We’ve been traveling for a few days so I’ve been away, quite a few blogs to catch up on! I’ve got a sad blog entry this time but promise to finish it on a positive note.
Had quite a sad surprise when we came back to Dunedin on Saturday – my beehive has died. There was a combination of a cold snap (must have been that one with the snow) and lack of nectar. Basically, it was too cold for the bees to go outside, and they clustered around their queen trying to keep her warm, unable to move into their honey stores. When I opened the hive they were still in a cluster, unmoving, 100s of them. A very sorrowful sight. If I was a more experienced beekeeper I could have prevented it. While I do not endorse alcohol consumption, I have to say that that day I had to have a gin and soda before lunch (not something I’ve ever done before). I've been thinking about the ethics of looking after insects vs plants. Had to have a sort of an introspective, introverted journey for the last couple of days, might hold of getting another bee colony for a while, will see.
Moving on to good surprises.
On Sunday, as I was clearing weeds from a winter vegie bed, to make way for cucumbers later on, I found some forgotten parsnips. They’ve decided to resprout, although turned out to still be eatable and not woody. One of them was enormous (hence the photo).
I’ve also dug up surprise potatoes. The vegie bed I was weeding had dark purple heritage potatoes 2 years ago. I swear I dug them all up that season and have not seen them since! Somehow, I found about 1.5 kilos worth of purple potatoes there with two whoppers of spuds. Pretty excited, as I didn’t get any coloured potatoes to plant this year and these will definitely be going back in soon.
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