Preparing For A Super Storm

How to keep chickens and bees warm and dry through a superstorm

Our national weather service the Meteorological Office have issued amber warnings for wind and yellow warnings for rain on Monday from 00.05 GMT to 23.59. Very precise don't you think? As it turns out the warnings are based on a matrix of probability and likely severity. Amber means its pretty likely it's going to be pretty severe. Yellow means its either quite likely it's going to be pretty severe or pretty likely it's going to be quite severe. 

I've borrowed the above image from The Met Office website warnings page. so you can see what I mean.

This means we're going to have a shed load of weather! Heavy rain blowing at 60 to 80 miles an hour. Obviously our chicken run is fox proof but it's made of wire and we still have the temporary rain cover in place. I do not think a tarpaulin held in place with brick paviors is going to survive a super storm. I'm also concerned for the bees.

I noticed this morning that there was an attempt by other bees to rob the hive. Last week Alex told me you can spot robbers in two ways. A. They are so laden that they drop slightly when they take off B. The native bees are trying really hard to kill them. I spotted both behaviours. There isn't a lot I can do to stop them. Bees have a sixth sense about weather. They know what is coming before we do and try hard to protect the colony even if this means robbing out another. I'm going to pop down and mention the forecast to them-mindful of tradition I wouldn't wish to be caught out by failing in my duty to share important news. However we need to ensure that they are as protected as possible when the winds and rain come. 

The first thing we'll need is a strap to keep the roof in place. The hive probably weighs 60lbs and short of a tornado (which we don't really get in Nottingham) it's probably safe from blowing over. We may annoy the bees by moving their entrance closer to the wall but that will protect them more from the misery of the wet wind. Other than that I don't know what else we can do. The roof is covered with aluminium sheet and the vents are pretty narrow. They need some kind of ventilation because in cold weather damp is more of a killer than anything else but if the rain is really bad we may have to plug up the base vent.

I took a short break from writing to put another coat of gloss on the lid of the roosting box so that's drying in the conservatory. For your information conservatory sounds terribly glam. It is actually the place where we put all the things that wont go anywhere else. We have pipe dreams of turning it into an airy light infused sitting room. While mitre saws, wellington boots, sacks of chicken feed, tubs of dried worms, telescopes and the Cobb grill have nowhere else to go.....well you get the picture.

OK. Off to the supermarket

See you later.

Katherine