They Are Cutting Down The Forest and I'm Conflicted

I've kept bees in this forest now for 10 years, and I'm really conflicted. Nobody likes to see trees coming down around them each and every day. It feels like the forest is somehow going backwards. At least that's how I felt at the beginning. But having been here for so long now, when those trees fall down, they let in something that the There's one thing that the forest is really missing, and that is sunlight. If you take a look behind me, this is what the forest was like for decades. Dense, dark, coniferous woodland that just strangles the forest of all life. There's nothing that lives here. There's no sounds. There's no birds. There's no animals. There's just nothing. And sometimes when you walk through it, it feels like life has no way of coming back. It's dense, it's dark, and it is dead. But we still have hope. It's so dark in here, isn't it? It's dark. It's the sound that gets me. Like, it's just silent because there's nothing. There's no birds, there's no squirrels, or—

And it is creepy, especially when you hear the trees sort of squeaking against each other.

Like, the wind's going and moving the trees and it's creaking, and that's all you can hear. Like, there's no It makes you miss the normal sounds, doesn't it? But this is an active forestry. They are in here cutting down these trees as we speak and thinning them out and leaving behind all the nice hardwoods. So whilst it looks like very destructive at the moment, if you look over there where the light starts to come in, you can start to feel the life coming back in. Like, you can see the plants and you can see little creatures and stuff coming back in. And it does— it makes me feel happy, Zane, seeing that, because I, I don't like being in a very dark woodland like this. See, I'm a bit conflicted because it's so dark and dead over there, and then they've cleared out all the trees here, and you look at it and you think it doesn't look— it doesn't look great. There's a lot of trees on the floor and path of destruction. But then you get bits like this, which is just fireweed that's self-germinated and like it's got the sun now, it's got the rain coming down. You come back next year and this will be probably about this high with a big purple bloom attracting all those insects in. And then when you bring the insects in, you get the birds coming in. And then when you get the birds coming in, the mammals coming in. And before you know it, you have this little pocket in the forest that feels alive. And I don't know about you, Xan, it feels a bit like that back at our apiary, doesn't it? There's, there's birds, there's flowers, there's light. Like it's a really nice place to be. And it's very different from the dark forest over there. So this is our little piece of the forest here, and I say it with such a huge grin on my face because I'm really proud of what we've done here. Every single time I come up into the forest, I have a big smile on my face. And whilst the bees will go and forage on the flowers and the herbs, that's not the reason that I planted them. We're on the very edge of the forest. The trees are coming down all around us as we speak, and the light's coming in and it's bringing new life to the forest. And I see it as a way of giving something back, putting the invitation out there to the wildlife that's here and saying, come here, not over to the dead woodland over there where there's nothing for you.

Uh, what are you doing?

I'm ripping out all these plants. So this is Himalayan balsam. It's very invasive. So— oh, it's really invasive actually. You've got these seed pods. Come in here, Zane. So it is too late for us to be doing this, and I shouldn't be doing this anyway, but watch what happens when you touch these seed pods there. Yeah? So we needed to do this before they were here. We're probably gonna have to do it again next year, but we need to get all of this out. Because if you look over here, look, look what's happened in the last couple of weeks. Like, all of this forest is gone. This was just conifers. And I'm kind of on board with it because it's good and it lets the light in and it lets the plants grow. But if we leave all that Himalayan balsam up there, then it's just gonna just cover it all, which is not what we want.

So why is it so bad?

Well, depends who you talk to. Like, bees love it. It's probably the bees' favourite thing, so it's really good for the bees. But see on this hill, it's on like quite a steep slope, and look how shallow rooted it is. Like you pull it, well, you pull them up and they just come straight up. What happens is it outcompetes everything, as you can see, and then it dies and just leaves behind mud, and then the rain comes and it'll all just fall down. So it's not good. So we need to take it all out, and there is loads of it, Zane. And I don't know, we're in the forest. I feel like this is my job to fix. Our job to fix.

So is that us done for today?

Um, done for today. We're just going to stack all this up. It is, it's quite a big job. Turned into a big job, Zane. There's a lot of Himalayan balsam here.

Oh!

So done for today, but definitely not done. We'll be back next year trying to kill the rest of it. But I've got some cool stuff to go and plant up there, so should we go and do something fun?

So what are you doing?

So see how all the Himalayan balsam up there is taking over? I thought it'd be nice on this bit here where we've got like really rubbish rocky soil to have a rockery, like an alpine rockery. It's nice for the bees, it's nice for like any other animals as well, but it's also like quite cool to look at. So I'm quite proud of this area too, Zane. I should say with the gardening, I do it not because I, I know what I'm doing, like I find it just quite fun getting stuck in with the mud, and I like watching the flowers grow and seeing the bees come and stuff, but I'm definitely not an expert. Right, so my plan, Zane, was we plant it all up, just mix the plants, we'll bring some extra rocks in and like build it up over time, but Should we get, get plants in?

Yep.

Let's do it.

This looks a bit different.

Yeah, well, I wanted to plant a tree, like, to mark the occasion of the first episode, so I thought, what tree's best? And I didn't know which one was best, so I bought a sweet chestnut, which is what that is there. I like sweet chestnut though, so you know, like chestnuts at Christmas?

Yeah.

That's what these are like, but the bees like them too. So really good for the bees and it produces a lovely honey and it will just kind of fill this space and hopefully kind of help with the Himalayan balsam as well. But you never know, Zane, we might look back on this in like 5, 10, 20 years' time and remember this little tree and hopefully it'll be a bit bigger by then. I know it's raining, mate, we've got one more job before we pack up for the day.

Right, so what's this job then?

So I don't like when I buy plants saying I don't like chucking the plastic away, so I always try and fill it up with some compost and put some seeds in there. And I've got some cool seeds from I think it's Chilton Seeds. Seeds. So yeah, I've got some seeds from Chilton Seeds, and they're quite obscure herbs. So I've got like sage and thyme and things like that over there. But what have I got here? I went for the most random ones, so I've got bergamot— is that right? I could embarrass myself. I'm pretty sure bergamot, also known as Oswego tea balm. Sounds random, doesn't it? Lemon bergamot— getting that right as well. Stonecrop, wild bergamot. If I'd known how to say bergamot, I'd have been like laughing, wouldn't I? Sedum acre, giant scabious. Starfrost globe thistle. I'm a little bit annoyed because they're wet. They shouldn't be wet.

Ah, they've had a head start in the bucket.

I think it is just that shower that's come through now. So that is the plan, Zane. I'm going to fill them all up with compost, we're going to chuck some seeds in, we'll give them a little bit of a water, and we are done.

Do you know what you're doing there? Because I haven't got the first clue of planting seeds.

So you know in school when they teach you about an apple?

Yeah.

The little apple seed can grow into a tree. That's kind of the level that I'm at. I think that's all you need in gardening— water and mud and seed.

See what happens.

See what happens, yeah. Giant scabious, that one was. I'm also my own worst enemy, yeah, Zane, because you've got to remember all of this because I'm not one for like putting labels on anything. It doesn't matter, does it? Because I like— why do we need to know what it is?

Says we don't.

Right, that's one done.