"Jan" wrote in message
...
Awful to hear about the demise of lovely bees this way. We have about
half an acre where we grow vegetables and have about 15 fruit trees etc.
The only things we use are seaweed solution and comfrey tea for
nutrients and some pests don't like the smell (neither do I but...).
I did experiment with rhubarb tea but heard that was now illegal.
Companion planting seems to work - lots of garlic, nasturtiums and
marigolds. We look after the frogs/toads, hedgehogs, birds & nice
insects and they seem to keep nasty things at bay - plus a few slug
traps using yeast.
All this in London!
Wood lice are my only bete noire at the moment - so any help there would
be appreciated.
Good luck with the bees.
--
Jan
****************************
Talking of toads. I have a quite small pond carrying seven goldfish and
they flourish whether I feed them or not, so I feed them spasmodically. One
fish
uses the smaller part of the pond so I think it might be a female. - but I
have seen no breeding going on.
The pond is fifteen years old and is a stagnant pond aerated with those long
furry-type weed plants. Three waterlilies abide in it.
It is a living entity and even has insects and small leeches in residence. I
don't know just where are getting their blood from but I make sure it is not
mine.
I occasionally give it a freshen up with a hose pipe of tap water which
seems to do no harm; at this operation I net out some filth from the bottom
with a kiddies hand net.
To come to the point. Ten years ago and for the ensuing three years I
seeded it with toad and frog taddies from local ponds. They flourished but
gradually the frogs failed to return to spawn.
The toads did well and matured to full four legged status and each year they
all came, spawned and then disappeared from the pond, matured, went a.w.o.l.
within one day as though at a given signal and were reported to be in
neighbouring gardens for a few weeks..
I have never seen a slug in my garden for eight years and even the snail
population is much reduced.
I have taken the trouble to write the above because this year there are no
spawn clumps in the pond, and no taddies. I don't think there are enough
leeches to attack the toads. Do toads have blood?. Then again, what *are*
those leeches living off?. - the seven fish?. (all the fish are about six
inches in length). they seem to be bursting with health and have no marks
on them.
Anybody know about this problem?.
Doug