Spring honey harvest, swimming in the lake and new chicks

My little black and white bantams produced two small chicks this week

but abandoned other eggs in the nest so I removed them and popped them into the incubator.  Within an hour another chick had hatched.  

I added some eggs which a hen in the barn had left and during the following days four more chicks were born and are thriving in the brooder.  The television is having to compete with the cheeping coming from the kitchen end.

Friends, Debbie and Claire came over to help me with the bees on Thursday.  We inspected all seven hives.  

The one with the failed swarm had no bees and was removed.  The two hives which were formed from splitting my original hives were doing well.  I had put feeders in both hives on the advice of my mentor, Richard, and they had been emptied.  The other four hives were doing well too.   There were some frames filled with honey in all hives.  Some queen cells were removed and all the frames from one super were boxed and brought to the house.  We uncapped the frames and using the extractor spun the honey from the frames.

There was 2.5kgs of honey to pot up.   Later another 0.5kg had drained from the cappings and has been jarred for my own use in the kitchen.

Here is one of my honey bees on chive flower in my veggie patch.

Guests arrived on Thursday, a public holiday for Ascension Day in France, in both cottages for a long weekend.  The Tunisians in Middle Cottage bought one jar of honey and then asked for two more as they were leaving!  My first Rainbow Cottages Honey sales.

Very hot this week, 31°C in the shade yesterday afternoon, and this morning thunder, lightning and stair rod rain arrived at 0900hrs as forecast.  The garden plants and veggies will be very happy to have this good soaking and it will give the seven IBCs on the field a chance to refill too.  I have no mains water on the field and rely on rainwater collection from the barn roof so a good downpour is very welcome. 

A friend at bowls suggested a French supermarket flour which he uses for bread making.  I tried it this week and it seems to produce the same good results as the strong white flour I usually bring back from England.   This is good to know for emergencies, although as it’s more than twice as expensive than English supermarket flour, I will continue to bring flour back with me and encourage visitors to bring it too although for the moment my stocks are good.

Veggies and flowers are all growing well and the garden is beginning to look quite attractive.  

I am regularly picking a big handful of strawberries which I eat while still on the field – I can’t wait long enough to bring them down to the house and they are rather lovely while still sunshine warm.  

The yellow rose on the driveway has been beautiful these last two weeks.

On Monday it was my Workaway's 50th birthday.  We went for lunch in Caurel and then down to the Lac de Guerledan.

There was not another soul on the beach when we arrived.  I walked to the edge and paddled to see what the temperature was like. 

It was so lovely that I gave in, took off my trousers and went in swimming with my camisole and knickers - they're both all black and look a bit like a swimmer ...  I hope ...

Lots of bees around the house a few days ago and I had hoped that they would go into a bait hive.  They seemed to be taking up resident in the studio chimney, when I opened the woodburner bees flew out into the room.  I had to light the fire to smoke them out and discourage them.

Yesterday afternoon there were two separate groups of bees interested in something on the ground on the field.  We put a bait hive down and when I went up later bees were going in the hive and staying but, of course, they won't stay unless their queen was with them.   I'll have to wait and see but don't really feel too positive about it.  Still, it's all learning - and it is a steep curve ...

Three things I like:

1.   Having new chicks again.
2.   Having nice guests in the gites.
3.   Finally finishing clearing and cleaning the studio after a mouse infestation - thank you Maggi!