When I opened the shutters on a Sunday morning in May, something was flying around my head. At first I thought it was a bird, because I was not yet awake. As I lookud up I saw one bat at first, by opening the shutter completly I discovered the whole family asleep between door and … Continue reading Batman’s family visited us
Those of you who belong to my generation can still remember them very well in Europe about 30 years ago. What were they buzzing around our heads in May and June when we played with friends outside … the Cockchafer/Maybug (Wikipedia) After half an eternity, I’ve seen one again. This one was buzzing around our … Continue reading And they still exist ….. the cockchafers/ may bug
The bricklayer company had to postpone the start of the work several times and so we dedicated our efforts to the first and the top floor. Ceiling between the first floor and the top floor: All ceiling beams of the second half were treated with wood preservative three times and painted twice in white. Between … Continue reading Our construction site in the last weeks
Until two weeks ago we had hoped to harvest at least one little pot of honey from our largest bee swarm captured in May. But last weekend we buried that hope. They swarmed again ☹ The bees grew enormously in the Topbarhive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_top-bar_hive) in a relatively short time and we have constantly enlarged the breeding space, … Continue reading The bees and their swarming behaviour
We had capricious weather this spring in France - months of rain followed by weeks of heat - but the plants and trees of the Landes are robust and the animals are doing well thanks to our plantations 🙂 The corn I planted found gourmets among the chervils and hinds. The peas survived. The pepper … Continue reading The garden in June/July 2018
The attic is taking shape, even if we are making very slow progress. We had to spent time for the bees and the property, which we then lacked during the renovation. But..... the first half of the attic floor has been renewed! Pulling out the old wooden planks was probably the most disgusting task. A … Continue reading Updates of the last weekends on our construction site (26.+27. May/2.+3. June)
This sunny afternoon I took the time to cleanse the bee hive and the frames of the old bee colony. At this time Matthias discovered a new cloud of bees in the sky. This swarm has settled in another pine of our property, but quite high up. We wanted a new bee colony, but we … Continue reading The second swarm in 4 days
We were really lucky yesterday. Barely arrived on our construction site, as a part of one of our bee hives swarmed with the queen and stopped about 20 m further at a pine branch. This was the first time we were able to capture a swarm of bees. If we had not come that day, … Continue reading Our first swarm of bees
Unequal bee hives Mid-March we had a look in the bee hives for the first time after 3 months. This was thee regular spring visit, to check if the bees survived well during the winter, if they had enough food and if the queen bee is still there. Furthermore, we had to treat against Varroa … Continue reading First check of the bee hives in March
Racks for the plasterboard walls During the work on the first floor, Matthias realized during the alignment of the rails for the plasterboard walls that the house wall is very crooked/skew. We had to find a solution to align the levels, so that everything fits at the end (stairs, walls and windows). We found two … Continue reading Weekend of 17th and 18th March
