So this weekend Jo and I have been celebrating our 5th Wedding anniversary and what fun we have had. The highlight was last night visiting Winter Wonderland in London’s Hyde Park. If you want to know a little bit more about it you can see the website here but basically it is just a great collection of Christmas stalls and an amazing collection of rides. This go from tea cup rides to full on rollercoasters and giant wheels. It was really great fun.
Jo and I were going around high for two reasons. Firstly, we calculated this was only our 5th time away from the children in 14 months and though we love them with all our heart, it is sometimes nice to simply be the two of us. Secondly there was mulled wine stores everywhere and we simply couldn’t resist, especially as it was a little chilly out last night. The mulled wine certainly warmed the cockles!
Anyway, we found the most amazing stall. Now let me tell you, this “fair” had a distinctly German feel to it with almost all the rides with German text all over them but imagine my surprise as we walked through all the stalls selling toys, Christmas gifts and other random Christmasy things, to see a stall selling wax candles honey and…..mead. I nearly fainted and slightly tipsy on mulled wine Jo and I had to take a look.
It was fantastic. The candles were mostly Christmas themed, the variation of honey amazing (Lime Tree honey, Acacia honey, Heather honey and many more) and then there was the mead. Though there was ordinary mead there were countless other mixtures to try out. The owner (pretty obviously having had a few too many of his own samples!) was German and a lovely guy. It turns out that he was from a family run company in Germany who run over 500 hives (apparently there are about 10 families who run this many and there are two others that run more) who make everything to do with honey. It was great.
Anyway, we left slightly more tipsy than we arrived having sampled most of the mead. We ended up buying a bottle of the mead mixed with cherry (not sure if trying it again sober it will have the same appeal!) but we left happy bunnies and I hope our paths cross again with this gentleman as he was lovely. I hope you like the pictures below.
When I first stated beekeeping I didn’t have a clue. I thought you simply put a beehive at the bottom of the garden andthen simply drained the honey out of the side every so often from one of those beer tap type systems. I presumed beekeepers dressed up for a little bit of fun making out it was more serious than it was and felt it was more like a secret club of white boiler suited, bearded, morris men liking men over 50. How wrong could I be and especially when you consider you actually have to feed bees. Read the rest of this entry »
It had taken 9 months to come together and finally here I was. A jar of honey was looking up at me, a lovely and enticing golden yellow in a small jar. I had stuck my finger in previously and it was lovely but I hadn’t really shared it around.
Today was the trip to my local cafe where I spent the majority of my lunch times. It was where one of the other regulars gave me a well needed pick me up when I thought it was all out of reach and the owners (Jo and Gareth) were always interested in the stories of my honey……therefore I pledged to go back there once my jar was made. This was what happened today. Read the rest of this entry »
Hopefully you will enjoy some of these videos tracking my evening of generating my jar of honey. There is a video for each stage – hope you don’t fall asleep but they are worth it for the last video!
A rather apt day being my son’s 2nd birthday, I will forever remember it being the day I extracted my honey in the hope of making my one jar for this year. It was an eventful day not only because it was Sebastian’s birthday but also due to the events that unfolded while I extracted the honey.
It was the moment I had feared as I had heard horror stories of beekeepers chancing their luck removing honey from the bees late on in the season. Stories had been recounted of the general mood of the hive as a clumsy beekeeper strides up to the hive and slowly and rather caluculatingly removes all the product of their summers hard work. Read the rest of this entry »
There have been ups and downs and more ups and downs and then some more ups and downs but that illusive jar of honey is not far off now. The only thing I have to really consider now is exactly how big that jar is going to be! Read the rest of this entry »
Aside from recieving four stings in 24 hours the move was relatively painless. After a 5.30am start to make sure the bees were in place I got up to the allotment and was immediately cursing as I realised some of the bees were still surrounding the hive underneath the bit of tape I had left there last night after my panicked retreat.
What can I say…….I have got my honey making mojo back…….the National Trust have agreed with my Baldrick esk plan. In the words of another hero of mine “I love it when a plan comes together”
About 48hrs ago I looked down and out. My aim for the year of making one jar of honey was looking finished. I had known it for a couple of weeks if I am honest and I was moping around not really interested in writing about my bees and trying to turn my attention to protecting them over the winter.
How it has all changed, the door has opened slightly and I may just suceed yet.
My thanks to the National Trust for giving me the opportunity, what a wonderul organisation and a particular thank you to the Head Warden from the Surrey area for letting me do it (not to mention actually putting the hive in his very own back garden!). Fabulous.
I am the type of person that likes to bury their head in the sand and I feel I have been doing this recently. Frustratingly my bees had started to put a little bit of honey in the super but had not actually capped it.
This meant my simple aim of producing one jar of honey was getting more distant each week until I finally accepted that I probably wouldn’t get anything this year. I described it as the equivalent of running a marathon and falling over, breaking a leg, 10ft from the finish line. I know I should really be thinking about the bees well being but there was definitely an element of disappointment there and therefore a resultant head burying went on.
However…..I have had a week off from work, went away with the family and I am back with a cunning plan (similar to those that Baldrick used to conjur up if you are a Blackadder fan like me) Read the rest of this entry »
have had. The highlight was last night visiting Winter Wonderland in London’s Hyde Park. If you want to know a little bit more about it you can see the website here but basically it is just a great collection of Christmas stalls and an amazing collection of rides. This go from tea cup rides to full on rollercoasters and giant wheels. It was really great fun.
