Same for me Bumble & they seem to have an immunity to the organic Slug Pellets. Needless to say I felt better when I saw that Harlow car were in a losing battle with them on some plants too. No brassicas or courgette / marrows for me this year!
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I was particularly proud of my calabrese (thanks partly to this wet summer), but despite wire netting fencing all round and green plastic netting on top something has neatly eaten out the developing heads. Seriously peed off. Any ideas? I have some smaller plants developing alongside.
Pigeons can land on plastic netting and get at the plants underneath and if the mesh is wide enough cabbage whites will lay through the gaps. Slugs like calabrese too, and sometimes settle down within the developing head.
P.S 5 days with no rain despite the forcast predictions. Beautiful day in Ayr watching bees on the OSR and seeing queens successfully mated, unlike the drone breeders I've managed to rear :(
Well they're promising change in the weather with the Jet Stream heading off North where it's supposed to be. But it's too late for just about everything on the allotment, even the garlic succumbed in the end. That said we still get rain until the weekend, that I can live with, after that I need some sun to try and get some queens mated.
I'm sorry to hear about your allotment problems Nellie but most of us are in the same boat - I don't have an ounce of honey this year and am banking everything on a decent heather crop. However, every cloud has a silver lining and in my case my virgins have mated fairly successfuilly. It's too early to tell yet but I am hoping that the awful conditions have helped my AMM drones at the expense of exotic ones. As a fan of AMMs that should result in more pure matings than I have achieved in earlier years.
Steve
In the 12 years of beekeeping this has got to be my worst year. I think there will be no honey crop unless we get a really good spell of dry weather. My mating was a disaster with only 50% success. I am currently feeding sugar to help the newer hives that have mated. I lost some of my best Amm queens due to starvation while on holiday. One strong colony got through 2 supers of stores in 2 weeks while I was away, then starved. I am currently trying to cut my losses and at least have sone strong colonies going into the winter. And it is still pissing down.