starting the process of making my own bee hive!!! WIppeeee

Steady day today, been making the first part of a bee hive, a national brood box. It is 8 pieces of wood or 4 pieces of wood times two, if that makes sense. Two of each piece. I modified the plans that this guy posted on photobucket. top man.. click here

There are 4 struts that needed a router and that took the longest to do. I had to organised a router and table, but once set up, it did the job very quickly

The larger side pieces are made of plywood and I cut them on a table saw which did the job quite well indeed.

If I had done some close up shots, there is room for improvement but not much and I have tried a frame inside the box and it fits very snug.

I want to make some more boxes next and then move on to a floor and bottom

Once the brood box was made, it was time for dinner, followed by rhubarb and prunes with lots of sugar. Very nice indeed.

The poached egg plant seeds I planted are doing well and this is planted at the base of a plum tree. I want to plant its brothers and sisters round a bee hive.

Weather report - Sunny all day and but very windy this morning in to the afternoon, Wakefield, England

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Raspberries - Glen Ample - In a bucket or not

The rasps are coming on great guns. I have two lots, both are the variety Glen Ample, one lot is in a bucket pictured below and did not get cut back last year as they did not fruit. They are full of bud which is awesome and new shoots are coming up from the bottom

Below is the second spot with rasps in. These did fruit on all canes last year and so got cut back to the ground, well 6 inches anyway. They are very much alive and growing quickly, but no bud. There are also lots of new shoots appearing from the ground in true raspberry fashion.

Just a quick shot of the rhubarb patch. Awesome is the word and the word is Awesome. I am very proud of my little piece of England. Its needs some manure though. That is a job for the coming weeks to make sure it stays in pristine condition

Last couple of days in Yorkshire have been beautiful sunny days and all plants are growing well.

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Everything is in flower even the Rhubarb

I was a little surprised to see the rhubarb starting to flower!!! havent seen this for ages with my rhubarb so I dont know what brought it on. Any way as this takes valuable energy and nutrients away from the stalks. I shortly be removing said flowers.

Flower number 1

Flower number 2

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Rhubarb Pie Inspiration

After being inspired yesterday by another blogger making Rhubarb Pie, I could not resist having ago myself. Annoyingly I cannot find the blog that I found yesterday. Go figure.

This is the patch before being raided

This is the patch after being raided

 This is the produce.

An hour or two later and this is the result....

And the inside looks like this.... Makes gardening worth it.

I cheated a little, I added some raisins, prunes and dates and It was awesome! I think this shot does the pie justice and I can tell you it tasted so much better than that.

This is where the inspiration came from. Thanks flighty. Click here

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Rhubarb with custard will soon be on the menu

This is my spot of rhubarb at the front of the house. It is growing grand. I cannot tell you the variety though as the original crown came from my parents home and it has been in their garden for some years. The small contained to the right of the picture is a slug trap

Worthy of note today as well, is that I visited the Leeds Bee Keeping Association Apiary and actually got kitted up and looked in a hive. Fantastic. Joined as an associate member and now have designs about getting a bee hive although it might be next year when this happens, who knows.

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