am too late for this year. We live and learn.
The main thing is that I have a clean bill of health on the brood disease front.

Saturday Sunday

2010-05-18T03:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday the second and final market of the week, again at Shrewsbury Indoor Market Hall. Similar pattern to Friday. Up and picking vegetables: lettuce, spinach, spring greens, rhubarb and salad packs.
Millie has an eye infection so we have to attempt to hold her down to apply the twice daily drops, she looks a lot better now.

The markets are holding up well at the moment with both Friday and Saturday meeting targets.

Sunday church in the morning followed by checking out some new grazing for our small flock of sheep. Otherwise a quiet day apart from feeding chickens collecting eggs and checking watering in the tunnels.

Friday, market day

2010-05-14T10:38:00.000-07:00

Up at 6.00am, harvesting lettuce, spring greens and rhubarb, Then off to the market and carry the produce from parking spot to market about 1mile. Seriously underestimated the weight of rhubarb. Spent the day on the stall not a bad days takings, then delivered three peoples shopping on the way home.

The other half picked up 25 day old chicks from Cyril Basons', they will be placed under a broody hen when it gets dark. Then had to take Millie to the vets with conjunctivitis, she came back with green eyes

Thursday Sheep bees market

2010-05-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

First thing John came round our part time help and he started planting the last of the onions, that job all finished now except that there is a serious patch of Couch Grass invading the allium beds which will have to be hand pulled. Millie helped move some sheep who had escaped into the wrong field.
After organising a visit to check Mum in laws new chair I picked the spinach for Fridays market and set off to pick up the vegetables to supplement our own on the market. On route Millie and I checked the sheep we have in Hereford and took the opportunity to do a little training.
Next stop was to check the third of my apiary sites which had taken a big hit,loosing 75% of the colonies. Six now are left two of which are Nucleus hives still needing feeding. I sorted out all the now spare boxes and stacked them out of the way and checked through the remnant colonies. They seem in reasonable nick and will be checked for brood disease next Monday.
Then off to pick are additional produce from our wholesaler and back home to add our home produced stuff. The market is the next stop where I set up the stall ready for Friday morning. Then back where my day ends after putting chickens away and seperating a broody hen ready to take the chicks we are due to collect tomorrow.

Dagging

2010-05-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

Sheep's back end after dagging, nice and clean to avoid catching too much muck and attracting flies
We also check and trim feet while the sheep is on its back, we only trim now if absolutely necessary as the latest advice is routine trimming can cause more problems than it solves by breaking down natural barriers within the foot allowing infection to enter.
A bunch of happily trimmed sheep waiting to be freed back out to graze

Wednesday,First graft and accounts not done

2010-05-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Spent yet another Wednesday not completing my VAT and year end accounts, will have to wait till next week I guess.

I did get the first graft for queen cells done this season. This cold season is slowing every down the bees are slow as are the field vegetables but the poly tunnel crops are OK, we have already cleared one of them ready for the spring planting of fine beans. We have also planted runner beans but have had to heavily protect them against the frost predicted for the next few year.

Tuesday, vegetables, bees and care farming

2010-05-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

We have part time help on Tuesdays so they have been clearing tunnels and incorporating compost in readiness for planting our fine beans, we are also sowing Beetroot, 3 types of Kale and Sorrel, all in modules for planting as transplants.

In addition to a short church meeting I had a visit from the Bee Inspector, a government appointed inspector checking for brood diseases specifically American and European Foul Brood. So far all clear but the bigger test will be on Monday when he will be checking the much larger number of Herefordshire colonies.

Monday, Bee day

2010-05-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

First thing I sorted out the orders for next week at the market, cancellations and additions according to how well sales are doing.Sales are generally holding up well, I have given up all the farmers markets now due to the falling income. So concentrating as I am on Shrewsbury it's important to get the offer right.
So after a short training session with Millie I checked the two main sites in Hereford about 40 colonies, they seemed well though well behind in development.
Bee Inspector rang tonight, wants to check all my colonies he will check The local hives tomorrow and the Hereford hives on Monday, this means going through every hive and every frame shacking all bees looking for brood disease. Lets hope al is well.

Spring cultivations for field vegetables

2010-04-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

The first jobs was to use our sheep to graze the grass and mow removing the tough grass not eaten by our sheep. Then we broke the surface using a set of deep tines.
They will go deeper but we aim for 6 to 8 inches giving aeration and a key for the Rotary Cultivator.
Then cultivate to about 5" using the tractor mounted cultivator. I like to limit the depth to a minimum, in an attempt to reduce water loss.
For the first time this year we rolled the whole area to compact and loose less soil moisture and hopefully make it easier to lay the biodegradable mulch.

A Radnor Flock

2010-03-31T06:55:00.000-07:00

I was checking hives in one of my Herefordshire sites, they have a pedigree flock of Hill Radnors so I thought a photo would be of interest.

Leek seedbed prblems

2010-03-31T06:41:00.000-07:00

Seedling raising in cold frames is fraught with hazards, we have come up against the short tailed vole yet again. there we were thinking we have the leeks nailed for a another season. Sowed 5,000 seed and covered three days ago and hey presto vole city.
The next thing we do is buy in 5,000 seed for sowing in modules where the lights will hopefully bring the seedlings on to catch up with the ones destroyed by our friends the voles.

Sowing

2010-03-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

It's a root day on our planting calender, so today we have sown golden and Forono Beetroot, and Fennel also Leeks not a root plant but we're not working to a council of perfection. The germination room is still in use but as the weather improves we will be sowing more in the tunnels rather than under the expensive heat and light of the germination room.
For seeds that still need that extra control over temperature we have a small cabinet which gives some light and bottom heat, it's kept in the germination room so we can control temperature. Useful for lettuce that need a cool germination temperature even in full summer.

