I'm back

 I made it back from the Black Forest tour yesterday afternoon.

Once I have had time to collect my thoughts, I'll summarise where we went, what we did and how I just about managed to avoid telling one of the group that he was an overbearing know-it-all prick!

But, for now, I'll just run over my first day back at home. It relates, mostly, to bees and honey.

TP stopped over last night and asked for a couple of jars of honey to take back to Cardiff. 30% had reported that honey had been selling well over the past ten days. In other words; supplies were low. So first job of the day was to get a batch of honey warmed, bottled and labelled.

While it slowly liquified in a hot water bath, TP and I took the dogs for a walk down the lane. On our return I got the first batch bottled, and set another batch to liquify.

We all lunched together and TP headed off home shortly after.

I then needed a restorative nap, before I donned my bee suit and headed up to the hives.

I started with Hive #3, and was delighted to report that the queen has finally started to lay. I could see plenty of larvae and two frames of capped worker brood. I added a queen excluder and a super to the hive and hope that the colony will increase significantly over the next few weeks.

Hive #2 was next on my list. It, too, is doing really well. There are several frames of brood and I caught sight of the queen as she wandered across the frames. The colony temperament is not too bad. They were prone to get a little stroppy, but soon calmed with a couple of puffs from the smoker.  I'll keep any eye on them and see if they settle over time.

I finally got to Hive #3, and it was exactly as expected. The little brood present was predominantly drone brood, and this is definitely indicative of a failing queen. I located her quite easily and euthanised her. I then promptly hit the internet and got a new queen ordered ... she should be here in the next couple of days.

So that's it for my first day back. It's lovely to be home, in the company of 30% and the dogs.  I've had an interesting break and will, eventually, get around to jotting down my traveller's tales.

Packing and last minute jobs

My main achievement for Thursday is that I have now, mostly, packed my bags in preparation for the trip to Germany.

I wisely purchased a pair of inner bags for my panniers, and this made packing a doddle. These are now sat on the bedroom floor, and will be put on the bike tomorrow. 

A sad commentary on my age is the ridiculous quantity of prescription and non-prescription medicines that completely fill one sub-compartment of my rather natty luggage.*

Once I was reasonably assured that I could survive a week with the items that I had packed, I headed out to the garage and adjusted the screen angle of the ConnectedRide cradle. Hopefully that will make the phone screen easier to see.  I also made a tweak to the phone settings in the hope that the sat nav instructions will be audible.

My back is no worse, and I still plan to make a judgement on arrival in Folkestone.

My final must do was to take a look at the bees before I abandon them for ten days.

I found the queen quite easily in Hive #3, but there is still no sign of eggs or brood. I hope it is just a case of she is taking her time to settle in and start to lay.

Hive #2 is doing really well. I didn't spot the queen, but the four frames of capped brood indicate that she is present and building up the strength of the colony.

I finally got to Hive #1. I found the queen quite easily, and, as with the last inspection, there is very little brood in the colony. I think she is failing, and was hoping to find supersedure cells, but, so far, nothing. If the colony is the same when I return from Germany I think I will requeen it.

Right, that's it ... I'm just about ready to go.

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* insulin, vitamins, eye drops or various types ... the list goes on ... and on!

Well that works!

 The back is certainly no worse today, but I'm not sure whether it is any better.

I dosed up on painkillers this morning, and decided to do as little as possible. I did, however, have a couple of must dos that could not be put off.

After a lazy morning, I headed out to the garage and fitted the panniers to my bike. I then installed the BMW ConnectedRide cradle and slotted in my mobile phone. Bike, cradle and phone paired automatically, and it was then a moments work to access the Motorrad app and type in a destination.

Within a couple of minutes I was off down the road and was truly impressed with the performance of the Satellite Navigation system and the way it operates in conjunction with the bike's LCD screen. The instructions are clear and the map view on the phone is lovely and clear. I'm really pleased that I bought the cradle and it is much less costly than the BMW Satellite Navigation unit.*

There were a couple of niggles ... I need to adjust the angle of the ConnectedRide cradle and the audio volume on my Fodsport intercom is still bloody crap!

