Uncategorized | a french garden

April 3, 2019
by thelivesofk 16 Comments

Spring update on the bees

Well, at last the Spring is here (I think!). I know that because it is now two weeks since we started hearing the Cuckoo. It is also because the birds have started pairing and courting.

And… our tortoises have eventually come out of hibernation.

The birds we rarely see in the garden in winter, including the green finch

and the green woodpecker, have returned.

As for our bee hives, unfortunately we lost one of our bee colonies – Iris – to the Asian hornets last November. The hornets don’t just destroy the colonies, but weaken them in autumn at exactly the time that the colonies need to produce the winter bees to keep them warm and stock up with provisions for the winter. So perhaps Iris was not a strong enough queen to keep up producing enough young to replace the losses.

But we were very lucky. In this region of France, the Charente-Maritime – many bee keepers have lost large numbers of hives this past year – on average more than 50%. One beekeeper friend near us lost 10 out of a total of ten hives. Another has lost six out of seven hives. So we have taken it upon ourselves to give a helping hand to our friends.

The bees maintain a temperature inside their hive of over 30 degrees centigrade, In February the outside temperature is still low to inspect the interior of the hives, but one can get a very good idea by just observing their coming and going. If they bring in pollen that is a sure sign that they have brood and need to feed the young. So by clicking on the link (1 min 07 sec.), I invite you to see what the entrance of one of our hives looked like on 16th February with outside temperature of 7-8 degrees centigrade. You can also notice three different colours of pollen brought in by the bees.

Strangely, now that the weather has improved the bees do not come out until it warms up to over 10 degrees centigrade.

Our other four hives have survived the winter and emerged as strong colonies, and the inspection in March showed that they have strong broods on three or even four frames in March.

At the end of March we decided to divide two colonies – Pissenlit (Dandelion) and also Tournesol (Sunflower) – These were our two strongest colonies.

The division of a hive is in theory to expand the number of colonies and also to prevent the almost annual swarming of a hive – although we have found that when the swarm fever sets in a colony, nothing will prevent them from swarming.

One can remove a brood frame with a queen cell, if it is observed, and make a new colony, or one can remove a frame without the queen or queen cell, but containing fresh eggs, and hope that the colony will make their own new queen.

In both hives we found the queen and removed the frame with the queen. We decided to give away our queens plus two frames of broods and plenty of bees. Our friends are naturally delighted and the bees are expanding at a fast rate. This means that we have now two orphan colonies. We hope that they will make new queens. So like expectant parents we just keep our fingers crossed.

We have meanwhile placed a six-frame beehive above the old hen-house to attract any passing swarm. During the last few years we have caught a number of swarms there.

The scouts bees have already started coming each day. So we wait and see what happens this year.

There is plenty of flowering shrubs and flowering fruit trees at the moment for the bees. This little lady has been taking pollen from the Camellia

She emerged laden with pollen.

Meanwhile on Sunday 31st March, whilst entertaining an old friend for lunch a large swam arrived on the quince tree at about one pm.

All thought of lunch was put aside as Amelia and I rushed to put on our bee suits.

We placed a sheet under the quince tree which is full of blossoms. I shook the lowest branch vigorously and caught the swarm directly in Iris’s old hive and left her there until the evening to let them settle in. As the queen was now inside, the rest of the bees you can see below on the outside of the hive just marched inside. They were really gentle and the operation was very smooth.

This is the first time we have put a swarm directly into a full sized hive, previously we have used the smaller 6 frame hive to collect swarms. As this was a large swarm we feel it was a good choice.

Quite a few of the bees in the swarm were carrying pollen, which I thought was unusual. Then on Monday morning at about 9 am I saw the new hive was bringing in pollen. Again strange as I had placed undrawn wax sheet on the frames and surely, I thought, the bees have not had the time to draw it in order to stock the pollen. Oh, well, I guess they know what they are doing! I hope that a more experienced person can give me an explanation.

So here we are with a garden full of flowers and blossom and our now five hives. I hope that the two orphan hives will do their job. But that is hopefully for another update in the future.

Kourosh

It’s hot!