Garlic

2010-03-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

Last winter we planted our first Garlic in one of our raised beds. They protected by a mesh giving virtually no frost protection but does serve to keep the chickens and pheasants etc off.
Took this image yesterday to check progress. There has been reasonable growth despite the longest cold spell for many years and very little foliage damage despite being covered with snow for weeks on end.
Tough stuff that garlic

Ongoing seed sowing

2010-03-18T02:22:00.000-07:00

We are continuing with seed sowing we plant using the Biodynamic diary by Maria Thun. This helps organise our sowing schedule and does in my opinion have a small affect on germination and growth rates.
So a leaf day yesterday we sowed Spinach, Coloured Chard, White Chard, lettuce heading and loose leaf. Also Brassicas, Purple Sprouting and Brussel Sprouts.

All the onions are sown and have emerged Leeks are sown in trays, tunnel and frame but only the ones in trays are up. Carrots are sown in the tunnel and given a delivery and dry weather I am hoping to broadcast the green manure that follows our Brassica crops.

The season is the latest we have seen here, so I'm guessing that when spring does arrive everything will happen at once.

Weather patterns over the past 10 plus years leave us either wondering if the rain will ever stop or panicking that we will be in a drought for the season. In addition to the late spring this is the driest march I can remember.

Millie

2010-03-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

A couple of pictures of our trainee sheep dog, seen here holding our Hereford flock in the corner ready to be loaded. We collected and loaded the sheep, we wouldn't have won One Man and His Dog but we got the job done

Millie proving she can concentrate when needed, showing "eye" on the ewe and lamb.

Moving sheep

2010-03-17T03:50:00.001-07:00

The sheep we have in Hereford were constantly getting out of the field so we've moved them to a new spot with hopefully better fencing and a bit more grass. Although we find that there is no grass anywhere in this area. Its much the latest spring I've seen here in 15 years. seems the climate is becoming more unpredictable.
The sheep at their new site.

New lamb doing well

2010-03-17T03:35:00.000-07:00

A couple of pictures of our lamb, born early and unexpectedly this Feb.
She is doing well getting quite chunky and is grazing (or would be if the grass would grow).

New Beekeeping Season

2010-03-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

As winter turns to spring every year I experience the same unrealistic optimism rising in my soul.
Hives like the one below are bursting with bees, but alas not all or even many hives look like this but enough look good to maintain my positive thoughts towards bees last a little longer.

When doing the first proper check of the year I am looking for enough stores to last till next inspection and that they have a viable Queen.
I took this picture from one of the better colonies, the queen is well developed although not perhaps in full laying condition yet. Most hives seems to be queen right but some will fail before the season gets under way. Often a bigger problem when we have had a poor summer. Like last year. Time will tell.

Seed sowing progress

2010-03-02T13:02:00.001-08:00

We are well on with the seed sowing now, onions are 3/4 sown and about half are germinated.
We get the seedlings to emergence then move them out of the germination room and into the tunnel. This ensures that we get quick germination and the best through put in the germination room.

In the tunnel the seed trays are laid on potato trays and covered with fleece to protect from frost and mice.
Sown so far are:
Early Leeks, 1,000
Onion Red Baron 1,000
Onion Sturon 3,ooo
Onion Hystar 2,000
Lettuce 4vars 300
Cabbage Pyramid 1,000

Seed sowing progress

2010-03-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

Don't you just love wildlife

2010-02-16T04:38:00.001-08:00

Just starting the new year check on hives, no survival figures yet, but found woodpecker damage on my stored supers.

In periods of cold weather they can do a lot of damage to live colonies, it seems that the disturbance can kill the colony. Here though they or it have attacked empty (of bees) boxes, what they were looking for I don't know. Perhaps they had a go a t the live colonies but the incumbents persuaded them to move on.

Someone told me that the noise you here from wood peckers in the spring is to attract mates rather than find food, perhaps they have been testing out the acoustic qualities of my hives.Here another classic woodpecker damage were they attempt to enlarge the entrance, to get at the inside, an empty box again though.

The damage was done in Jan and since then no further problem, presumably they didn't find anything worthwhile.

Well that's a surprise

2010-02-03T07:43:00.001-08:00

We weren't expecting that, we bought three ewes in late October and put them to our tup, expecting lambs around april. Well they must have been in lamb as two were born yesterday, one died the other seems fine, a nice little ewe. We gave her a little mac and brought her in to get warm, sleeping well. Lambs always seem quite at home in our kitchen and are relaxed as long as the Rayburn is on.

We gave her some extra chlorostrum and put her back with Mum.

As soon as we are happy thet she isfeeding well we'll put them out in the orchard.
Unfortunately we lost one of our best ewes due to calcium deficiency, as we didn't know she was carrying a lamb at such a late stage so had not started feeding her up.

So a good day and a bad day.

Plans for 2010

2010-01-24T15:49:00.000-08:00

Looking at the list of projects we had planned for 2009 it struck me how much we have changed course without realising it,
We planned to continue to raise Mutton, increase the flock size and train our own sheep dog.
Well we have increased the flock but have also decided to switch breeds fro the lowland Lleyns to the Hill Radnor Sheep which are a local breed and very rare (about 900 registered ewes). I did buy a sheep dog and her training is ongoing as we speak, she will be 12 months old on the 2 Feb 2010.
I anticipate that we will continue to buy in more Hill Radnor Sheep and gradually reduce the Lleyns.
We sold some of our meat to a local butcher as opposed to selling direct on the markets, this worked reasonably well. Less money but also a lot less preparation time and costs.

