Today is brought to you by the letter B

 Yep, my Wednesday seemed to be dominated by activities beginning with the letter B.*

The first B was for beans.

This morning I settled down with a large basket of French and runner beans that had been harvested from the vegetable garden. It took me the best part of an hour to prepare the beans. The French beans were top 'n tailed and then cut in to 3" lengths. That was the easy part of the job. The runners needed to be stringed and sliced. It's a chore but worth while, as they are lovely fresh from the garden.

I then blanched the French beans before plunging them in to iced water. Once the had cooled they were patted dry in a tea towel before being open frozen on trays. They'll be bagged up tomorrow.

The prepared runners were placed in a bowl of cold water and refrigerated. We had located a recipe for Sri Lankan Runner Bean Curry** and it looked like it might be quite tasty.  It seems that, as I had suggested the recipe, I was on chef's duties,*** so I gathered the various ingredients and set to cooking dinner.

I have to report that the recipe was pretty straightforward and the outcome was absolutely delicious. I mostly adhered to the instructions, although I did slightly increase some of the spices and it certainly needed a teaspoon, or so, of salt adding to bring out the subtle interplay of flavourings. 

I will also admit that I left out the fresh coriander, but I hate the bloody stuff and no-one wants a curry that tastes of soap!

The other B was for bees.

Last Thursday Pete the Beekeeper called round to let me know that he had ordered some new queen bees and was going to prepare some nucleus colonies**** with them. One of these nucs would be for me.

He called round in the afternoon and we spent an hour or so in one of his apiaries assembling a couple of nucs. He then dropped me back at home with my nuc and a mated queen bee in a queen cage. The nuc was carefully placed on a hive stand up in the orchard and the queen was placed in a cool, dark drawer. I will introduce her to her new colony tomorrow.

After a disastrous 2023, from a beekeeping perspective, it is lovely to have bees back up in the orchard. I am hoping that we have a lovely, mild Autumn allowing the colonies to flourish and build up their stores in advance of the Winter. 

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* One of those "Bs" was the fucking bomb site I had to clear in the kitchen after 30% did some early morning baking for a coven Garden Party!

** Courtesy of the BBC Good Food website

*** I like to cook, but do so rarely.  The infrequency frustrates 30%, as apparently I am quite good at it.

**** There are whole articles written about nucleus colonies, but I will try to be brief. A nucleus colony is made by taking three frames of brood from an established colony. These brood frames contain young bees at various stages of development from eggs, larval stages, through to capped pupae that will shortly emerge an adult bees. A further two frames of honey are needed to sit on either side of the frames of brood. These frames are placed in small nucleus hive and young nurse bees are added. The important thing is that no queen is present. The nucleus colony is set up and left for a day or two before a new queen is introduced in a queen cage. The queen cage is sealed with a small plug of sugar candy and the nurse bees will release her in to the nuc by eating through the candy. Hopefully she will start laying within a week or so. Over time the new colony will increase in size and be transferred to a full size brood box.