Bee Swarms

The weather this year has been terrible for my bee keeping, and, as I have not been able to examine the hives regularly has resulted in swarming.  The following video is of a prime swarm taken from underneath my neighbours trampoline and hived in a National Box.

Dufus or tunnel mole trap

The Dufus or tunnel mole trap is based on the old horse hair traps used in the Victorian era. These mole traps have the advantage of being able to catch two moles on one setting, one on each end.  The trap is laid in the run and soil lightly sprinkled on top.  The disadvantage of these traps are they are hard to find if not properly marked, all it needs is a flock of sheep to charge across the field and you will have a merry time trying to find your trap.  I suppose you could GPS mark it if stock are a problem or if it is close to a foot path and may get disturbed by passer byes.

Dufus Mole trap

Here is the trap in set

Again the art in setting these traps is in making the trigge mechanism as light as possible, so it will go off at the lightest of touches. This is difficult with this trap as the mechanism is basically wire.  If set wrong the mole will find it impossible to set the trap of and will go under and stuff the trap with soil.  This is hard to detect until yo lift the trap.

The picture above shows the trigger mechanism set hard, no mole would be able to set this off!  The art is having as little of the trigger plate wire touching the holding bar as possible.

Before use these traps, like all traps should be buried to reduce the smell on them.

Clatworthy Lake

Summer was making an attempt on Wednesday morning as Andrew and I wandered our way across the levels and up towards Exmoor.  Our fishing trip was to Clatworthy, a beautiful setting with the dam over flowing and the water high up the banks. On arrival we saw a pair of Crested Grebe but no chicks with them, I suppose most of the water fowl have suffered from the high water levels flooding their nests this year.

As my fishing buddy had a gammy leg we hired a boat, and after loading him and the tackle we set of for the northern arm which is usually shallow and usually held fish, which feed on the abundance of aquatic life there.

Andrew was into his first fish quickly and bought onboard a fish with lovely markings and a full tail fin.  I caught next on an Orange blob which was taken savagely, this was the third strike I had in an hour but the two others I had lost playing them in.  I had allowed the line to go slack and the barbless hook had been thrown.  This third fish fought well, and pulled enough for me to worry about the quality of my knots. When Andrew finally netted the fish we could see it was not a monster as assumed from the fight, but still a very respectable 3lb.  Later that morning Andrew hooked into a wonderful fish that took his line off nearly to the backing and again  it took a good while to play out until I could slip the net under. (after accidentally hitting the fish on the head first! Thank goodness he didn't get off the hook, I would have never heard the last of it.

Sorry about the quality, rain water in my phone.

We also had a top class fishing guide with us, who only needed the odd bit of bread to keep her happy.

As you can see phone had dried out by this stage.

The afternoon was difficult and we only added one other fish to our day.  But between us we caught seven wonderful rainbow trout, each one fought magnificently.  We will be going back to Clatworthy.

Flies which caught: Orange Blob, Black and Green Nymph.

Ferrets and fleas

Every year I have a terrible battle keeping my ferrets free from fleas, My hutches have been soaked with disinfectant, scorched with a blow torch, and sprayed with flea killer but they keep coming back.  They play havoc with the ferrets condition. particularly when they are coming into season.

I have found that a combination of regular bedding change, regular treatment with spot on.  I have found blow torching the hutch also helps to keep the critters down.

Small Ponds

I wonder how many small ponds have fish introduced into them?  Camping this last weekend in in Cornwall at Liggers farm they had a lovely small pond below the farm house. Weather was cold and rainy so the children and I only fished for an hour, we caught two carp on sweet corn float fished of the small island. My daughter found a tiny frog, so this pond is a healthy one.