3-Aug-2024: Apiary, Harvest Update, and Prepping New Beds

Starting on the Apiary

Earlier in spring, a couple swarms of bees moved into hives that had been empty since last year. In one case the queen setup just below the hive (underside of the base) so a friend with many years of beekeeping experience put a new brood box with frames under the hive and over a week or two period the bees moved in allowing for the whole hive to be restacked. Another hive in the west part of the veg field is very active. They have been happy and productive with each hive comprised of a brood box and two (2) supers on top.

However, the hives are not in good long term locations - one in the veg field is close to where we have recently expanded some planting rows and the bees don't take kindly to our activity. The other hive is in the old silage pit - where cut grasses were aged and fermented for cattle feed back when the farm was a working dairy, but no longer serves that purpose. The silage pit will have a bit of construction in a couple months to put in a new shed so moving day is approaching.

We decided to build a small shelter to reduce wind around the bee hives at the North side of the "herb" field - so called because we intended to plant herbs for foraging a couple years ago, although the planting was disrupted by bad weather and then we got busy with other projects. However, we've recently done a light tilling of large areas in the field and will soon start sowing herbs - also a great pollen source for the bees.

The log hauler (rear support) that we purchased for moving logs from the Spruce plantation planted in 1990s is pulled by our Kubota B2400 compact tractor and makes a handy transport for siding boards of the apiary windbreak:

The enclosure is roughly 2.4m x 4.8m (8ft x 16ft) and intended primarily to reduce wind interruption when working with the hives, so very much a human comfort measure. But less wind should also help the bees stay warm in winter, and if needed we could add a simple roof since it rains a lot here in southwest Ireland.

Building the hive stands comes next...

Harvest Time - Potatoes, Onions, and more...

A couple of the potato stalks were yellowed and wilting more than others which Marisa says is a sign they may have blight - still a thing here in Ireland, but manageable if you know what to look for - sorry I didn't get pictures to show). So we dug up the potatoes over a couple days - a mix of Charlotte, Aran, Purple Rain, and another yellow (similar to Yukon Gold in the US). They were all hand washed to get most of the dirt cleaned off, then dried for a couple hours and put into the old milking parlour which is cool and dark - good for storing root vegetables.

The vast majority were in good condition, and the stalks greens will be chopped up to put into the compost bin.

Onions were also ready to pull and they go into drying racks in the old hay barn before storage:

The courgettes (zucchini) are still producing bountiful. We had some fresh cauliflower, lettuces, and cabbage too!

New Planting Beds

Two new rows were tilled in the veg field this week, then compost added on top and mixed in with a quick pass of the rotovator.

We also tilled in green manure planted about a month ago - organic Indian Caliente Mustard (Brassica Juncea) which is a natural bio-fumigant useful before and after alliums (garlic and onions).

Up in the herb field I marked out and tilled large areas - six at roughly 10m x 25m and three approximately 25m x 25m (33ft x 82ft and 82ft x 82ft respectively) for planting a variety of herbs this autumn and spring. It's a bit difficult to capture from standing height so I'll need to see if we can get some drone footage to share soon. But what a lovely view of the valley and Claragh mountain in the distance

The goal is synergistic patches of herbs for foraging - valerian, meadow sweet, oregano, sainfoin, and many others. Most of these plants are great for the bees to gather pollen and thus why we have the new apiary in the same field as the herbs. There are also some young hazel trees planted a couple years ago, and the field is ringed by wild blackberries so lots of options for bees.