Survivor Bees

When we inspected our only remaining hive this week, the National, it was great to see that the colony appears to be thriving. We found the queen almost instantly and could see lots of eggs indicating that she is healthy and well, and the brood was plentiful.


The colony has already filled it's first super with no sign of swarming and we also found good amounts of pollen and nectar stores which is another good sign .



These bees are still twitchy and quite aggressive but this could be the reason they survived the winter and late spring so well. We've added an empty super so they can start filling that too.


The next job was to help Chris inspect his hives.


He has lost two colonies over the winter but the others look good and strong. Two of the hives had unclipped queens so we quickly clipped those and let them carry on the good work. Under one of the hives we did find a lot of dead bees, but the hive above seemed healthy, so we think at some point there has been a swarm and it had hung to the underside of this hive without a queen before sadly perishing.


During the inspection we saw lots of bright yellow honeycomb which is a classic sign that the bees are foraging on the Sainfoin which has been in flower for some weeks now, and will be for several weeks to come.



In one of Chris' hives we found a queen cup with an egg so we took the opportunity to split this colony and put this, together with a few extra frames, into one of our empty WBC hives in the hope that this colony will develop into a full colony.

These frames are staying inside a nuc box for a few weeks to keep them in a nice compact space while the colony develops.




We hope to be able to repeat this exercise over the coming weeks with another of Chris' hives so that we can populate our other WBC.


Chris also needs to repopulate his empty national hives soon, replacing the colonies that have been lost over the winter, but there is a shortage of nucs available this spring due to the tricky winter and late spring, so it'll be a case of watching this space to see if we can find some more colonies.We also took the opportunity to do some gardening during the inspection, as the grass around the apiary had grown quite long and was starting to creep towards the hives, so we chopped this back and tidied it up.
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Busy Bank Holiday at Honeydale

Earlier this month we hosted a farm walk for a group of post grad students from the RAU, who came to hear about diverse and sustainable farming. They were the last visitors to use the old entrance, since the new relocated entrance, complete with dry stone wall and farm track, is now finished and waiting to welcome visitors.


Busy Bank Holiday Weekend
We had a busy bank holiday weekend at Honeydale. As part of our rotation, we’ve sown an enhanced wild bird seed mix, with an increased variety of species to make it more productive as a fertility builder - so we’re feeding the soil as well as the farmland birds!


In the strip next to it, we sowed herbal ley with buckwheat to act as a nurse crop in the hot weather, and to increase the phosphate levels. We’re experimenting to find the optimum sowing rate and sowed the buckwheat at a rate of 8kg/acre (20kg/ha) which is lower than last year.


The seedbed conditions were perfect with an excellent tilth. We used the Cambridge roller before and after sowing the wild birdseed mix, and the heavy flat roller after the herbal ley seed mix. The flat roller provides more consolidation but can lead to capping, so it’s a case of swings and roundabouts.

We also set up two mob-grazing sites, with electric fencing and water, for an anthelmintic experiment that’s being run on the farm by Nicola Smith from Aberystwyth University. Nicola is studying for an MA and works for the Organic Research Centre and National Sheep Association and is collecting data on herbal leys as natural wormers.



The sheep were also shorn this weekend, which has nothing at all to do with the experiment, but will help them to keep cool in the hot weather!

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New Bee-ginning

It’s the start of the new season and Paul went to do the first proper inspection of the Honeydale hives since the Autumn. We visited the apiary only briefly over the last few weeks due to the cold and wet weather, and it was clear that the last surviving WBC was struggling with low bee numbers, but we now have to confirm that all the bees have died and the colony cannot be saved. This is the second WBC colony to be lost, following the destruction of the first one by wasps late last year.


This means that we only have the one Honeydale hive remaining, which is the donated 'National' hive (see pic). The good news is that this appears to be going strong with lots of activity.




The success of the National colony over the long, cold winter is likely down to the more aggressive nature of the bees, behaviour which is commonly associated with being more defensive, robust, and more effective at foraging. This colony had been left unmanaged for sometime before we took ownership, so the fact that it had survived at all during that period would suggest a colony with good genes and a strong queen.

Most of Chris' Cotswold Bees' colonies have survived, but we think he has lost some of his colonies too.

We will now need to clean and refurbish both our WBC hives before re-introduce new colonies to them this year, but from what we’ve heard on the grapevine, colonies for purchase are few and far between this season due to the difficult winter and cold spring so far, so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
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Honeydale Planning Approval


We are delighted to announce that the plans for the Centre at Honeydale Farm have been unanimously approved. We are now in the process of putting everything in place so that construction can begin as soon as possible. Watch this space!
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New Bird Species at Honeydale


Richard Broughton was at Honeydale this weekend conducting a bird survey, with very pleasing results - two new species were recorded at the farm: A pair of coots have arrived and are building a nest on the pond and a Sedge Warbler was seen singing next to the pond. This is further proof that the creation of the wetland area is really paying off; the number of breeding species has increased by around 15% in the few years it’s been there. Canada Geese are sitting on eggs on the small island, and there are at least two (maybe three) pairs of Reed Buntings nesting around the pond area. Moorhens are still present (Richard heard one calling from the sedges) and Mallard feathers are on the water, (and have bred in previous years). None of those species were present before, and their arrival is purely down to the wetland creation.