The straw bale barn planned for last year has not been completed but planning permission has been obtained and we are still hoping to complete this year.

Training courses were a big part of our plan last year, but we have found them complicated to set up and are still deciding what to do in 2010.

Increasing the bee colonies to more than 100 was in our plan but we had another poor year (3rd in a row) so have stabalised at around 80, am undecided what expansion to go for this year but we are hoping to buy in some different stock of bees with hopefully more ability to cope with our conditions.

One more possible venture for this year is starting a small care farm helping people with rehabilitation and training.

Last day at Moseley Farmers Market

2010-01-24T15:28:00.001-08:00

It was a sad day for me last Saturday, after 10 years we have stopped attending the farmers market held in Moseley, Birmingham. We've never missed a market through rain, sun, illness, and vehicle breakdown we took our stall once a month every month for over ten years. Photo from Oct 08

Takings have been falling recently and with the additional competition on the market it has become less viable for us and looking at the trends of our takings this fall in income looks likes set to continue.
We will miss the traders, customers and organisers, all have been generous and friendly. We wish them all the best and hope that the market will be successful in the future.

Long View of the holding

2010-01-10T12:50:00.000-08:00

I was told recently that there were no photos of the whole holding, well it is difficult to get all on one picture. So I use two this one looking north east towards the veg area. and this one looking west showing the tunnels, chickens and frame yard under development.
I will take pictures later in the year to show developments and hopefully better quality pictures

Millie at 10 months

2010-01-10T12:45:00.001-08:00

A couple of photos of our young sheepdog Millie, she is 10 months old now, her training is progressing with commands and a half decent stop. That is until we work on the small flock of welsh mountain sheep we have in Hereford, then she becomes a whirling dervish cutting the flock in half and generally acting like a young hooligan. This will change as she gets older (I hope)

New project: Hill Radnor Sheep

2010-01-10T12:26:00.001-08:00

We are starting a new project, rare breed sheep namely Hill Radnors. They are a local breed with only 900 pure breeding ewes left, they are classed as vulnerable by the Rare Breed Survival Trust, only three breeds are more at risk. Hill Radnors have been use for cross breeding with other local breeds such as Shropshire and Clun Forest,they became rare as breeding practices changed.
We are hoping to use them for hogget and mutton production, they are a slow growing breed so produce good quality meat, but are not as suitable for lamb production compared to the modern fast growing breeds. So far we have bought three ewes, we were couldn't to get more last year because of the restrictions on replacement ewes for organic flocks. We'll be building the flock this year and buying a new Ram at the society sales in autumn.

Hill Radnors are as the name suggests a hill breed but are larger than most and have a distinctive brown face and legs with a grey muzzle which enlarges as they get older. They also have the best fleece of all the hill breeds. So far they seem more timid than out present Lleyns but that may change as they get used to us.
More on this project in the coming year.

Garlic planted

2009-11-15T11:16:00.000-08:00

For first time we have planted a crop of garlic, we used the poly tunnel frame, south facing about 20m long and 1m wide. The three most important factors are

1. They needs one month of 10c or less
2. They need water during the growth period
3. They need maximum sun before harvesting, this will be achieved in the south facing site. We planted through woven plastic to suppress weeds and conserve moisture if we have a drought next year. The planting holes are made with a propane burner. Spacing is 5" within the row and 10" between the rows.
Garlic are split into two groups, the Hard Neck varieties which tend to be beyyer flavour but do not keep past Christmas,we are planting three of those namely Sprint, Germidor and Corail. The Soft Neck varieties will keep longer and have a milder flavour and smaller cloves we planted one variety of these Arno these are the varieties that you often see plaited due to the soft neck which is more flexible.

Classes in organic vegetable growing

2009-11-10T01:56:00.000-08:00

I have been running a series of classes for gardeners interested in organic vegetable growing. Rather than print out reams of notes I promised to publish my note for the course here. So to see the notes either click on the title above or follow this link:

http://knol.google.com/k/introduction-organic-vegetable-growing#

to find the notes. For those on the course below this page are the pictures of raised beds as used in the Bio Dynamic Care Community in Botton.

An inspirational visit, Botton Camphill Community

2009-11-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

We have just returned from an enlightening trip to North Yorkshire. We visited the Camphill Community at Botton village. 10 miles from Hutton le Hole over the North York Moors at 1,000, you drop into a valley, most of which is owned and farmed (700 acres in all) by the Camphill Community. There are 600 villagers working on the gardens and farms,guided by co workers and apprentices

The first view of the village as you come off the moor, most of the land you see is farmed by Botton Village.
All the farms are run on Biodynamic lines although the needs of the villagers are put before rigid agricultural and horticultural practices. Each farm has a task either dairy cows as seen above, beef, vegetables and Stormy Hall which produces and packs a wide range of Biodynamic seed.
Temporary tunnels are used allowing various envirnments to created for each crop, above are hoops for the 2m and 4m wide tunnels. Below is the land anchor used fro the larger tunnel
We came across various tools not normally seen in the UK, one was a French fork with two handles used to break up the soil but not turn it over. Another was the Dutch hoe seen below, it has a small handle on the end of the shaft which fits the hand and improves efficiency and comfort in use.
Stormy Hall grow separate vegetable crops from the other farms lower in the valley, presumably to evaluate varieties and isolate them for seed collection. Seen here are a Leek crop and Red Cabbage. The Leeks were doing well but spaced 12" apart in the rows compared to the 6" spacing we use.

The specialist vegetable farm lower in the valley used raised beds and are in the process of building more, they have cloches over some depending on crops and conditions.
The inner garden is laid out with mainly ornamentals and is a walled garden providing a beautifully peaceful environment for villages and co workers alike.