As for riding with my unloaded** panniers for the first time ... I didn't notice they were attached.

Finally, my back ... It's no worse, but no better. I plan to ride down to Folkestone on Friday and make a judgement on Saturday morning. As I mentioned yesterday; the last thing I want is to be stranded in Germany with a bike I can't ride.

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* Which has very poor reviews

** I plan to pack light.

I hope it's not serious

 I woke this morning with a twinge my back.

It was nothing awful, but I had definitely done something to it. Looking back, I had mowed the back lawns yesterday and also loaded an exercise bike in to the trailer. 

I wondered if I had pulled a muscle, while hoping that it wasn't a recurrence of the problems I had with my back in 2023.

With the German motorcycle tour getting underway on Friday, an injured back was the last thing I wanted. My inner hypochondriac went in to overdrive, and had me imagining being stranded in Deutschland unable to ride my motorcycle.

I took a couple of ibuprofen and decided to have a lazy day. Unfortunately the pills didn't lessen the pain, so I upped the anti and took couple of Tramadol too. 

For the uninitiated this is the pharmacological equivalent of downing half a bottle of good wine. I subsequently spent the next three hours dozing on my bed.

Dot 'n Dave paid a visit in the afternoon and we spent a few hours sitting in the sun catching up with each others' news.

On their departure I downed another couple of Tramadol and snoozed on the sofa for the evening. 

I was so out out it, I didn't bother to eat.*

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* 30% was out with the cinema club

How big is it?

Monday started with the obligatory dog walk.

Having ticked that off the list, I then entered a period of extended pottering. This included fascinating activities, such as an inspection of the tomatoes in the greenhouse, and watering of the veg patch.

It was during this light gardening that 30% happened to mention that she "was going to pick up an exercise bike this evening".

Now this didn't come as a massive surprise, as she wants to improve her level of fitness, and had just missed out on buying a recumbent exercise bike at the weekend.

I should also point out that I am fully aware of the actual meaning of "I'm going to collect an exercise bike this evening." What this really means is "I'm going to pick up an exercise bike this evening and you're coming to help me ... whether you want to, or not!"

There is no way that 30% would be able to load an exercise bike in to her car on her own and no guarantee that the seller would be willing to assist.  My assistance was therefore mandated.  At this point I enquired as to the size of the exercise bike and whether it would fit in the car.  

My dear wife hadn't thought to ask either of these questions during the negotiations for the purchase of this exercise equipment ... She never ceases to amaze me with both her optimism and complete lack of forethought.

So, after an afternoon that included mowing the lawns at the back of the house, and the replacement of the LED strip light in the shed, we headed in to deepest, darkest Redditch.

After arriving and handing over thirty quid, it rapidly became apparent that the bike did not disassemble easily,* and there was no way the bloody thing would fit in the back of the X3.

It was therefore necessary to return home, hitch up the trailer, and drive back in to Redditch in order to collect the damned thing.

Now I love my wife dearly, but there are times when I just wish she would put in a little more thought, when we are executing on one of her impulses.

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* I had the foresight to bring an extensive socket and driver set, and a large screwdriver

Problems with my helmet

Sunday was a fairly lazy day.

I pottered around the place and, on occasion, attempted to gather together my Germany trip essentials. I finally took the time to attend to my crash helmet,* as I am not happy with the fit, nor the installation of the intercom unit. 

For some strange reason, every time I put on the helmet I find that the pinna of my right ear gets folded over. This isn't particularly uncomfortable on a short ride, but on long journeys it niggles. I'm also not sure about the location of the intercom speakers, as, at high speeds, I can't hear a thing.

I had already made the decision to replace the helmet later on in the year, but, after faffing around with the lid for twenty minutes, I made the decision; there was no way I was going to put up with that ill fitting crash hat for the upcoming trip.

I therefore spent the next hour considering the fit and suitability of my other helmets.  The Shark Evoline 3 has a delaminated visor, is noisy and well overdue for replacement too. I finally looked at my Shark Explore-R. I had bought this on a whim a few years ago, and quickly decided that I wasn't overly keen on the plastic peak attached to this full face lid. As a result it had sat in the cupboard mostly unused. I wondered about the possibility of removing the peak and replacing the detachable goggles with the spare visor supplied.