Elsewhere, there's a pair of Kestrels nesting in a broken Ash tree at the bottom of the sheep field (opposite corner from the pond). Also a pair of Red Kites are very much at home (probably non-breeding first-years - they don't generally breed until 2 yrs old), 4 Buzzards, 2 Yellow Wagtails and at least three Lesser Whitethroats (the highest total so far). Two Willow Warblers were also recorded - only the second sighting - although they were silent and probably passing through on migration.
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Sowing Trees at Honeydale

Yesterday, Ian and Danny, Champion of Trees, were busy at Honeydale sowing half an acre of tree seeds, a project being run in conjunction with The Woodland Trust, Jenny Phelps from FWAGSW and Forestart, which specialises in seed collection from sources throughout Britain.


Jenny Phelps’s father and the Woodland Commission have previously experimented with this novel way of growing trees, which has several advantages over the traditional method of planting saplings. Firstly, seeds are collected from a wide genetic base, making the trees hardier and healthier. We’re also keen to find a different way of growing trees that doesn’t require plastic tree guards and gives a more natural scattered growth pattern, rather than the man made lines in which trees are usually planted.


A full list of the native species of tree seeds sown at Honeydale:
  • Common Oak (Quercus robur)
  • Mountain Ash/Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia)
  • Common Beech (Fagus sylvatica) 
  • Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa)
  • Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
  • Crab apple (Malus sylvestris) 
  • Dog Rose (Rosa canina)
  • Field Maple (Acer campestre)
  • Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus) 
  • Hazel (Corylus avellana)
  • Silver Birch (Betula pendula) 
  • Wayfaring Tree (Viburnum lantana) 
In preparation, the field was ploughed in the winter and rotavated before the seeds were broadcast by hand and then rolled in. A magic ingredient is buckwheat which has been sown with the seeds and will act as a nurse crop. An annual plant, the Buckwheat will grow very quickly providing an umbrella shelter for the tree seedlings underneath. Predators will be deer and rabbits but we have deer fenced the area and will may have to put up a rabbit guard. 


At Cotswold Seeds we’re all about grass seed, so it’ll be wonderful to see trees grow from seeds too. We’ll be watching this space and reporting back on how they are faring.
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How Beehives Survive Snow

We’re very pleased to report that our bees seem to have survived the Siberian blizzards and subzero temperatures that stuck the Cotswolds, as well as much of the rest of the country, earlier this month. We won’t be carrying out any proper inspections for a few weeks yet, but there’s evidence of activity in all the hives in our apiary.

It’s not a huge surprise, since bees are actually well equipped to survive cold weather. Adopting similar behaviour to penguins, they huddle together in a ball and rotate their position, taking it in turns to spend time on the colder outer edges of the ball and then warming up in the centre, where they create heat by vibrating and buzzing around the queen. During the winter, they feed on the stores of honey in the hives - we left a full super in one hive and fondant in another - so they only need to venture outside for water and toilet breaks!

We’re looking forward to seeing them out and about collecting nectar in the spring sunshine soon.

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Landowners and Academics Visit Honeydale



A group of landowners,  farmers, academics and business owners from the Cotswolds and further afield visited Honeydale this weekend for a meeting of minds and sharing of opinions and viewpoints. Ian Wilkinson led a farm walk, looking at the importance of farming diversity and sustainable practices, from soil through to food production.


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Guarding the Orchard

We’ve begun replacing the guards in the heritage orchard. The original guards, put in two years ago when the trees were planted, were temporary tubes which the trees have now outgrown and some of them have also been partially dislodged by the grazing sheep.

We’re replacing them all with sturdy mesh attached to two wooden posts, three inches wide, which will allow the orchard to continue to be grazed by sheep. We’ve completed the guards on 40 trees, so only another 210 to go. Those are ear defenders, by the way, not headphones!
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Hungry Birds

When our bird expert, Dr Richard K Broughton, came to Honeydale just before Christmas, he noted that the main birdfood/bumblebird plots had been almost exhausted, so the 250 Linnets from the previous month were down to about 25 on the whole farm, most of which were feeding on the mustard, which was almost the only seed still available. The small plot containing some Phacelia was attracting a flock of Goldfinches.

One of the rape/brassica strips had ripened and already been cleaned out and skylarks were still loving the sainfoin stubbles in the north field, with a dozen counted there. But many birds were already looking elsewhere for food, and the hanging feeders were quite busy with Chaffinches and Reed Buntings and a handful of Yellowhammers.



Since the new year, the sown plots have been exhausted and our bird enthusiast, Elliot, has begun the second year of the supplementary winter feeding experiment. We are supplementary feeding with 10kg of seed every day and the birds have stopped visiting the sown seed plots and are now heading directly to the supplementary feeding areas, where food is broadcast on the ground and left in hanging feeders/hoppers.

The aim of the supplementary winter bird feeding project is compare the effectiveness of growing wild bird plant mixtures, compared to regularly distributing extra supplementary bird food. It’s too early to draw conclusions until we have at least three years of results, but we are noting increased numbers of Chaffinches and Linnets and have sighted two barn owls, though Yellowhammer numbers are down for some reason. Richard has been back this week and spotted a visiting green sandpiper on the natural flood management ponds. They came last year too, so it’s great to seem them returning.

Since we’ve been purposefully catering to farmland birds, the tally of species noted on the farm has already risen significantly, from 44 to a 74, and we are hoping to see these numbers continue to increase.
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