We found the village an inspirational place all the people we met were friendly and immensely proud of what they were achieving every day. The atmosphere was one of peaceful purposefulness. The whole ethos of the place was one of care for each other, care for the landscape and care for the animals within it.

New Market at Jewellery Quarter

2009-10-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

We have started a new market at Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, it has been a steady start so far but there is real enthusiasm from the organisers, all based in the local community. I have never seen so many Jewellery and gold shops in one place before. There is a residential community who have been used to supermarket shopping. Hopefully we can provide an alternative to the high food mile, cold stored chemically induced food.

We will be attending until the December market and make a decision then whether to continue.
The dates for the markets this year are November 21st, December 5, both Saturdays.

Millies progress

2009-10-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Borders Collies are the most active dogs I have come across, so taking an acceptable picture has proved impossible so far. Still here are a few to show how she is coming on.She is now just over 7 months old, she has been introduced to sheep at first in an open field with another dog to keep the sheep together. The result was I can only describe as an Ovine bomb. Sheep scattered to the four corners of the field, Millie chasing, tail up having a great time. I changed tack and did some work with our sheep in a small paddock this was better but still spent time getting sheep out of field corners and did more running than is healthy for my age.

Today I built a round pen from borrowed sheep hurdles augmenting our own, to give a circumference of 50m give or take. This has been a massive improvement, reducing stress on the sheep and me.

Initially I worked her round the outside of the pen with me and sheep inside. Trying to keep the sheep balanced to me and teaching the commands away and come by. Then we worked with Millie, me and the sheep in the pen, so far so good. Much more relaxed with good results from the session.

More updates soon

Good week

2009-09-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

A good week in the life of Hopesay Glebe Farm, The harvest of onions completed in double quick time, all now in the poly tunnel drying off. Looks like we a reasonable crop of about a tonne, will last on our markets till about April.

We always grow our onions from seed and hand plant through a biodegradable mulch. This gives us improved storage over onion sets and reduces the risk of introducing white rot to our cropping area. We do see a handful of onion plants with rot but with rotation of the crops have managed so far to keep it to a minimum.

Update on some outdoor crops

2009-08-28T10:07:00.001-07:00

At this time of year we are moving from summer to winter crops, the change over depends on weather through autumn. Good weather at this time of year will make a significant difference to our annual profits, especially after the poor weather in July.

Spinach has been going well and we have made our third cut, with a potential fourth if the weather goes well.

The beetroot have been growing slowly but as most of our customers prefer smaller roots
The beetroot planted back in June has been doing well except for the short tail vole damage which has been reduced when we removed the mesh crop cover allowing predators access. These include owls and our expert rodent control manager: Black Cat

We had three batches of Leeks this year the smallest plants are from plants sown in May in a polythene tunnel, the largest are those sown in a frame in February with the only protection from a mesh cover. we will check which type does best later in the year.

Red onions are ready for drying off, the tops have bent over we will be moving them to the tunnel to wither the tops.
We used multi sown onion cells this year, we aim for between two and four seed per cell, from the results the muti sown modules have worked well, we are getting about 25% more per m2.

One of reliable crops is summer flowering Purple, it doesn't need vernalisation to set flowers, with a cool autumn we should get three or four more weeks from this crop, provided there is no early frost.

Lost an old friend

2009-08-12T03:39:00.000-07:00

Last week at the age of eleven and half years my old friend died.
Gyp never one of the worlds hardest workers but always friendly, greeting guests and accompanying me on trips to the wholesaler or to growers. She lived under my desk in the study where I'm writing this, I look for her each time I come in the room. Rest easy old friend

Beekeeping course

2009-08-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

We ran the bee keeping day here last Sunday where we covered bee keeping as a hobby and gave the participants the opportunity for some practical experience. Below are the notes I used for the day

Equipment
Hives:
Bee Space: this discovery enabled the design of the modern moveable frame hive.Rev Langstroth discovered that inside a hive a space of 35mm would be respected as a pathway by the bees, a smaller space would be filled often with propolis and a larger space would be filled with comb. So by keeping a bee space between frames we can ensure that bees will respect the space and usually not build comb between the frames. Leaving the frame separate so they can be removed and replaced at will.
Top Bee space hives: these have a bee space above the frame bars which keeps the top bars clear of comb and propolis making them easier to remove.
Langstroth: used worldwide by the vast majority of commercial beekeepers, usually top bee-space 10 frames per box.
National: most common hive in UK smaller than Langstroth and usually bottom bee space, 11 frame per box.
WBC double wall hive using national frames,pretty but inconvenient to work with,

There are numerous other hives which are all based on the same theme some smaller some bigger but in truth the bees don't care the main thing is to keep to one type of hive in your operation.

Queen excluder keeps the queen laying in the brood area, keeping the rest of the boxes for honey.
Brood chamber : boxes kept for queen to lay eggs and raise brood
Supers : boxes used to collect honey, can be full or half depth.

Hive tool: metal tool used for prising hives apart and freeing frames in the hive.

Smoker: stainless steel or copper are available, I always choose on with a guard which prevents burns and damage to other equipment
Smoker box: If you are travelling to your hives it is a good idea to keep your smoker and hive tools in a metal fire proof box,

Protective equipment: Plan on the minimum of a good bee suit, gloves and suitable boots, working bees knowing you will not be getting stung too much. Stings can still get through but good equipment keeps this to a minimum.

The bee colony comprising Queen 1 (usually) drones several hundred summer only, workers 15 to 60 thousand. and during the season eggs and brood at various stages.
Swarming when the queen and most of the older bees leave to found a new colony, taking most of the foraging force and resulting in a much reduced harvest.
The aim of the beekeeper is to build the colony as large as possible to get a big foraging force and to avoid swarming to maintain the work force.
to reduce swarming we need to keep a young queen in the hive and give as much space in the brood nest to allow the queen to continue laying.

