At last my years spent blogging have paid off. After the previous lovely gift of a mug from Waltons for being named one of their ‘10 Brilliant Beekeepers‘ (well, a brilliant beekeepers’ blog anyway, not just generally brilliant!), another surprise email came through from Mal at Waltons.
I have won an award! For ‘Best Beekeeping Blog’. And it even comes with a prize – an enormous bird feeder that I have to find a garden for. Maybe it can be fitted somewhere at the apiary. You can see a list of all the blog award winners on the Waltons website; there were various categories including best gardening, best ‘grow your own’, best flowers, best shed etc. Some of the blogs look really interesting. My Ealing beekeeper buddy Thomas Bickerdike won second prize for his fascinating and practical Beekeeping afloat blog – Ealing bloggers must be the best in the country!
But enough talk of awards. How are our bees doing?
Well, last Saturday was sunny and the nuc bees were bursting out of their box. There was a proper pile-up at the entrance as we had forgotten to move the mouse-guard dial off. A lot of frustrated bee butts were trying to squeeze through at once. Another Ealing member, Sue, kindly helped me smoke the entrance so I could move the dial round and give them more space to zoom in.
Emma had ordered a eke for the poly nuc which I fitted on top to give room for extra fondant and pollen, as the nuc is feeling light and we were worried about a possible food shortage. Tomorrow I’ll come back with extra frames and move them into a full sized hive, as they are absolutely bursting and ready to expand. I’m expecting a lot of brace comb to have been built in the gap the eke has created above, but that’s ok as it means delicious warm honey to eat!
This is the fondant and Neopoll pollen substitute.
And here’s a few from my walks a few weeks ago when all the snowdrops and crocuses were still out. Time and flowers go so fast!