I'm still not dead!

Well!

Its certainly been a while since I last put pen to virtual paper to note the comings and goings here at The Pile.

Don't worry though, I'm not going to dump a fifty page narrative of the past three and a half years here for you to read. I'm also not going to make any rash commitments about how frequently I'm going to make an entry in The Journal.

After the best part of four years there is plenty to report, but I am well out of practice, so I think it will be a case of taking it day by day or even week by week and seeing how it goes. Hopefully I will get back in to the proverbial saddle and, over time, fill in the gaps*.

Today was a quiet day at work, so I made best use of my time and got a few items crossed off my mental to-do list.

The most notable was the first hive inspection of the year. It is unseasonably warm and we have had one of the mildest Winters on record, so the bees are out and about collecting pollen and nectar from the snowdrops, crocuses and other early Spring flowers.

Shortly after lunch I threw on my bee suit, lit a smoker and took a very quick look at the 5 hives that are in the garden. Although it is mild, there was no need to perform a full blown inspection, just a quick peek inside the hives to check whether the colonies had made it through the Winter.

All five had survived and had adequate stores of honey in their outer frames. I could see capped and uncapped brood on the central frames, meaning that I had laying Queens in all hives. I even had a quick glimpse of one Queen as I scanned one frame. I have another hive a couple of miles down the road at Kathy H-R's house and I'll try to get over there at some point in the next week to see how they are doing.

Now, I am well aware that this is very, very far from the most earth shattering of Journal posts, especially after such a long absence and there are some quite major changes to report on. But, as I mentioned earlier, let's see how things pan out and, hopefully, I'll bring things up to date over the coming weeks and months.

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* A quick Google search indicates that there are 1,305 days between 14th August 2016 and today, so this may take quite some time!