To have young queens you must practice some form of queen rearing, see later. to maintain space in the brood nest you can split the colony early in spring, keep adding preferably drawn comb into the brood nest or run on a double brood box system.
The principles are have a young queen in the hive and maintain laying space in the brood chamber.

Queen Rearing/swarm control

Regardless of the number of hives you run it will be important to raise your own queens. A supply of young queens is one of the best safeguards to reduce swarming.
Methods
Artificial swarming: Involves splitting the hive in two, one half with the old queen the other with brood and eggs with adhering bees placed to one side. They will raise a queen, once she is mated the two halves can be reunited or a new colony started.
Walk away splits. A simplified version of the above, the hive is split in half with equal brood in each half, the splits are placed close together so they share the old site and as a result the flying bees. The queen-right half will continue as before while the queenless half with set about raising a queen.
If the above methods are used after drones are seen in the hive and before swarm cells are seen then you have a good chance of preventing swarming.

To raise larger numbers of queens some form of grafting will need to be used. Grafting is the removal of larvae from the cell to a specially prepared queen cup.
These cups are then placed in a queenless starter colony for 24hrs then into a queen right colony above a queen excluder or maintained in a queenless colony until ready for distributing too mating nucleus hives or direct into colonies for re-queening.

Summer management of hives
Add empty supers to maintain space above the hive all the time a flow is on, Check colonies weekly for swarming may and June then periodically check for space, stores and viable queens.

Extracting
In Oil Seed Rape areas honey is normally extracted by the end of may to the first week of June depending on the crop. The second extraction is usually early August then in September if heather honey is collected.
Most people will uncap with a cold knife although various forms of heated blades are available.
Honey is extracted using centrifugal force in a radial or tangential extractor. we normally store the honey in 30lb buckets straight from the extractor then it can be stored and processed later.

Processing honey
for clear honey we heat the honey tubs in a water bath to a temp of 40C but some people go as high as 48C. At these temperatures honey will melt without detrimental affects on flavour. Once melted the honey is filtered through a straining cloth into a bottling tank where once the bubbles have risen the honey is bottled into required containers.

To make creamed or soft est honey honey: A seed of set honey is needed (1/4 of the total processed) the seed is warmed enough to make it pour and is added to the melted strained honey. The mix is then stirred every day for several day until a homogeneous consistency is achieved. The honey is bottled while it is soft enough to pour.

Labelling for detailed advice see the following link to the BBKA site: http://www.britishbee.org.uk/articles/honey_labels.php

The wet season continues

2009-08-03T09:08:00.001-07:00

The seasons are moving on and some crops are ripening despite the weather, the wettest July in 100 years. Slugs are ever present see below hanging off an onion leaf, but most vegetable crops are OK except for lettuce which has stopped growing and leeks that need good light levels to develop.

The Jerusalem Artichokes do well in wet weather and are over 10' tall now, presumably the roots are developing just as fast.

The Rhubarb has decided enough is enough and is going dormant for this year. I see some growers are still selling sticks but we have found that the quality has deteriorated on our crop and stopped pulling 4 weeks ago.

Discussion panel on peak oil in Ludlow

2009-07-27T04:29:00.000-07:00

On the 21July I took part as a panel member in the discussion on Peak Oil and the implications for future food production.

I thought it may be of interest to copy my notes fro the evening as follows:

To decide what we need to do in the future we need to make a stab at what the future holds. We have three forces acting on us affecting how we can produce and distribute food.
1. Peak Oil, we have passed the point of peak oil, oil based products can only get more expensive from now on.
2. Global climate change, affecting the range and quantities of food we can produce.
3. A financial system based on commodity speculators and globalised food companies.

All of these interact affecting increasing climate change, social stability and food availability. The Chaos theory tells us that when three or more variables are acting together that the outcome cannot be predicted.
What we can do however is see the way general trend is heading. This is of finite resources and an increasing demand for food . Also increasing domination of food production and distribution by multi national organisations such as biotech/pesticide manufacturers, supermarkets and the major oil companies.
We as a community have a choice, these forces are not inevitably going to take control of our lives but we must use the power we have to control what happens now.
The choice as I see it is between a globalised mono cropping system based on input of petrol chemicals, commodities and large scale distribution and a localised poly cropping food system with local production and sale of food. Reliant not on petro-chemicals and the road haulage industries but on local farmers and retailers providing the bulk of our food needs.

Kisinger said: Control the oil and you will control the country, control the food and you will control the people.
I believe we are facing a time when multinational companies are actively taking control of our food supply by supplanting poly-cropping agriculture across the world with mono-cropping systems reliant on petro-chemicals, genetically modified crops and massive food distribtion businesses.
To quote Dr Vandana Shiva "Globalised mono cropping does not produce more food it produces commodities" These then are sold on the international market to the largest investor and used according to the needs of the most wealthy in the world. A system incidentally which produces losses of 50% of food produced.

I believe that in the future a sustainable system will be one that uses methods of crop rotation providing nitrogen using legumes, pest and weed control with organic methods and local low input distribution systems.
Specifically:
Small scale food production using organic or similar systems.
Farmers and local markets for retail of local foods wherever possible.
Sale of imported foods limited to those that can be transported by sea and which cannot be grown locally.

In short we should take back control of our food and our agriculture.

Beetroot and spinach

2009-07-15T08:26:00.001-07:00

Having just finished clearing the paths between the beds I took the opportunity to assess how the spinach and beetroot we doing.