After much faffing, and a narrowly avoided temper tantrum, I eventually worked out how the peak was removed.** Attaching the visor was a doddle, and I also found out that the helmet liner has pre-cut apertures for the intercom speakers ... Result!

And, as for the fit, it's lovely!

So, I did manage to achieve something today.

We also left Wilson home alone for the first time, as we popped over to help Bubbles celebrate his birthday. It was a fairly low key barbecue with a few friends, and we had a pleasant couple of hours.

A special mention does go to Jess. Have you ever met someone who had a massive impact on you  ... but not in a good way?  Jess was one of those people!

She is an ex-primary school teacher*** who has a complete inability to listen. She was constantly in transmit mode, and was only interested in patronising her audience with the benefit of her views and limited knowledge ... We've only owned standard poodles for fifteen years and, funnily enough, did not need to be told the origins of the breed and their elaborate clips!

And, as for Wilson ... we arrived home to find no dramas at all ... another result!

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* Shark Vision-R

** A single thumb screw and brute force!

*** We have a saying "A teacher generally only knows slightly more than the age group they teach."

Germany is fast approaching

As the week drew to a close the weather forecast for Saturday had been suggesting that heavy rain was likely.  This was not welcome, as Bubbles had booked us in for a morning's clay shooting at the Cotswold Shooting Ground in Childswickham.

On rising I could see that we had experienced a few showers overnight, but the weather was reasonable. There was a cool breeze, but no rain, for the moment.

After my early morning chores, I threw my gun and shooting bag in the car, and headed across the Vale of Evesham for a fun morning's shooting. My score was dreadful, but I had a pleasant time catching up with Bubbles' and Ben's news.

And, even better than that, not a single drop of rain fell from the sky.

In the afternoon my first job was to remove the touring screen from the BMW, so that I could affix my Crit ' Air* sticker to the inside. I know that I should have done this on Thursday, when I originally fitted the screen, but I foolishly didn't.

Basically I am now in the process of slowly getting ready for the tour to Germany. I still haven't ridden my bike with the panniers fitted, but I am sure I will get to that before next Friday ... I bloody well hope it is still manageable.

So, as each day passes, an item or two is ticked off the virtual list and/or is added to the pile in the bedroom. 

As my holiday preparations continue I realised that my stock of bottled honey is running short, and I am hoping 30% will manage my little retail establishment** while I am away. I therefore spent a couple of hours liquifying and bottling the first batch from this year's honey harvest.

I now have twelve jars bottled, labelled, and ready for sale. That should be enough to keep her going.

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* A French vehicle emissions certification that permits access to municipal clean air zones

** A tiny little roadside table, not even worthy of the term, "stall"

Today I 'ave been mostly ...

... Clipping The Rat.

Dog #4 has been looking very scruffy recently, and the fact that I have just clipped Whiffler and Hobson's faces have made her look rattier still.  With the weather likely to warm up, I really did need to get my shit together and give her a damned good haircut.

Now I have recounted the fact that The Rat does not like going to the groomers on several occasions, so I won't bore you again. I will simply advise that she is such a fidget that she just gets a 7FC* all over. Actually that's not strictly true, as I do clip her face with a #10 blade.**

So, today has been mostly spent clipping the dog. I took plenty of breaks to allow the blades to cool down, and for the cordless clippers to recharge.  These allowed The Rat to rest a little, and I also used several treats to keep her reasonably cooperative.

I can report that I now have a much skinnier looking dog.

That was my most significant achievement. I also finally removed the "no longer wet" supers from Hives #1 and #2.  These were reasonably clean, but had been left a little too long, andthe bees had started to store a little nectar in some of the frames. To get them totally honey free, I stacked them in the carport. Within a few minutes they had been located by scout bees, and were buzzing; with hundreds of bees busily cleaning them up.

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* This will only mean something to someone who clips dogs. A 7FC blade is a #7 Finish Cut blade and it cuts the dog's coat to 3.2 mm in length.

** 1.5 mm

Post Script

I thought that The Rat's coat was looking a little overgrown. It was only when I checked that I realised she hadn't been clipped since last September.

