Bee Brave, Queen Bee

Ooooh- hoooo! Part Two of the bee keeping course today, and, donning our bee-suits (low crotches are de rigeur this year), we tripped up the garden of Scott and Geraldine and into their seven hive apiary. Bee-veils veiled, zips zipped, velcro velcroed, trousers tucked in wellies, marigolds tucked into sleeves, we ventured forth looking like a couple of highly unfashionable spacemen.

Being beautifully sunny, it was an ideal morning to open a hive. Besides, Scott was at a highly tricky stage in his queen rearing and needed to get into a particular hive to set up some artificial queen cells.

'In we go!' he called cheerfully, puffing smoke hither and thither. The pitch of bee hum rose perceptibly, as the bees objected to the interference of their morning business. The hive that was opened was at around two thirds capacity i.e 40,000 bees. We were on a hunt for queen cells (or play cups), and the queen herself. This bit of bee-keeping is way beyond our current understanding, but we were able to identify drones, see some pheremone fanning, and watch the interaction between the bees as they came and went about their business. We also saw eggs in cells, larvae in cells and bees bottoms sticking out of cells as they did a bit of cleaning and polishing.

I had difficulties spotting the queen. I think it was the lack of tiara and ermine cloak that flummoxed me.
'There she is!' said Geraldine.
'Where?' I said.
'There!'

And yes, once she was pointed out to me, I could see she was bigger than the others and more pointy in the body. Andy was better at keeping an eye on her than me. Geraldine got distracted into dispatching a couple of wasps that had been attracted to the hive by the syrup feed. Us bee-keepers don't like wasps. Bees don't like wasps and will sting a waspy invader to death if one invades the hive. But a stinging bee is a dead bee, so we felt we'd saved a few bee lives by getting rid of the wasp ourselves. It's all part of the circle of life - wasp attacks bee, human interferes and wallops wasp in a terminal kind of way.

But the BEST bit was being amongst a colony of bees on the wing and not feeling the urge to run around flapping my arms screaming, 'THE BEES! THE BEES!!' I was so busy watching all that was going on that I felt totally unfazed by the whole experience. (This probably means I shall be stung many times in the not too distant future for feeling so cocky. Buzz comes before a sting, and all that.)

And then we went inside for tea and cake and a lesson in frame making, which I managed with the insertion of only one wonky nail. Luckily, there were two men at hand to take the frame from the useless female and bash out the wonky nail so she could bash in a new nail in EXACTLY the same position as the original.
'Ah well,' said Scott. 'The bees won't mind.'

Back home, we were met by one chicken with a glint in her eye and another up the far end of Cluckinghen Palace dressed as David Bowie and doing a dance to 'Ashes to Ashes' in celebration of the Icelandic volcano eruption (more of which tomorrow if I can remember the brilliant idea I had about it this morning.)

The chicken with the glint in her eye (Mrs Miggins) approached me.

'You know Mrs Pumphrey is running for Prime Minister?' she said.
'I do,' I said. 'Although I was quite disappointed that she didn't appear on the Leaders' Debate on Thursday.'
'Oh, she was there,' said Mrs Miggins. 'You just couldn't see her behind the podium.'
'Then how do I know she was REALLY there?' I said.
'Well, every time Gordon Brown smiled that weirdo smile...' began Mrs Miggins.
'Yes...' I said.
'...that was Mrs Pumphrey goosing him in the hustings,' said Mrs Miggins.
'That explains a lot,' I said.
'Anyway,' said Miggins. 'We've decided to call Mrs Pumphrey's party 'The Bustin' Tea Party.'
'Yes,' said Mrs Slocombe a.k.a David Bowie, 'coz we're gettin' down wiv da kidz, innit?'
'And lots of people are often busting for a cuppa, aren't they?' said Mrs Miggins.
'Amongst other things,' said I.
'Don't you think it has a nice ring to it?' said Mrs Slocombe.
'It has a certain je ne sais quoi,' I said. 'Where is Mrs P, anyway?'
'Recovering her beak after all that goosing,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'Apparently, Mr Brown is made of rigid stuff.'
'Really?' I said.
'Like the Christmas carol,' said Mrs Slocombe. 'You know, 'Earth stood hard as iron, Gordon like a stone.'

And there, dear reader, we shall leave things.

It's probably for the best.