The hive is doing well

 Without going in to too much detail, it is fair to ay that last night's curry did not sit well with me.

I don't know whether it was rich food, a couple of beers, or a combination of the two, but I didn't stray far from the conveniences this morning. There was no headache or other hangover like symptoms. I just felt a little off.

I had perked up a little by lunchtime and threw together and sandwich. However eating it was another matter and I only managed half, before giving up and returning to the sofa.

I eventually got my act together and headed out to carry out the first inspection of the year on my colony of bees.

The recent warm, sunny weather had resulted in a significant amount of activity in the hive,  and the bees have been bringing in a reasonable quantity of pollen. This suggests that the queen is now laying, as the pollen is a vital protein source for the brood.

Right, back to the inspection. I grabbed a couple of spare frames of stores just in case and headed up to the hive.

After giving them a couple of puffs of smoke, I removed the hive lid and noted that the bees had cleaned out the last scraps of candy from the packs on the crown board.  They were obviously feed ing well and I hoped that they hadn't run short of food.

I gently prised the crown board away from the brood box and rewarded with the colony covering the six or seven central frames. I then started to work my way through the frames checking each one.

The outer frames had stored honey, but not huge amounts. As I got nearer the centre of the colony I could see that there was a reasonable amount of stored and the middle three frames had brood in various stages of development.

I also caught sight of the queen as I selected and swapped out a couple of depleted frames with the stores I brought from my store room.

With the hive reassembled I returned to the house and tried having a kip as a restorative measure ... an hour or so later I felt somewhat more normal and headed out around the Three Miler with Hobson,  The Rat and Whiffler.

As usual, they enjoyed the walk, exploring the scents and the scattering of sheep shit along the road! High point of the walk was the fallow deer skeleton that The Rat found tangled in the base of a hedgerow.

So that was Saturday. I felt better as the day progressed and I have just about avoided mentioning a rather thoughtless exchange when I attempted to arrange a ride out with Bubbles.