This spring has been very mild. Milder than we have ever experienced here. We need a parasol to sit in the sun on the patio to have lunch.

The Wisteria has already started to flower on the atelier wall and the Carpenter bees are in their element.

The Osmia cornuta have had perfect weather this year. The males are all gone now but not before coupling with plenty of females. The little chap with the cute white fringe in the photo above is the male Osmia. The female was very compliant perhaps because it was warm and the leaf was very comfortable.

The females are busy building their nests and putting on a great show for our friends passing in front of the bee houses.

Some bees are so enthusiastic with the tube filling that the tubes have a convex finish.

The boxes also attracts other insects. I am not sure what this fly is doing but I view it with suspicion as there are many insects that are parasites of the Osmia.

This wasp may just be looking for a place to nest, or yet again to leave its eggs to hatch in a nest which will soon provide a delicious Osmia larva to feed the wasp’s young.

I think this is a male Andrena cineraria as I have the females provisioning their nests under our big plum tree, as they do every year. These bees are called mining bees as they dig tunnels in the ground in which to lay their eggs.

However, this year I am seeing many more of their cuckoo bees. These bees belong to the genus Nomada and will follow a female Andrena cineraria back to her nest site. It will then try to find the nesting hole of these mining bees and lay its eggs inside. The action is just like the cuckoo who lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and so takes no further responsibility for bringing up its young.

The other insect I see often over the mining bees nest site is this cute looking fluffy insect. It is not a bee but a Bombylius or bee fly which is also a parasite of the mining bees and other solitary bees. Life is not easy for the solitary bees.

Our honey bees are having it easy at the moment with lots of nectar on offer.

The Camelia is full of flowers and offers both nectar and pollen and a pretty picture for us.

The Viburnum tinus does a great job at the moment, providing nectar for all comers. This is a Speckled Wood butterfly but it also attracts the queen Asian hornets which we try and trap before they can build their nests.

I’ll just pop in this photo of an Orange Tip butterfly on the Honesty in case people get the correct impression that I am besotted by bees.

I do appreciate the occasional flower that does not attract bees. These tulips are almost white when they first appear and every year I say to myself, “That’s strange, I am sure they were a deeper pink last year.”

After just a few days they take on a much deeper tint.

Elsewhere in the garden spring continues with the trees unfolding in sequence. At the moment the Ash-leaved Maple is putting on its show.

I like the tassels and the leaves will shelter us from the sun at a favourite sitting place in the summer.

The big plum tree in the back garden is full of new leaves.

In places the flowers have withered to reveal the tiny beginnings of the plums. The question here at the moment is what will happen to the plums, apricots and cherries this year? For the last two years the frosts have destroyed all the plum flowers or new fruits and we have had no plums.

Our daytime temperatures have been in the low 20 degree centigrade with blue skies but the night time has dropped to 2 or 3 degrees.

March 6, 2018
by thelivesofk 30 Comments

Of Birds and Bees

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair –
The bees are stirring – birds are on the wing –
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

(Samuel Taylor Coleridge Work without Hope, 1825)

What can I say about our winter this year in France. Well as they say here, ce n’était pas normal – or in plain English it was pretty miserable. Generally it was not too cold, but cloudy and rainy – a bit like England, to be honest. Then all of a sudden we had two days of winter, with temperatures dropping to minus 7 degrees Centigrade and a touch of actual snow.

As we were warned, Amelia and I had placed additional insulation on top and around of beehives.

But thankfully for our little girls, the following day the temperature rose by 20 degrees,! And the bees were rushing out in great numbers in search of pollen and nectar.

When we arrived in France on a permanent basis, we had very few birds visiting our garden. The Robin was, of course, sure that this is his garden and we are only the new tenants. He used to come every day at the beginning and even now he is the most friendly bird in the garden.

I started feeding the birds on a regular basis (they eat more than five kilos of seeds every week!) and over the years we enjoy drinking our coffee and watching the birds on the patio. Three years ago, my granddaughter on one of her visits here returned from a local fête having spent all her pocket money in buying two young doves. She released them in our front garden and each year they seem to have raised two babies. I see the older doves around our small hamlet, but the youngest ones visit us on a daily basis.

