Getting back to normal?

Sunday evening found me gently snoring on the sofa. It's fair to say that we'd had quite a busy weekend.

Saturday

Saturday morning started with a run over to the Cotswolds.  I met up with Grubby Mark at the Hailes shooting ground, where we attempted 96 sporting clays. I had a frustrating round hitting only 40 "birds".  What irritated me most was that I was doing well on the challenging stands, but missing the more straightforward clays.  I'm obviously out of practice.

Back at home I ran around the lawn with the mower before putting on my bee suit and checking the hives in the garden.  They are all in a reasonable state, but it is apparent that there is still very little nectar available to forage.

I was pleased to see that my approach with a particularly troublesome hive seems to have been spot on.  The queen in this hive had been able to get through the queen excluder and lay up in the supers.  After giving this some thought I wondered if she was coming to the end of her laying life.  This notion was reinforced by what appeared to be supercedure queen cells;  these are produced when the workers become aware of a failing queen.  For the past few weeks I have left the hive well alone and, today, decided to take a look.  I couldn't see the queen, but there was a single frame of larvae and eggs.  This suggests that the original queen has been replaced and her daughter is now in residence.

As the afternoon cooled, 30% and I took a wander around the Three Miler with the dogs before collapsing on the sofa with a gin.

Sunday

With the slight easing of Social Distancing, we had arranged a barbecue for the afternoon.  This meant that the morning was filled with chores and preparations.  

First on the list was preparing two chickens for my barbecue speciality; beer can chicken.   Once the chickens had been prepped and the barbecue had been dragged out in to the sun, I headed down the road to inspect the hives in Kathy's garden.  The hives were much the same as those at home; good sized colonies waiting for a decent nectar flow.

I was home in time to get the charcoal lit and thirty minutes later I set the chickens on the grill to roast.  I then had enough time to tidy myself up before our guests* arrived.  We had a splendid few hours sat in the sunny garden; filling our faces and drinking plenty of wine.  It was so nice to be able to just sit, talk and joke naturally after the preceding weeks of Facebook and WhatsApp messages.

30% and I imbibed liberally and we both hit the sofa for a couple of hours after our guests left ... The tidying up can wait until Monday morning.

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* Grubby Sue, Grubby Mark, Bubbles and Robyn