With April’s full budding moon came the first blossoms on the Yarlington Mill cider trees and rather alarmingly also the new eating fruit trees that were delivered in the middle of the month!! 
Aging cider trees were grubbed out, ground was duly cultivated and made ready for planting and in a very fortunate few days of fine weather we planted an exciting mixture of apples, pears, damsons, cherries and walnuts. Followed by some Honey berries; which are an edible honeysuckle variety. Everything is now guarded, staked and watered in, and we wait with anticipation to see what happens.
We are planning on taking a new approach to bee breeding this year, based on a mixture of approaches from Dr Larry Connor and Gilbert Doolittle both American bee enthusiasts but from different eras. Hopefully the change of tack will yield some increase in our colony numbers which stay frustratingly below what we need for a productive combined apiary. Honey bee activity has been virtually non existent. Looking at my records from last year we had supers on most hives and a honey flow already in good progress by this time last year. So far we have just a few hives building up to strength for inspections let alone any major increase. I fear that the swarm/ splitting season will be a bit of a seat of the pants job this year.
As the very first of our roses blossomed our Rose lip balm was featured in Country Living magazine (a few of our products can be found on the Country Living Marketplace) which landed on peoples doorsteps towards the end of the month. Features like this are fantastic for sales and engagement and a flurry of online sales has been a great boost for the end of the month and beginning of May.
- April – Busy Planting! - 3rd May 2024
- March – Changing Seasons - 17th April 2024
- February – Everything’s waking up - 29th February 2024