Bees and Trees --- The Cottarton Game

Picture our domain at Cottarton, fields, winding pathways, gardens of Canterbury bells,vegetable rows, and then some special features such as the house, cabin, greenhouse, labyrinth, beehives. Not to forget special residents such as our three cats and the bees. How clearly can you see it all? Now transfer your vision to cardboard tiles, arrange them in ways that suit you. You’re not the only player in this game. There are others and they may not agree with you on how to build the gardens, where to put paths or the position of the greenhouse. All players place their tokens on pathways, gardens, special features and even fields. Points are awarded for completed gardens and paths. Special tiles that contain a bee win you extra points because bees increase the value of a garden.

Now you’re playing Bees and Trees, the table top game that Lois left for us under the tree. When I opened the box and saw the handcrafted tiles, for a moment I thought that with the assistance of a magic spell she'd encapsulated features of our domain on small cards. That if I stared for long enough at the log hive I’d see bees flying. Or that the cats would start dancing. We sat around the table, picked our token --- each player has six; pebbles and shells that Lois had gathered at the foot of Mount Olympus in Greece. And so the players each picked a card when their turn came. Like Woofers, they built pathways, gardens, planted trees and laid claim to the special features. Perhaps the one aspect not true to life was the competition for lucrative gardens and the fields that contain them. People who visit us don’t jockey to possess anything.

Gardens -- bee included

 But after all, it’s a game, not a bad place to let your competitive instincts express themselves. Or to explore how to take the cards that you’re dealt, apparently at random, and build something beautiful.

'Tis the season for making holly wreaths

Among my earliest memories is trying to find a place to sit down in a living room jammed full of holly. Piles of it, some cut into sprigs, some with wires wound around the stem, green holly, variegated, berries, wires. My dad sat among the piles, a circle of moss balanced on one hand, and with the other hand he stuck holly sprigs into the moss. First he planted a complete circle of cypress sprigs, then three rows of holly, inserted at three different angles to fill up the circle. Finally he inserted several sprigs of variegated holly and  berries. The wreaths were all pleated during the long winter evenings. To keep our stone cottage warm, we burned a paraffin stove. Every couple of hours I had to run into the frosty night to fill up a jar with paraffin and insert it into the stove to keep it running. I also wound wires around the holly stems. Later on, I made a few wreaths to earn some Christmas money.

While he worked, he told us stories.

We heard about his adventures in the POW camp. The compound was along the lines of the camp in the film, The Great Escape. Perhaps it was a harrowing experience, but he made it sound like an adventure. At times funny, especially how the prisoners sometimes got the better of their captors. A few, not many, escaped in ingenious ways. Yes, they dug an escape tunnel, and almost completed it, but in the end decided not to use it. War was ending and the prisoners realized that they had more to gain by waiting until they were released. There were family stories, memories of growing up in a manor house on the banks of the Pripyat River in Bielorus: wandering in endless forests, accounts of the bogs that could swallow you up, hunting for Capercallie and the pranks his brothers played on each other.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that during winter, when the Old Scone Nursery had little else for sale, the wreaths provided most of the winter income. Making each one took about two hours, but they fetched a good price in the Perth shops. Also, materials were cheap. The moss came out of the local woods. As for the holly, well that was a family secret. Enough to say that the nearby palace garden contained many holly bushes. Each winter they received a severe haircut. Finally the local Factor, not amused by the stunted look of his holly trees, told  my dad to cease and desist. He had to look further afield. Hardest to find were holly berries. In a bad year, my dad had to substitute plastic ones.

This year I bought the metal rings and  made a few wreaths for gifts. Remarkably I recalled the entire process as if I'd done it yesterday: the order of the rows, the angles for the holly, that the variegated holly and the berries get longer wires. The wreaths turned out exactly as I remembered. No one makes them that way any more. Modern wreaths have pine cones, plastic holly and fir tree sprigs. 

Where did my holly come from? My dad used to reply to such a question with, “It’s better not to say”. I'll stick to that line. 

Of Fog and Food Poisoning

When air travel goes wrong it usually goes wrong badly. Not just a flight delay but as the poet expressed, “When troubles come they come not singly but in battalions.”

