Bees, bikes, Tai Chi and the dishwasher ... If You think you can come up with a more concise title

My daily metal polishing activities are playing hell with my hands, and a manicurist* would blanch at the sight of them. Fortunately the absence of a working dishwasher has meant that long sessions with my hands in a washing up bowl, has worked wonders in ridding my cuticles of nasty ingrained grime.

This fortuitous set of circumstances has now come to an end. New dishwasher #2 was delivered and installed yesterday, and Nathan turned up this morning to reassemble the kitchen units. We now have a fully operational kitchen and I now need to remember to wear rubber gloves to keep my fingers from getting very manky indeed.

Today's weather seemed likely to be the most clement this week,** so I gathered my beekeeping paraphernalia and headed up to the hives. It was encouraging to see that a few bees were flying, so a brief opening of each hive should not impact the colonies adversely.  

The reason for the brief inspection was to remove the Apistan strips that were inserted about eight weeks ago.  "Inspection" is actually be a bit of an exaggeration, as I simply pried off the crown board, carefully extracted the Apistan strips and quickly shut up the hives again.  I won't actually look through the brood frames again until the weather warms in the spring.

For the next few months the bees will be left well alone. A further varroa treatment will be given in early January, *** and I may place a pack of candy**** over the aperture in the crown board, if I feel that the colony is running short of stores.

In the afternoon I returned to the garage and continued my cleaning of the Enfield. It looks much more presentable, but there is still a way to go. I keep looking at the spokes and thinking, "those are going to take an age to get anywhere near clean." I also found that its battery has died, so a replacement will need to be ordered before it gets tucked away. Earlier in the week, I noticed that one of the rear indicator stems had been broken, so a good while was spent on the internet tracking down an identical replacement.*****

The early evening saw me at my weekly Tai Chi class and, again, it was very enjoyable, although I find the little meditation session at the end of the class somewhat challenging ... I find that my mind does tend to wander a little.

I can also report that Pinky is still with us. There has been a slight improvement and her condition seems to have stabilised. She is not out of the woods yet, but at least her condition hasn't worsened.

---

* They, apparently, now refer to themselves as  Nail Techs ... wtf! 

** A storm is heading in over the next few days

*** Oxalic acid vapour

**** Image a kilo pack of something akin to soft Royal Icing. A hole is cut in the pack and it is placed over one of the holes in the crown board. If they are hungry, the bees will come up and eat their way through the pack.

***** I could have gone to the original Trials kit supplier, but they are far from cheap. I actually managed to find the exact indicator for less than half the price.