I have been delighted to see that the two pairs of goldfinches that visit our garden have gained enough confidence to come to our patio regularly. The blue tits, for whom I place the peanuts at this time of the year before they have young ones, looked at the goldfinches a bit suspiciously at first, but decided that there is enough for all.

For the first time I have seen another new bird coming to the patio – a brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) or as is know here, a pinson du nord.

I do think that Brambling is rather beautiful. However, another bird that is unknown to me – and hopefully someone can identify – is a really elegant lady-like bird.

The rain has brought back the water to the river Seudre running at the bottom of our garden. Amelia literally dumped all surplus daffodils last year along the river bank, and they have awarded us with flower this year.

But this is also beginning of the period when we start watching our hives in case they are thinking of swarming, and of course hoping to catch any new swarm that might be visiting our garden. We have placed two six frames mini hives as traps, one at the bottom of the garden and one on top of the old chicken house, as there we have caught several swarms in previous years.

So we are set and ready. Hurry up summer, we are tired of this winter.

Kourosh

January 25, 2018
by afrenchgarden 20 Comments

Rain, rain

Last night on the news it said that this January in France has seen the highest rainfall in a hundred years! I must admit everyone around is bemoaning the clouds and the rain although, as a gardener, I tend to see the bright side of all this as everything was too dry last year. In addition, we have had no local flooding – not yet anyway.

Most of the winter flowers seem happy to cope with the rain, humidity and low light conditions but not my Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox). The wet fading flowers are being attacked by black mold, however, on the rare days we get the sunshine the wonderful perfume of the Wintersweet flowers permeates the air.

The Wintersweet only started to flower last year and this is last year’s photograph of the beautiful, waxy petals of the flower. I will have to wait another year to see it in full flower.

The birds on the other hand do not appear to mind the rain and the Goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis) come down to forage in our “lawn” ignoring the sparrows and the bird food on the patio. This photograph has been taken through the window while it was raining so the quality is not excellent.

The grass is shooting up as high as the finch’s head and making him bedraggled.

I wondered what they could be eating until I saw that the grass is already producing ample flower heads and the grass seeds are easily seen sticking to its beak. I had never considered that the grass seed would be so attractive to them.

Hey you two! There is a new birdhouse all ready hanging in the apricot tree on the side of the garden that you prefer. Take a look in while you are here.

January 11, 2018
by thelivesofk 22 Comments

Gardener / Beekeeper’s holiday!

To begin at the beginning: May I wish everyone a very Happy New Year and as they say in this corner of France I wish everyone plein des bonne choses – a lot of good things.

Although here the winters are on the whole quite mild compared with Northern Europe and the USA, this year we decided to escape the dull winter days and spend the Christmas and the New Year in the Andalusia region of Spain.

Arriving the first evening in our rented apartment we had a fabulous view of the countryside all the way to the sea.

But frankly, what does a beekeeper and gardener do on holiday? Well, apart from enjoying sunshine and temperatures of around 24 degrees C ( nearly 75F), naturally I chased after the girls – the feathered and buzzing varieties. The only problem was that unlike in our own garden, in Spain I did not recognize most of the flowers. So hopefully somebody can enlighten me.

This tiny cutie reminded me our warblers,

The countryside showed signs of spring with wild narcissus and heather as well as gorse in flower.

It was nice seeing the bees collecting different colours of pollen, This one from what looks like our red hot poker – Kniphofia.

The evening sun on this flower showed the bees still busy collecting yellow pollen.

We took a trip inland north west of Malaga to visit the bee museum (of course!) at the pretty small town of Colemnar. My son joined us and Amelia and him braved the only rainy day in the town square,

As we paint our beehives I found the museum’s hives an inspiration.

Incidentally the picture of the bee bringing a bucket full of honey to the nest-like hive shows the hives that the Spaniards in the North hang from the trees. It was at the museum that I also learnt that the bees there were of a totally different specie from ours. They were Apis mellifera iberica. They are apparently more nervous and more aggressive.

Rosemary of any variety seems to attract the bees.