And so to last week’s trip to Munich. Luggage was checked --- luckily underweight, and no funny business at security, such as losing (yet again) my pocket knife. We’re in the departure lounge to take off for Heathrow. But alas there’s fog over Heathrow. First one flight and then an entire board of flights are delayed. Ah whenever we get too big for our boots and think we've mastered nature, pesky weather reminds us that we are on Earth, and planet Earth has the last word. I ask about the Heathrow-Munich leg of our trip, but the BA lady assures us that the flight will be similarly delayed and so we should make it.

After three hours wait, we board, and then wait  another hour on the tarmac for Heathrow fog to make up its mind whether to lift or roll in. We sail! Land in Heathrow and then Amber and I sprint for Terminal 5, ducking under barriers when they pop up in our path. The good news is that we make the gate as the flight is still boarding. The bad news is that  BA took us off the roll and placed us on a later flight. They figured that we wouldn’t make it. I suspect that we got bumped by a celebrity who pushed his/her weight about. So our flight is to leave ---four hours later. More fog rolls in. Signs of “Enquire Airline” pop up all over the departure boards, but our flight is still on. What do you do while waiting? You drink, shop, eat, drink some more. After a while you suspect that flight delays are so profitable for airport businesses, that Gucci, the caviar bars and liquor establishments pool together a bribe for BA to delay certain flights.

And so we finally board! I phone my cousin in Munich that we’re on our way. Will only be six hours late. We sit on the tarmac, for an hour at least. Finally comes the news that the pilot got sick from food poisoning and had to deplane. The co-pilot can’t fly the plane as maybe he’s got what the pilot has. So, no flight that day. Just get off folks, pick up your luggage and our staff is there to help you. Right?

We get off only to find ourselves in a large crowd of everyone whose flight was cancelled. One BA chap at the counter is trying to sort them all out. The line isn't going anywhere. Some have sat down. A guitarist serenades us with “We shall overcome.” Amber and I are at the end of this line. We study our lack of options. Finally a chap appears from a doorway with a stack of papers and heads for us. “Who wants a hotel?” he asks. Sighting a couple with a baby he gives them some coupons then disappears through the doorway again. Ten minutes pass and he appears again. Several Spanish speaking people corner him, almost threatening to rough him up. He protests, “Back off or I’m going away and I won’t be back.” He gives out the coupons then disappears again. A young chap addresses me in German. Finally he breaks into English, says that he knows what is going on. But before he can divulge the secret, he breaks into a series of German swearing and marches off down the corridor.

 I’m sure we've seen the last of the guy with the coupons when he pops up again. This time he hands Amber and I the goods. The only open hotel is the Olympia, in Central London. But, he warns us of dire consequences if we take our luggage. Luggage stays in airport; our bodies go to the hotel. We have to come tomorrow to be re-booked, or we dial a pricey BA phone number and hope you don’t go bankrupt while we’re on hold. We exit the room with the crowd and guitarists, pass border control and come to the baggage collection hall. All our suitcases are scattered there, with no supervision. Anyone could walk off with them. A sign boldly declares TO DELAYED PASSENGERS: PLEASE TAKE YOUR LUGGAGE IF NECESSARY. If necessary? ~ Are they being funny? We grab our luggage. 

Outside the terminal, there’s another unending line. This time for a taxi. We team up with a German couple, just back from a Star Trek convention. And so for the next hour we trade Star Trek trivia. Taxi pulls up, we cram in, three couple plus our luggage. Upon arriving at our hotel,  the Taxi man asks foe £66. We ask for three receipts, as we each have to reclaim our taxi expense from BA. “I suppose you’re giving me a tip too,” he says. We pull together £80, ask for change. But he pockets the money and says, “Thank you.”. At least he hands out three receipts.

From our hotel room I call the BA number. After 15 minutes a voice comes on. He puts me through to the “Excecutive Club”. Then, I lie on the bed for 45 more minutes; on hold. I hang up. After calling again I reach the first voice. Letting all my dignity go to the wind, I plead, almost cry to the chappie in Bombay not to transfer me but to book me on a flight. Which he does.

After that our fortunes take a turn for the better. Amber and I sleep well, eat a great breakfast, coffee, then lunch on BA’s expense account. Our Munich flight leaves on time and the rest is uninteresting.

