Mostly taken up with Beekeeping

I have been wittering on about giving my bees their Winter oxalic acid vapour treatment since the New Year. However, a combination of icy weather, rainy weather, snow storms and a weekend away with friends has meant that it has still not happened.

Today was to be the day!  I had checked the forecast and it seemed to be perfect. There had been a frost overnight, but by early afternoon it would be four or five degrees celsius ... just right for the treatment.

Obviously my morning was free, so I headed down the road to see Pete the Beekeeper. I ran out of honey about ten days ago, and desperately needed another bucket of honey. Fortunately Pete was at home and I soon had a 30lb tub sat in the back of the car. We then settled in his cosy kitchen and spent half an hour chatting about bees.

I think it's nice for Pete to have someone who he can talk to about bees without them glazing over. For me, I find him incredibly informative, and he is also very complimentary about my beekeeping skills and knowledge, despite the fact that he manages about fifty colonies and I only have three. He often makes a point or observation and then says, "but I don't need to tell you, you know this already."

He is far more skilled than me, and I have learnt an immense amount from our regular chats, particularly about when to intervene, and when to just leave the colony alone.

In the afternoon the weather warmed, as predicted, so I headed up to the orchard to attend to the bees.

It took just over an hour to treat the three colonies and I was delighted to see that each of my hives had healthy clusters of bees within. This was so much better than this time last year when I discovered that one of my two colonies had died. I am well aware that there are still a couple of months of cold weather yet to go, but, so far, I seem to have three strong colonies.

I have mentioned previously that I find beekeeping to be a very zen activity. The oxalic acid treatment is most definitely not zen. There is a lot of hanging around, and the bees really don't appreciate the disturbance. I appreciate that it is very good for the health of the colony, but I'm glad that it is now done.

A more zen activity was this evening's Tai Chi session at the Parish Education Centre.  It was a small group of seven of us that was taken through the Slapping Qigong, followed by Qigong Shibashi, set 5.  

It was our first time at attempting the Shibashi, set 5, and, as expected for a first attempt at a new routine, parts of it were completely baffling. It will take a few run throughs before it starts to make sense.