That's gotta go!

At our first encounter with Wilson, we both noticed that he had a rather peculiar clip. 

He had a fairly short topknot which extended down the back of his neck. We both agreed that it made him look like he had a mullet.  Now neither of us are particularly stylish, but there is no way that any of our dogs is wandering around with the world's worst hairstyle.

As the title of today's post makes clear, it had to go!

After several days of nagging, I finally got out the clippers to remove the offending mullet.

I was aware that Wilson is used to being groomed, but I had no idea how he was going to respond to me sitting him down and attacking the back of his neck with my cordless Andis. It only took a couple of minutes to trim back his coat and I can report that he was quite happy to let me do it. 

Of course, a complete clip is a different matter, and I think I'd like to do that myself before we take him to the dog groomers. After all, I want to be certain of his temperament, before he is inflicted on an unsuspecting trainee.

I have already mention that I had been nagged politely requested to get rid of Wilson's mullet. This nagging request was multi layered, and I had also been instructed asked to trim Whiffler and Hobson's faces.  This was achieved without a fuss, but there was one more Herculean labour to be accomplished ... Dog #4 aka The Rat needed a complete clip!

I have previously documented the fact that The Rat does not like going to the groomers, so will not bore you again. She does not like being groomed, so today was not going to be fun! However the weather gods had smiled upon her, and she had earned a reprieve.

30% had foolishly taken the dogs out for an early morning walk and they had got quite wet. Now a quick face clip is no problem, but there was no way I could clip The Rat until she was completely dry.  We have discussed this at length, and it is the view of Ratty that she won't be fully dry "until the back end of July!"

Now the preceding paragraphs are usually sufficient for one day, but today turned out to be more productive than expected.

The bees were overdue for an inspection, but the weather would not oblige. It has either been sunny, but very windy or cool or showery. Neither of these are ideal conditions to open up a hive. But, after a wet start to the day, the weather finally cleared in the early afternoon and I managed to work my way through all three hives.

I can report that the young queen in Hive #3 was spotted, but there is still no sign of eggs or brood. I am reasonably confident that she has been mated, so, hopefully, she will start to lay in the next week.

I then moved on to Hive #2. This would be the first inspection since I took a shook swarm from it at the beginning of May.  After working my way through half a dozen frames in the brood box, I was delighted to see a frame of capped worker brood. The queen had hatched, mated, and returned to the colony. Clearly she was also laying well. As I continued my inspection I actually caught sight of her wandering across a frame. Satisfied that all was well, the hive was reassembled and the colony left to rebuild.

I finally checked the third hive. For the past few weeks I have found it challenging to locate the queen, and there has been very limited quantities of brood. Today's inspection yielded the same result. I located the queen and there was a couple of frames of brood, but, at this time of year, the brood box should contain six or seven frames rammed with brood.

I think I may have a failing queen. I am now faced with a dilemma; do I attempt to re-queen the colony, or do I leave them alone and hope that a natural supersedure will take place?* The fact that I will be away in Germany from next Friday makes re-queening challenging. On balance I think that I will leave the colony alone. I can always buy in a new queen when I get back, if there is no signs of supersedure.

Right, I'm almost finished! On the subject of the motorcycle tour to Germany, I have purchased a larger touring screen to make longer trips a little more comfortable. The screen arrived today, and eventually got fitted to the R1250R.**

I've finished now ... I promise!

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* As has happened with Hive #3

** After a call to the retailer to got a copy of the correct fitting instructions.

Lazy Day

If it weren't for the fact that I affixed a UK sticker to the number plate of the R1250R,* I would have achieved absolutely nothing today.

Instead I did some more socialising, as we hosted a local art group this morning. 

The Dormston Doodlers are a delightful group of, mostly senior, ladies. The use their hobby of sketching as an excuse to get together, chat and eat cake. 

This morning our garden and orchard was their chosen venue and the weather Gods smiled upon them.  They dotted themselves at various locations around the garden, and, were soon making preliminary sketches.  Over the course of the morning these were developed in to some accomplished works. Their chosen mediums included pencil, pen and ink and watercolours.

