Woodland smallholding

Hi thought I'd start off a new thread on woodland smallholding well lots of people say you can't have a woodland smallholding well we do we have 5 acres in Cheshire its a bit mish mash but works really well we brought the ancient wood last year been busy clearing because it was really bad not kept well. We have now made a year on lovely clear openings we have chickens,ducks,goats,bees we also have a huge poly tunnel and a small log cabin to rest in. We grow all our own fruit and veg been doing this for years growing our own but not on this scale and I can say it's brill. I just wanted to know if anybody else has got anything similar or even heard of a woodland smallholding would be nice to hear from anybody that loves smallholding and loves woodlands thanks for reading kind regards emma

Don't have one, but would love one! Envious.

how close is it to home, Im surprised the planners allowed such a thing to happen in an ancient woodland, even though we own one too, theres certain rules that need following, log cabins sound like a dwelling rather than a storage shed, how did you get that passed ?

It's 10 miles away and its was passed because we keep live stock so need a place to wash we take barrels of water down to wash hands there no beds just seats that's the log cabin as for other things in there I'm only using an acre at most for use of growing etc the rest is natural woodland we have cleansed the under story make way new new life and all the blue bells etc it's just using what u have to its best and this is what we do

I'm not knocking it, we all do stuff in our little bit's of heaven,

here's me inspecting one hive in our wood, the angry bees,lol

https://youtu.be/DlyuzQgUrds

my one bit of advice, if leaving bees suits in the cabin, store them in plastic boxes (sealed) having had the mice chew through one of my suits

They didn't seem too bad until you started banging the frames around, Dexter.

Don't you take a frame out and make space so you can move around in the box, especially with those thick gloves?

I always take the supers off and check them last so I don't chill the brood too much as that's when mine seem to get a bit arsey.

Nice spot, mind. I wouldn't mind an apiary like that.

psafloyd said:

They didn't seem too bad until you started banging the frames around, Dexter.

Don't you take a frame out and make space so you can move around in the box, especially with those thick gloves?

I always take the supers off and check them last so I don't chill the brood too much as that's when mine seem to get a bit arsey.

Nice spot, mind. I wouldn't mind an apiary like that.

Click to expand...

yeah it's probably my own fault, although the other hives there are more calmer, have a slight disability in my left arm/hand so cant control the banging sometimes,lol

never thought of checking the supers last, I'll try that in future

having checked my three woodland hives on saturday, they are not doing as well as I had hoped, the two colonies in commercial hives are only covering half of the brood frames, and the one in the rose hive was even worst, covering only three frames with brood, but couldn't see BIAS, it may have been that I didn't have my reading specs on, but this hive seemed the worst, so I transferred them into a 5 frame nuc in the hope that having a smaller box the keep warm they might survive, saw the marked queen (green) so added a frame of brood from another hive to try and increase their numbers, as I only get to see these hives once a week, they are pretty much left to their own devices, maybe need moving into a more open/sunnier position

I've grown a wood around us over the last 26 years.