I’m left pondering how rarely we appreciate our planet and the weather systems, except when our travel plans go wrong. Then, rather than expressing contrition, or understanding, even acknowledging that the Earth has a right to exist, we’re reduced to swearing.

The Cottarton Labyrinth

Last summer, despite being the butt of all jokes and other disparaging comments I built a labyrinth in the middle of our field. Not a maze like you find in English country manors with passages framed by neat boxwood, most with dead ends, designed to bewilder you. Or a-maze? The labyrinth leads you in one continuous path though by no means a direct one, to the centre, and then back out.  You can walk it at any time of day or night, when you feel distressed, when you’re happy, want to meditate. Or you can walk it when you have absolutely no reason or purpose in doing so. Do it consciously, each step taken with awareness, and you find yourself emerging from the pathways  in a different space then where you entered.

The view toward the cottage





Building a Cretan-style labyrinth, or any other is quite easy and doesn't require advanced surveying skills. First, you learn how to draw your labyrinth on paper. Then you repeat the same process on the land. My introduction to drawing was a you-tube video.  I cleared away the space with my scythe. After I’d practiced my art skills and knew how the deisign worked, I repeated the process on the cleared space, using 3 foot long bamboo sticks as my pencil. I used them also to measure the width of the path and stuck one into the ground every three feet. The labyrinth axis is lined up with  Janetstown Hill,  the most prominent peak close to Cottarton,  so that the structure blends with the energy of the land.  I marked the  cross at the labyrinth centre with stones from our land. At the heart is a collection of white quartz. No doubt you'll find your own objects to enhance the structure you build. After drawing the labyrinth on the land I mowed the pathways, and kept them mowed throughout the summer.

During August white clover grew in the structure. On a warm day you could smell its honey. My favorite time of day was around 9 pm when the low angle of the sun lit up our grassy field in bright golden hues. There was a peace in the air that did not appear to originate in any human thought Something you might call, sacred. You wanted to indulge totally in what was there. Without boundaries. To walk in circles, with your feet constrained to move along a prescribed path seemed almost unnatural.  At other times, especially when one felt overwhelmed by  turbulent thoughts, the pathways were more welcome. Walking them awoke an inner movement toward harmony. There was no thought of suppressing unwelcome thoughts or feelings, but rather a process of becoming more aware of them. Seeing what was already there.

Stone circle near Aboyne







Some people like to go to a church, cathedral or other special building to pray or meditate. Lately I've found most such places, built by human hands, to be empty and uninspiring. The temple that inspires is not one that is built by us or by our clever thoughts. It’s outdoors in the order created by nature, with nothing to separate the sky from the Earth. The language is expressed in the grains on the grass stalk, seemingly haphazard clover clumps and gnarly pine trees. I suspect that our ancestors five thousand years ago or earlier also sensed a certain sacredness in such places which is why they built their stone circles. Not to create temples of worship. The temple was already there. But rather to mark those spots that were particularly meaningful. Where, if you spent some time, you might discover yourself and your connection with the land.

Bees and the Northern Lights

Three days ago the bees were acting up. Temperatures were below 10 C, and so I expected them to remain huddled in a ball inside the log, but there they were, buzzing in circles, darting here and there. They clustered in large groups on the log. Some took off to forage, but others, plain excited danced in zig-zags to the music of  an unseen piper. Some alighted in Amber’s hair when she approached the hive. A first!

Meanwhile, unseen by us,  a large mass of plasma erupted from the sun and began its journey earthwards. Did the bees sense it? I’m quite sure that they’re aware of many influences that you and I don’t notice. Our unconscious thoughts and feelings for one. Geomagnetic storms are known to affect their WaggleDance.  They have a close relationship with the sun. Adult worker larvae take 21 days to develop, the rotation period of the sun. When the Queen takes her mating flight which way does she fly? Directly toward the sun. It’s well established that worker bees use the sun’s position when executing their Waggle Dance --- a complicated set of gyrations performed on the honeycomb to tell other foragers where the best food supply can be found. And what are beeswax and honey if not energy sources --- the sun’s energy stored by bees and ready for burning.

