Uninvited Guest

You work tirelessly to provide your family with sufficient stores to get through winter, but food is now scarce. Your stores are low when spring arrives. The work to keep the family fed begins all over again. Every day you're out there, bringing home what little you can find. Now is not the time to be entertaining any guests, and especially not an uninvited guest. Worse still, your uninvited guest is a hungry one who eats not only your food, but also the cupboards you store it in and the walls holding up the cupboards. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the mouse.

A couple of weeks ago, I inserted inspection boards under each of my four beehives. As you know, I treated them in mid-winter to reduce the levels of varroa infestation. The purpose of the inspection board is check the extent to which varroa mites could be building in number again within the colony. Even though I hadn't yet opened the hives, I knew each colony must have brood (bee larvae) as on warmer days the bees were returning with full pollen bags (brood food). The female varroa mite lays her eggs within a brood cell, so her babies hatch out with a pupating larva on which to feed. A growing brood nest brings with it the risk of a growing varroa mite population. Mites that die, or are dislodged from busy bee bodies brushing up against each other or during grooming, fall to the floor of the hive, through the mesh and onto the inspection board. I count the bodies.

Last week I removed the inspection boards to do just that. As I pulled out the first board, varroa was immediately of secondary concern, for there, to the rear of the board were bee body parts and mouse droppings. #@!*&💀↯

I whipped out boards two, three and four. More body parts. More mouse droppings. #@!*&💀↯#@!*&💀↯

To add insult to injury, only a few days earlier I'd washed and patched up my nearly new bee suit after discovering it had been a winter home for a nesting, nibbling, peeing, pooing mouse.

Perhaps, being smarter than the average mouse, that same mouse made the connection between bee suit and beehives, and swiftly abandoned its cocoon in my suit to sniff out my apiary. Such a shame he didn't meet Steve, Nessa or Charlie on route and become the dinner not the diner.

Colonies 1 and 2, my strongest colonies going in to winter, put up a fight. Their uninvited guest appeared to have pooped and left, for there was no sign of comb chomping. Colony 3 was less successful, with one frame eaten through and a pile of dead bees amongst the comb crumbs. Colony 4 fared the worst, with three frames tunnelled through and a greater number of bee body parts (mainly heads and legs, the crunchier and less nutritious bits). No sign of the twitchy nosed intruder himself.

Inspection complete, I closed up the hives and pinned a mouse guard to each entrance, the sound of tens of thousands of tiny voices shouting "too little, too late" buzzing in my ears. Never having suffered a mouse intruder before, the guards have sat for years unused at the bottom of my kit box. Lesson learned. Just because it hasn't happened, doesn't mean you shouldn't protect against it happening.

There is a happy ending to this tale of whiskered woe, for the bees, though perhaps fewer in number, seemed none the worse for hosting a mouse. All queens are present and laying, the new season's brood nests are starting to expand across the frames. The only sting in the tale was the sting in my finger.

Blood sucking dinner plate

Imagine if you had a dinner plate attached to your body. Wherever you go, the dinner plate goes too. Even when you're sleeping. Imagine if that dinner plate was a blood sucking dinner plate, feeding on you to keep itself alive. Imagine if that dinner plate made you weak, susceptible to infection, left you with deformed legs, unable to leave the house. Imagine if there was absolutely nothing you could do to get rid of the dinner plate or stop the rest of your family being overcome by yet more blood sucking dinner plates.

Welcome to the world of the honey bee and it's parasitic sidekick the Varroa mite, or Varroa Destructor to give it its full and graphically apt name.

I have done many unpleasant things to my colonies over the years in my battle against Varroa infestations. Today I added to that list. Let me introduce you to "The Vaporiser". No, not another Marvel comics character dragged onto the big screen in yet another excruciating performance by Nicholas Cage. This is a tool. Oh, so not that different then (snigger). As I was saying, this is a tool designed to vaporise crystals of oxalic acid within a closed up hive, the vapours rising up and permeating the hive, then re-crystalising on the hive surfaces, including on the bees, and including on the mites that are on the bees. Why it is fatal to the mites, but not to the bees, is beyond my knowledge and quite frankly, if it works, I don't care. Many beekeepers have been treating their hives this way for a number of seasons now, so I trust those who have gone before and am arriving late to the vaporising party. Fashionably late, naturally, and with glitter and sequins (okay, no glitter or sequins, more grubby fleece and mucky wellies).

