Do you like Green Eggs and Ham?

| 27th January 2013

Welcome back to Hen Corner!

Featured in Country Living Magazine

I do I like them Sam I am… When my son, James, was very young I used to poach eggs in food colouring to serve him a lunch that reflected one of his favourite Dr Seuss books, but now our Columbine hybrid hen has started laying green eggs, it’s a multi-coloured nest box every day!

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Green Eggs 005Come on you girls…

Whilst it’s still pretty cold outside, and snow flurries are more the norm that a magical surprise, the days definitely are starting to get a little bit longer. As we said in our New Year post, it’s Valentine’s Day that normally heralds the pure breed hens coming back into lay, but I suspect that some of mine are popping out a couple here and there already. Here at Hen Corner, we have four little bantams that are in an Eglu Go by themselves, they are so tiny they just wouldn’t be able to hold their own with the big girls. Then in our bigger Eglu Cube we have 4 hybrids and 7 pure breed hens. I like keeping chickens that lay different coloured eggs as, not only are they pretty but, it helps me check which girls are laying and how often. So between them, our hybrids lay one white, one green and two brown. However, recently, I’ve been collecting light brown, speckled brown, large brown and small brown; these can’t all be from two hens… Well, as we begin to see more sunshine, more of the girls will present us with eggs and we should be able to discover who lays which one!

Skep 016While the weather outside is frightful…

Children played in the snow, grown ups huddled round a fire and bee keepers learned to make skeps! Andy and I joined a small group from Ealing Bee Keeping Association to not only learn  but make our own skeps. We had expert tuition from Martin Buckle who brought all the equipment for our group to make an old fashioned bee hive each. It was quite a long day as it takes a while to make one, but there was a great sense of achievement as we watched our skeps taking shape over the hours. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite finish mine, so brought home extra straw and rattan to complete it soon. Skeps are usually used today for collecting swarms and I’m hoping that, by having two in the house (mine and Andy’s), we will never need them!

The Urban BeekeeperBook of the Blog Post

By Steve Benbow

I was very jealous to read Emily Heath’s review of this book back in October and responded by putting it on my Christmas list! At last I’m reading it for myself and find it an inspiring story that weaves in a wealth of information. Please be assured that no beekeeping experience is needed to thoroughly enjoy this book!

This book is available with many of our other favourite books from the Hen Corner Shop!

Other News:

  • Some of the films that I’ve presented for Omlet have now been released, check out this one on chicken netting
  • I’ve been commissioned to start writing for a new magazine, watch this space for more info
  • We visited an Enfield school to talk about bees and are planning a number of other projects with different schools

Jobs for next week:

  • Make up new frames for our Beehaus – haven’t started yet!
  • Visit a local Beavers group for another session on bees
  • Keep an eye on those seedlings, make sure they don’t grow too leggy indoors

Have a good week yourself…

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