Holiday

This week we have been working hard to get feed on all the bees and complete our varroa treatments. All nucs have been checked to ensure they have fondant on them. We have had so much rain recently that some of the tracks have been hard to get up. Sian and Gabe gave up trying on Monday and abandoned the hilux part way up one field. My son had to go to the rescue!

I’ve been out with Rob doing oxalic sublimation on the honey production hives, he will do the final treatments next week. Gabriel has and still is very busy making up new brood boxes, roofs and supers for next year. He has somewhere in the region of 50 roofs, 100 supers and 40 brood boxes to get made up before he goes away to New Zealand in few weeks! He is going there for 3 months as part of the apprenticeship with us. We are excited as he is but will miss him dearly.

On the note of apprentices; we are looking for a new beekeeping apprentice to join us in 2020. You don’t have to have experience of working with honeybees, but some knowledge would be useful. It’s a great scheme, full time, all training and equipment provided by us. It aims to equip young people with the skills and knowledge to make a successful career in the bee farming industry. Those successfully completing the three-year programme are awarded a Diploma Towards Excellence in Bee Farming by the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers.

If you have children, as I have, I hope you have a good half term.  I am actually taking some well earnt time off and we are heading to Wales for a week; I can’t wait. I’ve booked a detached cottage in the middle of nowhere so the wifi is likely to be a bit hit and miss (secretly hoping so the kids are not on phones & tablets every 5 minutes). The hallway here is full of walking boots, waterproofs and rucksacks. There are playing cards and board games for evening entertainment along with a few DVDs for film nights. Hubby has been working out how to get the boys mountain bikes on the back of the hilux tonneau as someone, not mentioning any names, ordered the wrong roof bars for it!! Roxy (the dog) is all excited too and we have lots of treats packed for her to keep her going on our long hikes.  No matter the weather we will have fun… 🙂