 

There were the usual mishaps to be expected when using a new toy. Like forgetting to close the hive entrances earlier in the day and trying to coax errant sluggish bees back into the hive so I could gas them. Like not realising the jump starter was already powering the vaporiser and accidentally scorching the instructions for use (thankfully still legible, if a little crispy in places). Like not totally sealing the hive and running away, nose in jacket, from the wisps of toxic oxalic vapour curling up out through the gaps. 

Take note, this is a live action blog written by a fool and not a painstakingly researched how to guide written by an expert.

Tomorrow I shall count the bodies of dead mites fallen from the bodies of my beloved bees and dance a merry jig. Take that you pesky Varroa mites! 

Ratty

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Feed the birds. Feed the chickens. Sure as night follows day, as a shock on the scales follows Christmas, you're feeding the rats. Fattus rattus rattus. Naughtius greedius digus hole under houseus rattus.

Nibbled corners of the hen house floor gave them away, revealed last week during poopy chicken litter clear out. Could have been mice. Mice with big teeth. Drop in production from one egg a day from four chickens to none egg a day from four chickens suggested that the finger of blame pointed squarely in the direction of rattus rattus. Sure enough, having hefted the house to one side, there, hidden under the ramp, was the offending rat hole, at least 4 inches in diameter. Glancing up towards the fence, I saw another hole directly opposite the first, leading under the fox proofing chicken wire. The little s*ds. The entrances to both holes are now filled with stones and the main exit blocked with a breeze block. There'll be no rolling away the stone by rattus rattus!

 

Of course, it is only a matter of time until rattus rattus realises that the egg buffet bar has moved just six feet to the right.

The chickens figured it out. I had visions of finding them clustered on the breeze block where their ramp had been, but I should have given them more credit as by bedtime they were forming the usual orderly queue in the correct, new, location ready for a good night's sleep, free from rowdy rattus rattus interuptions.

The bugs are back in town!

There are good bugs and there are bad bugs.

We like good bugs so much we've built a hotel for them. Another masterpiece from the whittler's work bench. No pets allowed, but bugs welcomed! A range of accommodation is available - if you like a round room we can offer smooth walled pipes, hogweed stems for those who prefer rougher spikier decor, or for something more rustic try a log hole, but if your taste runs to modern but functional, try a brick. Booking facilities for this latest accommodation offering will soon be available n our website. Book early to avoid disappointment.

A good night's sleep is guaranteed, but with neighbours of the inquisitive poultry variety there's a high risk of being breakfast the next morning rather than having breakfast.

Meanwhile, in the bad bug camp, the baddest bad bug in the entire bad bug kingdom is back with a vengeance. This menace is invisible at first, lulling you into a false sense of security while its nibbles remain miniscule. You watch, you wait, you take pleasure in seeing your fruit bushes go from flower to budding fruit. All seems well. Then BAM! Overnight each caterpillar-like sawfly larva has grown in size ten-fold, its nibbles now clearly visible munchings on a vast scale, clusters of voracious little beasties devour every single precious leaf on your gooseberry bushes and every scrap of green on your redcurrant bushes.

Three years on the trot we've suffered the injustice of the sawfly larva attack and seen our fruit bushes stripped of all foliage. One year we tried companion planting with flowers said to deter these larvae, but by the time the seeds germinated I'd forgotten they'd been sown at all and suspecting an infestation of previously unidentified weeds, promptly plucked out every single seedling. First failure. Another year we tried replacing the top 2 inches of soil (the winter home of larvae to be) with a layer of fresh mulch, with no visible reduction in subsequent larvae hatchings. Second failure. Daily sprays of Soil Association approved "Bug Clear" didn't appear to clear a single bug. Third failure. And before you ask, no the chickens aren't interested. Fourth failure. Finally, in a last ditch attempt to save our four year old gooseberry plants, we dug them up last winter and relocated them at the other end of the field. How foolish of me to think I could fool the all seeing, all sniffing, sawfly with such a simple trick. Fifth failure. Now its back to the good old fashioned chemical-free but rarely effective pest control technique of spraying with warm soapy water. 

