Feast for Winter Bees

February 8th has been a lovely warm day, frosty at first but then filled with sunshine; a welcome change from the endless grey days of late plus the roaring winds.

Suddenly I heard a great commotion on the verandah where baskets of hellebores and winter flowering aconites were in full bloom. I noticed not just one, but maybe 8 or 10 honey bees buzzing about from one flower to another, most indignant that I had appeared and interrupted their feast. One bee had a huge sack of pollen; it could hardly move. Weeks of starvation meant that it was determined to go home laden. Our two beehives seem to have survived the winter so far. These have been extreme times for them.

By coincidence I wrote a blog on February 5th last year after noticing the bees on hellebores and snowdrops. Maybe we should collate the information in a survey of winter honey bee sightings, as is done for garden birds!

The sunshine was especially welcome today as this was one of my February Open Tuesdays bringing visitors to see my winter garden. The grasses were magical with their sunny backlight,the cornus stems glistened,and the newly washed white stemmed birches positively gleamed. The aconites were in full flower and the bees obviously enjoyed them.....the snowdrops will follow in the next ten days.

Honey Marmalade

I was busy buying some sweet oranges in Sainsbury's, when I noticed that Seville oranges were available, so I bought a bag and thought I'd make a batch of marmalade and flavour it with our Stevington honey.

I read up my old Mrs Beeton cook book dated 1924, goodness knows how many printruns there had been since it was first published, and saw that she had four orange marmalade recipes. One of them was called Orange Marmalade made with Honey. Her recipe allowed 1lb of honey to every 1/2lb of prepared orange rinds. Then I looked up on the internet and noticed that making marmalade with all honey and no sugar made a soft finish which meant that it didnot set as well. Anyway,not having pounds of honey available, in fact just half a jar, I thought I'd compromise and make the usual mix but add the honey as an extra.

My mum used to make marmalade and I can just see us now, sitting round the large kitchen table, cutting up the rind by hand.

Well my new Magi-mix does it in seconds. It does the juicing well too. So all in all its an easy task. Result: the marmalade set well, the rind is thinly cut, the colour is glorious and the taste is fantastic. Can't wait for Saturday morning to come and try it out with warm toast and fresh brewed coffee for breakfast. Maybe I could make a marmalade honey cake for my February Open Days...Tuesday afternoons when the snowdrops and aconites are out in flower.

Bee News

Sunday was such a lovely day to garden after all the horrid winter weather we have had over the last three weeks. We were itching to get out and managed to cut down all the japanese anemones in the wisteria walk, plus the late clematis on the arches there and in general weed and tidy it all up...a full days work for the two of us.

And in the middle of it all, along came Chris Lewis with a jar of honey. He had come to inspect his two beehives which he left here in August after our swarm last May (see earlier honey bee post). The snowy weather had stopped him checking before Christmas but now he thought he would see how they were, and, give them some verroa mite treatment.

We were pleased to see that both colonies seemed alive and well and had obviously survived the cold weather. Now we have to wait til spring to see if the hives are then healthy. All very exciting; a whole new world for us to learn about.

Peacock butterflies and honey bees in our Monet and Hokusai borders

This has been a magical weekend with bees and butteflies in great numbers visiting the verbenas, buddlejas, blue geraniums and echinaceas.

These photos were taken in our Monet waterlily borders where Echinacea 'White Swan' represent the white waterlilies in Monet's painting in Tate Modern and the blue Gernaium 'Rozanne' represents the water beneath.

Elsewhere in the wild flower meadow the scabious and knapweeds are alive with insects. A fabulous show of native insects enjoying native food.

Yet to walk through the Hokusai borders is mesmerising beyond belief...it brings tears to my eyes every time; flights of Painted Ladies and cabbage whites, meadow browns and common blue just lift off into the air, soaring and fluttering above supping, tasting, feasting on the Verbena bonariensis; so fantastic...like walking through a dream. It is a butterfly wonderland. Free and fantastic.

25,000 Visitors

Imagine the scene. Last Bank Holiday Monday was fine and sunny. We had lots of visitors for our late spring open day to see eight dreamy arches in the Wisteria Walk draped in laburnum, wisterias, robinias and clematis, all underplanted with glorious purple alliums. Rose petal sponge, and lavender-lemon drizzle cake teas were being served on the lawn...all was well with the world.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves....when 25,000 visitors flew in from the north west and made a bee line for the orchard. It was Bedlam with bees buzzing everywhere amongst the orchard trees over exactly the route that all our visitors came in by, except now some were leaving by that same route! One of them said to me, better call a beekeeper. Simon happened to be passing and I relayed the message. He rushed inside...but how do you phone a beekeeeper????

118 500 did the trick.....yes I have several in Nottinghamshire! Shall I put you through? Yes please.......several seconds later the beekeeper answered....Simon explained that we had an open day here, and there was a swarm of bees in the orchard, maybe with just a hint of panic in his voice! The person at the other end of the phone giggled and she repeated Simon's comments, and there was much guffawing in the background. She then told him that she was the landlady of the Beekeeper Inn and wasnot a beekeeper at all!!!! No doubt the customers that day are still chortling!

So that avenue closed, but thanks to Google the Bedfordshire Beekeepers site soon emerged and after several attmepts to find someone at home, Simon manged to find a real beekeeper only three miles away at Milton Ernest....and fifteen minutes later a super man called Chris Lewis came to save our day!

He made Simon dress in a beekepers outfit and soon they were cutting down branches of the cherry tree where the bees had now settled. A large box was then held underneath the swarming 25,000 bees (Chris reckoned that was the figure) and with a sharp shake of the tree the swarm fell off and the box was left on the floor whiltst the bees settled.

Apparently late that evening they were already making honey!