The Lavender Farm

Posted on by Opher

Buzzing with bees, fragrant scent on the warm breeze. The lattes are good too.

Flowers at Breezy Knees Gardens in Yorkshire

Posted on by Opher

If you like flowers, butterflies and wild areas then Breezy Knees Gardens might be just your thing.

The sun was shining. There were lots of honey bees. It was Autumn but the flowers were still out.

Bees – The Swarm – A sight you do not see any more!

Posted on by Opher

Bees – The Swarm – A sight you do not see any more!

2005-2006 Choks to summer 057

Now this is a sight you don’t see these days! A bee swarm!

2005-2006 Choks to summer 059 2005-2006 Choks to summer 060

I came home and drove into my drive  to find the air was full of bees. There were thousands of them.

I parked up and went to investigate. There was a swarm of bees. They settled into a bush at the top of my drive.

Now we had been buying local produced honey from a farm at the end of the village. So I rang her up and told her we had a swarm. She came straight down with all her kit.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 061 2005-2006 Choks to summer 062

She had a big basket and scraped the swarm into the basket. She had to make sure that she had got the queen. The queen was releasing a pheromone that was drawing all the workers to her. If she had the queen then all the rest would congregate around her.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 063 2005-2006 Choks to summer 062

She laid out a white sheet and then placed the basket containing most of the swarm (with the queen at the centre) upside down on the sheet. She propped it up so that all the worker bees flying around could get in to the queen.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 063 2005-2006 Choks to summer 065

Then she began collecting up the rest of the swarm and cutting bits of bush and brushing them into the basket.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 067 2005-2006 Choks to summer 068 2005-2006 Choks to summer 070 2005-2006 Choks to summer 072

When she had collected as many as possible she left it for a while for all the lose workers to find their way to the queen (following the scent) and then pulled the sheet up over the basket, bundled it into her car and drove off to put them into an empty hive.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 071

She later popped round with a free jar of honey.

Bees used to be a common sight in my garden. They’ve all gone. I have not seen a single one so far this year – not one! All we have are bumble bees.

The bees, along with most of the other insects (that so many creatures feed on – hedgehogs, shrews, wild birds) have been wiped out by the indiscriminate use of pesticides.

Bumble bees, nests and honey bees.

Posted on by Opher

Bee drone 3 bee drones 2

My garden is completely devoid of honey bees. There used to be hundreds but they’ve all gone. Fortunately we seem to have replacement bumble bees. Not so many but they are doing a job. They must be more resilient to the deadly toxins our couldn’t-care-less agricultural industry is bunging out to up their profits.

I was sitting on my patio and noticed that the bumble bees had taken over a nesting box. I was a bit bemused by a big gaggle of bees hovering around outside the box. They did not fly off or go in. They were just buzzing around.

Liz was worried. She was a bit scared and thought she might get stung. She wanted me to move the nest.

Turns out that the bees are drones hanging about waiting for the female to come out. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? They take forever. She’s most probably in there running a comb through her hair.

But it’s OK. The drones don’t have a sting. As we guys all know it’s the women who have the barbs. We just do what we’re told.

We are so lucky to have a bumble bee nest like this. It’s a lucky bird-box. We’ve had blue-tits in it for the last two years and now a hive of bees! Great!

I just feel sorry for the poor honey bees. The insecticide industry have polished them off along with half of the rest of the insects – goodbye voles, bats, swifts, swallows, hedgehogs, shrews, house-martins, frogs, toads, newts, warblers, lizards and all the rest of the creatures that feed on insects.

They won’t stop until the whole planet is a desert.

But for now, until they bring in stronger pesticides, we have a great colony of bumble bees – fascinating!

Bees – The Swarm – A sight you do not see any more!

Posted on by Opher

2005-2006 Choks to summer 057

Now this is a sight you don’t see these days! A bee swarm!

2005-2006 Choks to summer 059 2005-2006 Choks to summer 060

I came home and drove into my drive  to find the air was full of bees. There were thousands of them.

I parked up and went to investigate. There was a swarm of bees. They settled into a bush at the top of my drive.

Now we had been buying local produced honey from a farm at the end of the village. So I rang her up and told her we had a swarm. She came straight down with all her kit.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 061 2005-2006 Choks to summer 062

She had a big basket and scraped the swarm into the basket. She had to make sure that she had got the queen. The queen was releasing a pheromone that was drawing all the workers to her. If she had the queen then all the rest would congregate around her.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 063 2005-2006 Choks to summer 062

She laid out a white sheet and then placed the basket containing most of the swarm (with the queen at the centre) upside down on the sheet. She propped it up so that all the worker bees flying around could get in to the queen.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 063 2005-2006 Choks to summer 065

Then she began collecting up the rest of the swarm and cutting bits of bush and brushing them into the basket.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 067 2005-2006 Choks to summer 068 2005-2006 Choks to summer 070 2005-2006 Choks to summer 072

When she had collected as many as possible she left it for a while for all the lose workers to find their way to the queen (following the scent) and then pulled the sheet up over the basket, bundled it into her car and drove off to put them into an empty hive.

2005-2006 Choks to summer 071

She later popped round with a free jar of honey.

Bees used to be a common sight in my garden. They’ve all gone. I have not seen a single one so far this year – not one! All we have are bumble bees.

The bees, along with most of the other insects (that so many creatures feed on – hedgehogs, shrews, wild birds) have been wiped out by the indiscriminate use of pesticides.

Anthropocene Apocalypse – My screen was splattered in Devon!

Posted on by Opher

bugs-windshield

I’ve just returned from a great trip to Cornwall and Devon. It was great catching up with good friends. It was also great to see that my windscreen was splattered with insects! Not quite as many as there used to be but welcome just the same.

I have got used to driving around through most other parts of Britain and finding not a single bug splatter. That is really worrying.

Insects are the basis for many food webs. Our birds and animals depend on them. They pollinate our flowers and crops. We need to cherish them.

I was wondering why there were more insects in Devon and Cornwall. I was sitting around in the fields, climbing up cliffs, sitting next to rivers, walking up coast paths and seeing lots of beetles, flies, bees and butterflies. They buzzed around in numbers I could remember from my youth.

My friend Pete postulated that it was because Devon was not a crop growing county; it was mainly beef and dairy. That made sense to me. The bugs were there because the farmers were not spraying crops.

We need to do something. Our insects re in a desperate state. Our swallows, bats, shrews, lizards, slow worms and hosts of others animals and birds will decline unless we take this seriously.

I love the hum of insects. They signal summer to me. Give me a splattered screen any day!

Anthropocene Apocalypse – The great Bee demise.

Posted on by Opher

Bee-apis

Last year I noticed that my garden was devoid of honey bees. My vegetables and fruit were being pollinated by bumble bees. This was most unusual because Bumble bees were supposed to be on a cycle of severe decline and I was used to seeing large numbers of honey bees.

This is not merely happening in England there is the same phenomenon occurring in the United States. These graphs illustrate this:

Bee%20Graph%20FINAL bees fig-023

I was dismayed to hear that 42% of Bee hives were failing in the States. This should not be happening in the summer months and does not bode well for the next winter.

Bees are essential pollinators. Without them we are in trouble. Many fruits and insect pollinated flowers will not get pollinated.

Even if people do not care about the fate of insects they might care about the increased costs of many of our food essentials.

We need to value all our insects. They are the food for many of our birds and animals. They are essential in our food webs.

It is obvious to me that farmers are destroying our bees and insects with the spraying of crops with insecticides. Neonicotinoids seem to be the main culprits.

We need a major research into the use of insecticides world-wide. Our animals and insects are precious!