The bees are busy in the orchard

All four hives are very busy foraging today. The hot weather has filled the orchard with a great buzz of bees. 

We planted an extra few fruit trees in the orchard over the weekend. We have a dozen planted there now. We cleaned out around the base of all the trees and spread manure to suppress the weeds and grass.

The birds have done a great deal of damage on the few remaining apples that survived the storm.

We moved the hen coop into the orchard  yesterday evening. I will move them a few feet every day, moving up and down on fresh grass. The young trees will benefit from the fertiliser and pest control. We would love to have them free range but Mr.Fox is always happy for an easy meal. They also do a lot of damage when free like scratching up flower/veg beds and pooping on our doorstep.