Spinach is a fast growing crop and has been producing a harvest for several weeks now. On average we can take three complete cuts from each bed. This bed is on it second cut, so we will be sowing a follow on crop next week to take us into the autumn and through to early spring.All our beetroot are sown in modules before being planted out through the biodegradable mulch. This eliminates weed competition (except for weed in the paths) and protects the roots from mice as they develop.

Onions and Leeks

2009-07-12T06:38:00.001-07:00

The Alliums , onions and leeks are all planted and established. They are all planted through a biodegradable mulch which controls weeds and prevents soil water loss. The paths are sown down to white clover but in the first few weeks a lot of weed will grow. This if unchecked will suppress the growth of the crop. We therefore mow down each path to reduce competion.
The onions are doing OK and as seen below they are just starting to bulb up now we are past the longest day.
Onion beds with the paths tidied.

Leeks now starting to grow away, they are a bit late as we had a chicken attack on our seed beds this year, we therefore had to so 2,000 in module trays. They do OK from modules but we find that establishment and growth rate are reduced.

All sheep sheared at last

2009-07-06T02:19:00.001-07:00

One of my biggest concerns this year has been the shearing of our small flock. we have a total of 30 ewes and wethers on two sites. This year Trevor came to our rescue and brought his aged dog Joe along to get the sheep in. This he did without a command from Trevor and was almost too early as we were still setting up the pen.

We did get them all contained, this is part of a contingent of 20 hoggets due to be sold as mutton in the Autumn

We were very pleased with the job Trevor did, he was very gentle and didn't cut them at all and the sheep were relaxed throughout . We trimmed feet and moved them to a new field at the same time. It was a late finish but we were relieved to have the job finished and the fear of fly strike has diminished.

Millie grows

2009-07-05T11:16:00.001-07:00

Our young sheep dog is growing well, now at 5 months she is just starting to take commands and shows interest in sheep.I'm thinking of introducing her to sheep over the next four weeks or so, I just need to make sure that the sheep I use are used to dogs to avoid any chance of putting Millie off sheep for good by getting butted.
Not sure what's going on with those ears, one day they both looked pricked the next both down then one up one down.

Courses for 2009, in association with The Soil Association

2009-06-03T03:15:00.000-07:00

We have agreed the potential dates for three courses held here this year. We are running the following:
Organic vegetable growing covering all stages from soil, planning and seed to harvesting.
dates 12 July and 16 August
Bee keeping, including general bee keeping practices and an introduction to queen rearing.
5 July and 9 August
Smallholding this is an introduction to those thinking about or starting a smallholding we will cover hens, sheep, vegetables, bees also sales and marketing of your produce.
2 August and 30 August.
The costs are £50 per person or £37.50 if you are a member of the Soil Association. An organic lunch will be provided included in the cost.
Click on the title for this piece for a link to the relevant Soil Association page.

Progress with vegetables

2009-06-03T00:30:00.000-07:00

The salad crops grown in frames have progressed well after this spell of fine weather, we use mesh on all the frames as polythene over heats and blows about in the wind. The mesh reduces water loss due to wind, keeps out the insects while still allowing light and rain to reach the plants.
We are now planting our second batch of beetroot, this will see us through to autumn and into early winter as long as we can keep the Short Tailed Voles off.

We usually try to plant our fine beans through some form of weed control mulch, this year we are trying half meter wide strips with the beans planted in the gaps. The pipes over the top are for irrigation.
This is what remains of the leek seedlings planted in the frame after the chickens got in twice. We have had to plant 2,0000 in modules to try and make up the numbers for this years crop. I think we will be down by about 2k plants on last year, so will have to sow other crops to replace the income.

Another course at Hopesay Glebe Farm

2009-05-25T01:57:00.000-07:00

We ran another day class here yesterday where thirteen keen organic gardeners came together to learn about and discuss small scale organic vegetable growing. I've published notes on the talk I did at http://knol.google.com/k/phil-moore/masterclass-in-organic-growing/11w5c8ae389c1/3#
if this doesn't work click on the title of this piece and that should take you to the notes.

Vegetable progress

2009-05-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

The weather is OK this spring, we have had enough water and some sunshine so things are moving along well enough. So far we have finished planting onions and the first crop of beetroot and the outdoor early spinach.
In the tunnels we are experimenting with runner and broad beans under polythene, so far growth has been slow and seems to be tied closely to soil water levels. We initially had a problem with pollination of the broad beans but increasing relative humidity seems to have improved the set. we will see the jury is still out on those protected crops.
Other tunnel crops such as early spinach salad leaves and lettuce are progressing well and ready for harvest while the fine beans are established and seem to be making reasonable progress.

Lambs at last

2009-05-07T01:12:00.001-07:00

First lambs of the season, this one had a bit of a struggle with two legs back, he was the second lamb and was taking too long when we spotted a nose and tongue no feet. We pulled the ewe up by her hind legs to allow the lamb to slip back and Nicky got the two legs forward and assisted the birth. Pretty soon he was up and about, as soon as we see lambs have taken colostrum we are happy to leave to get on with bonding.
Mother ewe licking cleans the lamb and tells her which is her lamb, as she recognises them from their smell from now on.

First graft of the season

2009-05-06T04:32:00.001-07:00

We graft into queenless starter hives which after 24 hours are united back with the queen above a queen excluder. Here the queenless starter is the single box on the left which will be united with the double hive after cells have been started.Simple top bars are used to which we attach the plastic cell cups. This bar had 9 from 16 accepted, not brilliant but OK for the first graft of the season. The accepted cells have wax drawn out from the cell edge.
Inside the cell the larva can been seen surrounded with larval food supplied by the nurse bees. The cell on the left of the picture has been drawn out but there is no larva present. Presumably rejected after it was started.