Before...

I'm determined not to be defeated. This is now one woman's fight to save her dreams of gooseberry fool and summer fruit pavlova. Every day I pull on my Marigold gloves, get down on hands and knees, inspect each plant leaf by leaf, and shake, flick and squidge the little b*****s to death. Small ones turn to slime. Big ones pop. Stuff the bad karma, I'm on a mission. I look down from above to find the larvae peeping out from underneath. I rummage in the middle to catch the larvae inching their way up the central stem. I look up from below to spot the larvae silhouetted against the sky. As a parting shot I stomp on the bodies of larvae strewn around the base of each bush just in case anything still has sufficient wriggle power to make it back to the mother ship.

... during ...

... after.

Hour upon hour passes in this way, and I have a "dot to dot" pattern of midge bites up my arms and around my face and neck to show for it, but I fear all is in vain as when I return the next day a million more have hatched and the bushes have become more and more skeletal. So long gooseberry jam, farewell redcurrant jelly.

The Bodyguard

I’m a hoarder. I have draws full of egg boxes, jars & margarine tubs, bags full of bags, and boxes full of wrappings, ribbons & bows pilfered from other people’s Christmas presents (after they were opened, I hasten to add). Afterall, you never know when something might come in handy for those “if only I had” moments in life. My stash of DVD newspaper freebies, however, had yet to be pressed into service - “The Thatcher Years” never was that perfect last minute gift and there never was a giant dripping tap in need of a washer in the form of a dodgy remake of “Dr Zhivago”.

In an ideal world either money would grow on trees or birds would eat chocolate. If the former, I could buy a 20 metre x 12 metre x 2 metre fruit cage without having to sell my soul to Harrods Horticultural. If the latter, I wouldn’t need a 20 metre x 12 metre x 2 metre fruit cage, and there’d be the added bonus of less chocolate in the world to tempt me and make me fat. Alas, Coca Cola Enterprises has yet to come up with a recipe for the ideal world, so I need to find an alternative solution if I’m to protect the fattening buds on my fruit bushes from the beaks of hungry birds.

This is where the DVD stash comes into its own. The perimeter of my soft fruit patch is now heavily guarded by Hollywood A-listers past and present, interspersed with the occasional ex-Prime Minister and aging rock star – the great (but mainly the not so great) works of John Wayne, Ingrid Bergman, John Mills & Kiera Knightley dangle menacingly by the blueberries, Churchill’s bodyguards and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers glint in the sun ready to blind the bullfinches as they swoop in for a gooseberry bud snack.

 

Now I just need to find a way to stop the cats s******g in the mulch!

It’s Chris-mouse!

Most people like mice, they even keep them as pets, let their little ones feed and care for them, put them in perspex balls and watch them run across the lounge floor, like something out of ‘Rodent Gladiators’. I on the other hand despise the furry little pests.

Having three cats and two barn owls you would expect our mouse population to be kept under control………ha! With the cold weather the little blighters have started to find their way into the house. The odd one or two were all ‘removed’ swiftly and sent on their merry way to rodent paradise. The main problem is that one lone trouble maker got himself into the wall space, and started to grind it’s perpetually growing front incisors on our recently installed plumbing!

Last week I noticed the pressure dropping on our central heating system, and eagle eyed Phil noticed a growing water mark on the ceiling below the bathroom. With the heating on all through the cold spell, I couldn’t believe that it was a frozen joint, so the only explanation I could come up with was that a joint behind the wall wasn’t properly fixed and had been leaking all this time, and worsened recently.

So with a heavy heart and big hammer, I started to smash through the tiled wall to get to the suspect pipe work.

When I finally got down to the lower joint, I was amazed to find that the hardened plastic elbow joint had been gnawed all the way through!

I couldn’t believe it, all this trouble was caused by a furry rodent just three inches long.

I’ve had an emergency meeting with the feline occupants of Banceithin, voiced my disappointment at their performance (or lack thereof) over the last few months, and explained the new regime of ‘food for furries’, which basically equates to no rodent catches, no tasty cat biscuits!