Clearly I didn't understand what the bees were telling me or I would not have been so surprised when Charles called last night to tell me that the Aurora was active. I hung up quickly and darted outside. There it was on the northern horizon, a curtain of greenish-white extending a quarter of the way to the zenith. Amber even brought out Ellie to look, but poor Ellie, just out of a bath, found the warmth of the indoor fire more inviting than the green thing-a-jig on the horizon. From the white haze, several green flames shot upwards, waving, hair-like. I thought of my camera, but realized that by the time I fished it out of my clutter, the flames would be gone. Oh well, that’s why UFO’s are never properly photographed either.  A second green curtain developed higher in the sky. You knew that it wasn't a cloud because stars shone steadily through it. Minutes passed, the lights shifted  to cluster brightest under the pole star. A large pink glow gathered close to the horizon, remained there for a few minutes before dissipating. The green flames died away and there remained the white glow that was not from street lights.

Luckily, others were able to capture the show.

Did the bees know about the solar explosion before it arrived? I don't rule it out. Barbara Shipman, a mathematician at Rochester University described their the Waggle Dance  in terms of a six-dimensional figure, one that can also describe the behavior of sub-atomic quarks. I've no idea what her discovery means except that bees remain extremely mysterious, with an intelligence that far surpasses what you'd expect of the little things. Perhaps they're not limited by our three dimensions.

Reluctantly I went inside the house. Daily life --- what people call “the real world” was calling, even though it’s probably less real than we think. This was the first time I’d seen the Aurora since returning to Scotland. It’s an unexpected guest, beautiful and uncommon. When it’s there you want to stay with it every minute. You don’t know when you’ll get to see it again.

Reinventing the Wheel (Hoe)

I believe in short cuts. Some say that ‘you get what you pay for’. I prefer to find a good deal. For free if possible. I like to break laws such as the law of gravity. Bend the law of karma, produce vegetables and flowers with little effort, instead of by the sweat of thy brow.

Among gardening short cuts, there's none better than the wheel hoe. I first saw it in the book on Permaculture gardening by  Nikolay Kurdyumov, Growing Vegetables with a Smile and knew I had to have one. Next year we’re planting a 200 square meter patch of wildflowers, a cereal field and so on. My current approach to gardening of spading over the bed, weeding out buttercups one by one, rotavating, replacing lost soil with barrows of compost --- It's too much for one man. There has to be a better way.

Yesterday I cleared out the buttercup-infested wildflower bed. First I scythed down the weeds to two inches. Then the wheel hoe loosened the weeds and soil down to 4 inches. I raked the weeds up. A job that normally takes half a day was finished in an hour. Plus the well-worked top layer that is most fertile was preserved. Unlike the rotavator, the wheel hoe doesn't bury the weeds to where you can't find them.

Permaculture emphasizes working with the top 4 inches of soil. You mulch it with weeds, hay, straw, cardboard, leaves --- whatever decomposes. The soil’s fertility lies not in fertilizer but in the interconnecting pathways created by roots, earthworms and other bugs --- the soil’s structure. Destroy that by spading over the soil and no amount of fertilizer will help you.  I was sceptical whether Permaculture, shown to work in Australia and Russia, can work in Scotland with our heavy, slug-infested clay soils. But why not try it anyway and save a heap of work as a bonus. And so, this summer I mulched the veg beds with hay. I put away the spade and brought out the wheel hoe.

The beauty of the wheel hoe is  its efficiency in delivering your effort where it is needed. This is a result of the handle design and the wheel --- once again re-invented. In working a straight dutch hoe, you can’t deliver the necessary force because of your unwieldy grip on a straight handle. Also, the bit is driven into the ground rather than parallell to the ground. Trust me, it takes remarkably little effort to plough up your land with a wheel hoe.

Where do you find one? Such a simple tool, once a common feature in gardens, is unfortunately not readily available. In the US you can find one at Lehman’s, that sell Amish tools or at Valley Oak Tool Company,  all for about  $275. In the UK, your only option, other than the antique tool store or ebay is the Swiss made Glaser for about £330. All that money for a hoe?

Along with my philosophy of getting a good product, cheap, I opted for the Planet Whizbang hoe, and ordered it online. They sell you the metal hardware that makes up the hoe. You assemble it, find a suitable wheel and you make the handles yourself. The kit costs about $100, plus $45 if you want it shipped internationally. The design is excellent and durable. The hoe works like a miracle. Particularly important are the right-angle handle grips that deliver your effort efficiently, to push the hoe along. Amber has attacked the weeds in our gravel path with it. I've prepared and planted new beds, hoed out weeds in no time. Meanwhile my petrol rotavator is gathering dust in the garage. 

