Lots To Say
The bee keeping season has been in full swing for a couple of months and we've been so busy doing I haven't had time to write. As a general summary, you know we lost a chicken, Goose our beautiful rescue kitten was a wanderer and was killed in the road and the two girls are buried together in our garden.
We have 3 new hens who are taking a little time to settle in partly because our older girls aren't keen to share. The new girls are two dominos, grey white with flecks of black in their feathers and nice red combs and wattles they are called Dolores and Matilda and a buff brown who is, imaginatively, called Buffy. Buffy is a golden brown and has brave and stands up for the three of them. Dolores got the first of the inevitable bullying in the struggle for a new pecking order. Buffy, who looks more like the hybrids, faced them off right away and hasn't suffered much more than the odd pulled feather and being chased of the food which, to be fair, is probably a good thing as she's a total greedy guts.
The bees are incredibly busy and we've had our first clear, golden delicately flavoured honey and it is, as they say, nectar of the gods. Ambrosia. However, you'll be pleased to know that the regular cock-ups have continued and there is plenty of entertainment to be had. Thankfully very little of it is at the expense of the bees but they really do like to teach us a thing or two.
The one thing I have learned is that box hives really aren't the natural way for bees to live and I want more than anything to investigate hexagonal hives or if possible a top bar hive. However I'll tell you all about these when I've caught up a little with what we've been up to so far.
I'll try and separate the information so it's easier to find so there's a couple of bee updates to come, pictures of our new hens and their lovely eggs, pictures of the bees.
However my picture for today is of our beautiful and sadly missed kitten. Goose.
Love and Light
Katherine