We have a Duck

2009-05-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors "kindly" brought a duckling round that their young dog had in its mouth. I think we must be seen seen as some kind of Dr Doolittle characters. Well it was obviously only a day or two old, its parent I think was taken by the fox that killed our chickens. They love Duck. So we took it assuming that it had been so stressed and chilled that it wouldn't survive the night. We put it under a broody hen, not expecting the duck to imprint on the hen.
Well here we are 3 days later and it is alive and well and thinks the hen is its Mum and the hen seems quite happy with her new charge.
The duck is a Malllard so will presumably fly off once it has fledged but time will tell.

Sorry about the quality of the photos, it is remarkably difficult to catch the little bugger while it is legging it round the crate as the hen gets frantic.

Millies' progress

2009-05-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Millie is about 13 weeks now and has at least doubled in size, she is interested in chasing chickens and shows curiosity towards sheep, she has only seen them through the fence and it will be a couple of months before I introduce her to sheep.

Fox Attack

2009-05-05T03:49:00.000-07:00

We have just had our first fox attack for 3 years, he killed 17 birds and left 16 laying in the field which resembled the day after the chicken war. He chased and killed birds all over the field in broad daylight and must have been in and out in 20 mins.

Our main hope now is that the remaining flock don't go off lay as a result of stress
The game keepers have been less active recently presumably as a result of the downturn. I,m not sorry that mass slaughter of pheasants is being reduced on these huge shoots but it does mean that we will have to be more professional with our protection of the hens.

Recent visitors from Germany

2009-04-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

We have just said good bye to Deborah who has been working for her keep over the past 2 weeks. She also got to use our little tractor, sow seeds, work with sheep and bees also to go horse riding with a friend of ours in the village and last but not least to dig lots of docks.
It broadens our outlook to have visitors to work with us and hopefully they gain from the experience.
We also had Josh here just for the day two weeks ago while visiting family in Hereford, he stayed for six months working on the farm and learning the language, so he went back with a mixture of Lancastrian, Shropshire and London accents. It was good to see him and his mum Ulrike again after 4 years.

New batch of layers, Day Old

2009-04-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

We have just taken delivery of our first batch o day old chicks, these are Black Rocks which we hope will be in lay before november 09 . That means they will lay through the winter , another 4 weeks later and we risk not getting any eggs until after the nights draw out after December 21st.We put 25 chicks under each broody, they seem to be able to cope fine and produce healthy laying hens.

First cultivation of ground outside.

2009-04-15T01:05:00.001-07:00

The new planting season is upon us and we are about to start planting the outdoor crops. The green manure has been developing over the winter, seen here are the roots of the main three species sown. On the left is colts foot grass used for its root mass and ability to take up and hold onto nitrogen. In the centre are two plants of chicory with deep fleshy roots drawing nutrients from the lower levels of the soil and adding root mass then on the right is white cloevr used to fix nitrogen and add green mass to the soil.

First we graze the green manure with our Lleyn sheep, seen here the short plant tops and evidence of where the sheep have been. This leaves the sward in a good condition to be incorporated.
First we use the deep tines to break up the surface and aerate the soil and sub soil.

The chickens help themselves to any displaced soil fauna.

Then we use the tractor mounted rotovator to incorporate the green manure into the top 3" to 4" and break up the root growth to stop competition with crop plants. We will change the green manure mix this year as the chicory caused problems with re-growth pushing up the weed mulch.

The green manure rotovated, still showing green but this is a result of shallow cultivation which we do to retain the soil structure as much as possible. The mulch when laid will prevent too much re-growth.

Her name is Millie

2009-04-15T00:58:00.001-07:00

Now at 10 weeks and growing well has had her first injections second and final inoculations next week. She can then mix with other dogs.

New dog arrived

2009-04-06T01:37:00.001-07:00

I picked up our new dog yesterday, a bitch working collie , she is 9 weeks old and has behaved impeccably. Hardly made a murmur when left in her kennel overnight.She is destined to be a sheep dog, we were hoping to buy an older dog so being able to start working quicker,however this didn't prove possible so we will be put back on training. Will have to manage our sheep manually this year.

Comparison of containers for Runner Beans

2009-04-01T14:48:00.001-07:00

We are growing early runner beans in the tunnel this year as a trial, we used two sizes of module one was the root trainer normally used for shrub transplants the other is a standard module tray.

Both batches were sown at the same time under lights, the growth seems even between the the two types. The root growth though is radically different, the root trainers have produced much more root growth presumably because of the extra space.
The module root ball is much smaller but so far is supporting a similar top growth. they willbe planted this week and we will see which produces a bigger crop.

Rodent problem

2009-03-24T16:04:00.001-07:00

This is what happens when gloves come into contact with rodents. This took two weeks since we last used them, my guess is a rat but I suppose a number of mice could have done the same damage.

Better check for some prices on new bee gloves.

Last Mutton of the season goes to slaughter

2009-03-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

We took our last mutton animal of the season to the abattoir today. I have never liked this job but it is all part of the job of keeping sheep. We have decided to sell our mutton from September till april leaving the summer season to those selling beef and lamb.

We originally started producing mutton because of the longer lifespan it gave our animals. Now we have discovered the outstanding quality of well hung mutton and how the flavour comes through even when cooked in heavily spiced meals.

I wonder why anyone ever cooks with young lamb, it is not in the same league for flavour as our mutton.

Green Manure development

2009-03-22T15:17:00.001-07:00

The green manure crop sown late summer last year has started to put a bit of growth on. The species you see here are clover re and white and the large leaf is chicory.The gras is mainly colts foot which has a smaller to but produces a large root mass. This is converted to humus after cultivation. The area seen here is going to be the leek and onion area, but first will be grazed for a week or more to improve incorporation rates.