Give it a spin. See if the wheel hoe won’t transform your gardening too.

The Log Hive --- and its Residents

The past two weeks has seen a buzz of activity around the log hive. Bees coming in and out, flying in circles but appearing more frustrated than contented. Each day I poked my head into the log to see what was going on. Hundreds of them were packed into a giant ball suspended from the roof of the log. I didn’t see any sign of honeycomb building or any other activity. A couple buzzed in my direction to let me know that they didn’t care for me or my anxiety .

“Just go away and leave us alone. We’re managing,” they said.

Well might they be annoyed, as their entry into the hive wasn’t exactly natural. They arrived at Cottarton in a small nuc-hive, courtesy of the Moray Beekeepers, who supported my plans to keep bees in a hollow log where the bees can build their nest the way they do when left to themselves. The colony had an egg-laying queen, some drones and workers. They already had some brood cells (with embryonic bees)  and honey cells.

In Scotland as in many other countries bee colonies are in serious decline. There are few wild bee colonies left. The decline is blamed on certain new pesticides and the Varroa mite, a blood sucking parasite active in most hives. While I accept the causes, I also wonder if modern bee keeping methods don’t exacerbate the problem by providing an unnatural environment that makes bees more prone to disease and parasites. Also there's the current practice of harvesting honey and replacing it with sugar syrup. Isn't that like feeding the bees junk food? I was very impressed by the apiary of log hives in Cevennes,France. where, according to the local beekeeper, there has never been a Varroa problem. Neither are the bees fed sugar water. Could natural beekeeping help stem the bee population decline by producing healthier bees, able to deal with Varroa and other vicissitudes? Many bee keepers think so. There is a significant movement in many countries to redesign the hive to accommodate the bees natural way of building their nests.

I arrived at Cottarton with the bee colony. How does one move them into the log so that they will start building there? I built a horizontal platform on the log, connected it to the log with a plastic pipe. Set the hive onto the platform so that the only way out of the nuc would be through the log. Once the bees were out of space, wouldn't they move into the log? Well, after a couple of days I realized that they didn’t like their new front door. None of them showed up in the log.

Move-in day for the new residents

I moved them into the hive using the old fashioned way of shaking them off the frames into the hive. Then I set the hive back onto the platform and waited. They buzzed about like crazy but eventually settled down. This method of moving the bees proved unfortunate in that the bees left their brood cells in the nuc unattended. Brood need to be kept warm by the body heat of hundreds on bees, or they die. For whatever reason my bees didn’t find their way back to the brood cells and without their body heat, the brood appear to have died.

For several days the bees hung in a large ball, showing no interest in their old cells or the sugar water I left for them. I held my breath. They left the hive in ones and twos, flew about and returned. I couldn’t tell if they were feeding on anything. I called John Salt at the Moray Bee Dinosaurs. John also has a log hive plus years of experience with bees. In a steady voice, like a pediatrician talking to a nervous new mother, John suggested I calm down, leave the nuc out so that the bees can raid its honey.

I placed the nuc just outside the hive. That got their attention. They began to visit it, feed off the honey they had already stored there. Each warm day I would see more of them flying between the nuc and the log. The bee ball began to look active with bees moving about it. They were building something inside, but I couldn’t tell what. Also, they didn’t like me looking on because they’d shoo me off if I stared at them for too long.

Canterbury Bells








Outside the white clover was in blossom. On a hot day its delicious honey aroma wafted through the air. Canterbury Bells opened up. The garden began to buzz. When picking the Bells I would find so many bees feeding there that I felt guilty about stealing their food. While walking through the field I found more of them around the clover, busy but contented. Every warm day a cloud of them hovered around the hive entrance.

Finally I saw what they were building, white wax cells, several of them. Each day they added centimeters to their structures. Still no interest in sugar syrup. Why should they bother when they have good honey?









 They’d had a rough entrance into the hive, and a couple of weeks of adjustment --- but now they are at home. And they are happy.

Three days later