Spring has sprung and unless it rains soon, and for an extended period, it will all turn brown and die off. We have had the warmest, driest spring in 30 or more years. Thus the yard is looking super but … it has not rained at our place for maybe 6 weeks. I mean really rained not just dusted the surface. I spent a long time fixing and installing irrigation pipes and laying out mulch this weekend. I hope it will help us keep things alive. At least I’m likley to get a break on lawn mowing.
The bees are doing well. I requeened all the hives and have created “double” hives. That is two queens seperated by an excluder in three rather than the normal two boxes. It means bigger hives but you need a little more care with them. The theory is that you get more “surplus” bees to forage for honey. I’ll keep you posted. I’ll also take some photos of the solar wax melter and get them posted. It is working well in the hot weather.
You might also be interested to know that my heritage apples are looking good. We grow and interesting mix of very old apple varieties. I pruned hard this year to get good shape and have thinned the wee apples back hard (there is still heaps) and think that it is going to result in a good crop. They are able to be irrigated so the dry weather will not casue problems.
Sam is having a BALL in San Luis Obispo.
Since you wrote this it looks like its rained a fair bit in Nelson…hope the grass gets growing because you would seriously miss lawn mowing. Way to go on heritage apples…we need the old ones…I hate delicious and grannies and gaia….good on Sam, hope he doesn’t go too Hollywood or even worse, valley dude.