New season tractor problems

2009-03-22T13:17:00.001-07:00

The new season has started , the tractor which hasn't moved since November won't start. The problem in the battery area , first I thought we had dirty connections but after charging I tested it. Turns out we have a dud battery.So £75.00 later we have a functioning tractor once more, so bring on the new season, but we start with some relaxed leek harvesting, more work for the tractor next week.

Growing room and the plants response

2009-03-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

We have been looking at the costs of the growing room (seen here with lights off), trying to decide on the value of running it against electricity costs. We have onions in there now lighting 20hrs per day maintaining a maximum temperature of 18.5c to a minimum of 12c.

Three weeks ago we sowed Ailsa Craig onions and put three trays in the tunnel and the same under the lights. Below you can see the comparison the trays n the left are from the growing room those to the right are from the tunnel.
You can see that not only are the growing room plants bigger but they are darker green and generally healthier looking.
We will see over the coming season which will produce a better crop but so far the groing room plants look well in advance and will probably repay the cost of electricity.

Chickens clearing out after cabbages and green manures

2009-03-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

We are getting ready to sow the green manures so have removed all the covers and detritus from last years Brassica crop. The chickens have immediately moved in to complete the clear up job. There is a build up of short tailed voles under the covers, these cause havoc with any transplanted crop and will damage roots of green manures. we will leave the area uncovered for a few days so that owls and chickens can help reduce the vole population.The green manure we will use this year will be a bit different after the problems with re-growth of chicory pushing up our starch mulch. The new mix will be a mix of red clover, white clover and perennial ryegrass.
The red clover should provide nitrogen up to 300kg/Ha, white clover adds some nitrogen but also improves soil structure while the ryegrass will soak up the nitrogen which will be released when we incorporate next season.

Spring watch at Hopesay

2009-03-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

Sure sign that spring is well on its way, a broad bean emerging, sown this year in Feb will provide a crop in that difficult period May and June known as the hungry gap These lettuce were overwintered as small 4 leaf seedlings are now starting to put on a bit of growth. You can just see to the right the remains of another lettuce crop. These were planted earlier and as a result wintered as more mature plants. They were decimated by Downy Mildew which hardly touched the seedlings growing in the next bed.
The lesson from this would appear to be plant earlier so plants are harvested before winter or plant late to winter as seedlings

For the first time this year we wintered spinach in the tunnel to get an early spring crop. So far it seems to have worked, I took my first cut this past week and it is showing strong growth so we will get more crops before the summer plants are available.
The seed trays are onions which were germinated in our growing room under artificial lights for 2 weeks before being stood out in the unheated tunnel.

Feeding pollen patties in spring

2009-03-04T10:18:00.001-08:00

With sprung round the corner we have been feeding a weekly pattie of natural pollen plus other high protein foods. Making protein available to bees when there would be none naturally.
We hope to encourage early breeding giving us the opportunity to split hives in late April or early may and re queen with imported queens. Our winter losses are about the same as last year, a bit disappointing as it looked like we may have done better from early inspections. still those colonies that are alive are looking good, so following a really good summer we shuld be in good shape by the end of the year. Ever the optomist.

First sowings of the season, Onions

2009-02-13T13:45:00.000-08:00

The seed sowing has finally started as is traditional, with onions. Here you see, about a third of the number we will eventually need. The variety is Hystar which we found to be a strong grower and stores well. For an early crop we grow Ailsa Craig which puts on good growth, has excellent flavour but will not keep past Christmas.Normally Ailsa Craig is sown first but due to supply difficulties we had to go ahead with the main crop first.
The trays are under economy grow lights controlled through a timer which comes on during economy seven hours (12.00am to 7.00am) plus 4 hours to give twelve hours of daylight. This will be extended to over 18 hours of light as the seedlings develop. Many people use heated benches with artificial lighting but we found that the lamps give enough heat to maintain 18c plus so additional heating would be unnecessary.

New projects for this year

2009-02-05T02:36:00.000-08:00

During the winter months we're planning future projects to continue developing the business.

1. The continuation of the mutton project we will be selling at more markets and increasing our flock. As a result of this I have decided to buy and train our own sheepdog, not absolutely necessary with our small flock but it is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

2. Continue to develop the training courses we offer, eventually with accommodation.

3. Bed and Breakfast, this has been part of the plan for a long time but we still need to improve the decoration in the house before we invite paying guests. 10 years to paint the walls since the re-plastering isn't too bad is it.

4. Increase the bees to over 100 colonies (including nucs) this year and develop the market for honey.

5. Finally to provide space for all the above projects we are investigating building a Straw Bale barn on our field, for workshop space and animal housing.

These are all long term projects but we hope to see progress on all of them in the coming 12 months.

Assembling frames

2009-02-04T02:05:00.000-08:00

The weather has prevented any meaningful outside activity, so we moved inside on some of the beekeeping woodwork jobs. We normally use one piece plastic frames which require no assembly but may need waxing if they come unwaxed. Last year though our supplier couldn't get the one piece frames so sent wood and plastic (waxed) foundation. About 35 boxes worth, each frame is assembled plastic foundation inserted then mailed together with an air nail gun. What a pain we yu are used to taking them from the packing case and put them straight into supers. 350 frame took two of us about one day to finish, no doubt we would get quicker but I have no intention of finding out.
We took the wooden boxes out of retirement and filled them with the new frames, they are all now stacked and ready for a bumper harvest.

It never ceases to amaze me how much kit it takes to run our small operation of about 80 colonies, mind you in the past couple of years most of these boxes just sat here waiting for a flow which never came. I recon we have about the same number of boxes still in the field.