Orchards and beekeeping with Charlie the jackdaw

On Thursday I was invited to a special orchardy event hosted by the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) at Day's Cottage. My beekeeping guru Tanya was one of the main speakers, covering all aspects of the the longstanding relationship between orchards and bees. In this photo she is showing us the different components of an occupied hive (although it does look suspiciously like some kind of cult meeting). I also gave a short talk about orchard restoration - hold onto your hats people!


Beekeeping is crammed full of interesting facts and props and this makes it ideal for demonstrating. Look at the amazing glass-fronted display hive on that table. We all had to try to identify six different honeys by taste. They were: Cotswold garden honey (Tanya's), Salisbury Plain honey (florally diverse), Sicilian Eucalyptus honey (monofloral), English heather honey (bleak?), oil seed rape honey (lurid?) and New Zealand manuka honey (TCP++). I got two right but was impressed by the range of flavours.



Here is Dave Kaspar, chairman on the Gloucestershire Orchard Group, and that chap on his shoulder is Charlie. Dave and Helen Brent-Smith have been raising him on cat food and he's now two months old. When I first arrived he came out of nowhere and landed on the FWAG lady's head and she freaked out, thinking he was a wild bird. In the other photo Dave is doing a demonstration of budding with a plum variety called Rivers' Early Prolific. Budding is another method of reproducing varieties, like grafting, only it's quicker and is done in the summer.


Here is the pommace left over from an earlier juicing, and see how it is studded with freshly germinated apple seedlings. Back when most farms had a press and made their own cider for the labourers, this stuff was often either fed to the pigs of spread on the fields. Farmers used this latter option as a way of generating new apple seedlings to use as rootstocks for established varieties. Every now and again one of these seedlings gave rise to a brand new variety, but sadly this source of new variation has been largely lost. Pips will not germinate unless they have been completely liberated from the apple flesh and 'scarified' by the cold of winter (or a fridge).


DEAD WOOD! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!


Here's Jonathan Briggs - you may recognise him from one of my previous posts - a mistletoe expert. He gave a fascinating talk all about this parasitic plant which is a key component of traditional orchard ecosystems. That sprig of mistletoe is emerging from an unusually thick branch. Day's Cottage is deep within mistletoe territory and it is abundant, but up in my corner of north Gloucestershire it is far less common and the nationwide distribution patterns are yet to be fully understood. I have had some success getting it established in Charingworth, but that's for another day...



Imagine this for a pub accessory. And look at his fantastic cool blue eye. Who's a good boy?! Jackdaws are corvids, a family that includes crows, jays and magpies, and they are very bright. They can use tools and have demonstrated self-awareness. Perhaps one day he will be tempted by the glint in your eye...

A talk from mistletoe man Jonathan Briggs

One component of the National Trust orchard training day I attended on Thursday at Day's Cottage was a talk by mistletoe enthusiast and expert Jonathan Briggs.


Mistletoe being harvested near Dieppe, France around 1930 to be exported to England for Christmas. (courtesy of J. Briggs)

Viscum album, the European species (that exists as several subspecies across Europe and Asia) is just one of ~1300 species of mistletoe worldwide. In the 1990s a national survey of the plant's distribution showed gardens to be the most common habitat, closely followed by orchards, or parks (in eastern counties). It thus favours the open habitats of wood-pasture, especially where preferred host species can also be found. In order of preference, these hosts are 1) apple, 2) lime 3) hawthorn, 4) poplar, 5) maple and 6) willow, but it has been recorded on many others as well.


Nationally, mistletoe is distributed across much of Britain, but sparsely, yet it becomes abundant in the counties of Worcestershire (e.g. Conderton in above photo), parts of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Somerset. This correlates with those areas with the most orchards BUT this is not a causal relationship. If you took away all the orchards in these counties it would still be relatively abundant compared with other regions. Mistletoe can survive across much of the UK, but it won't spread naturally except in these areas. Quite why is still a mystery!


Image courtesy of Mistletoe Matters Consultancy

As well as being important for Druid ceremonies, mistletoe is a valuable component of orchard biodiversity. Firstly, as it is winter flowering it provides a valuable nectar source for insects like flies in February.

The berries are food for birds, especially mistle thrushes (hence the name) and blackcaps. Indeed blackcaps are the primary vector for spreading the seed since they only eat the outer casing and wipe the sticky seed off on a convenient branch. (The best way of seeding your own tree with mistletoe is to mimic this technique on branches of a suitable species. Choose younger branches, 1 - 2 inches in diameter and use berries harvested in February and March for the best germination results. The seeds will take 4 years to produce the first two leaves, but after that will grow exponentially so you need to be careful for things not to get out of hand! )

Mistletoe also has a group of insects that are specifically associated with it. It is a hemi-parasite and will sap strength from the host tree if not controlled but in general it is certainly a beneficial component of any traditional orchard.