I was particularly taken by the watercolour of Rose Cottage, and the pencil sketch of the huge Bramley apple tree up in the orchard.

They really were a lovely bunch of people and many of them have considerable talent ... both at doodling and also at making cakes!

So that was the morning. 

My afternoon was incredibly lazy, and was spent snoozing on the sofa. I blame the weather for this slothfulness. It had turned cool and blustery, making me put off the planned inspection of my hives.

I did make it to Tai Chi this evening and had a good session. Swotty Caroline only occasionally impeded my view of Kung Po Fran. I also made a slight adjustment to my assessment of Jane. She has been upgraded from "the woman who just doesn't listen" to the more succinct "moron". She achieved this promotion when she told us all that she had a smartphone, but was insistent that she did not want apps loaded on it!

Is it me? 

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* A legal requirement for driving in France and Germany, apparently. 

Good Mates

The weather was cool, grey and wet this morning, and I was home alone.  30% had a very early appointment at the hospital in Kidderminster, so I was left in charge of the house and pets.

After checking out the weather, I made an executive decision and our normal exercise routine was cancelled; instead we had a literary morning, and I finally finished Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.*

Guilt then set in, and I headed to the kitchen, where I attempted to assuage these feelings by making the room look less like a blender explosion had just happened.

30% arrived home shortly before lunch and reported that all was well. She was very complimentary about the service received from the NHS, and we are both rapidly coming to the conclusion that parts of the NHS work brilliantly, and wonder why the rest is so appalling?

My afternoon was spent in the company of Grandad Jack.  We had attempted to link up with Judge Dread too, but he had bailed; claiming a leg injury or some such Southern Softy nonsense! Instead, Jack pitched up here and we spent a pleasant few hours drinking tea, talking nonsense, playing illness Top Trumps,** and taking a tour of the garden and sheds.

Jack left laden with eggs and honey. He later reported, via the medium of WhatsApp, that our eggs must have health giving qualities as he had managed to eat two of them for his breakfast. This is the first time that he has eaten this much since his treatment started.***

It was lovely to see Jack, who, for some strange reason, seems to enjoy coming over here, being leapt upon by the dogs and having the piss taken out him mercilessly by me.

We both agreed that we should do it more often.

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* I know! I really do need to broaden my literary choices.

** Jack won, he has just been given the all clear after cancer treatment!

*** This is brilliant news as he is still having problems eating as a result of the radiotherapy treatment to his neck and throat

Finally, they're in the ground

For the past six weeks I have been religiously putting my brassica seedlings out in the garden, and then returning them to the shelter of the greenhouse overnight.

They have grown reasonably well, but I am not delighted with the young plants. I don't know whether it is the seed compost, the containers, or my watering regime, but they just aren't great.

Anyway, today I finally found the time to get them in to the ground. A row was marked out in the veg plot between two areas recently mulched with horse manure, and the plants were spaced at 18" intervals. The row is planted with a dozen savoy cabbages, and a couple of cauliflowers were added to complete the row.

I had another four small cauliflower plants, and these were planted in a mini row over by the French Beans. 

A keen gardener once told me that it was a waste of time growing cabbages, as the crop would be destroyed by pigeons and cabbage white butterflies. Now I love savoy cabbage, and I was not going to be put off by this negativity.  I purchased some metal hoops and insect netting, and I haven't looked back. Our cabbages have won first prize in the any other vegetable class at the local Horticultural Show.

As for this year's crop prospects, we'll just have to wait and see.

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* BBQ Dave; he doesn't have a positive bone in his body!

The air show weekend

Saturday was most definitely a day of two halves.

The first half of the day was spent cleaning, tidying and preparing food for our planned get-together.  By three o'clock the house was reasonable presentable, and we even had time for a short snooze before our guests arrived.

We were joined by C&S and B&H in the late afternoon for the more relaxed half of the day. We settled in the garden to chat, drink and occasionally get the binoculars out to check out the aeroplanes from the airshow. 

I can report that the coffee cake was a great success, although we quickly moved on to alcoholic beverages and savoury nibbles, and by the end of the evening we had consumed a lot of wine!

B&H left late in the evening, and the rest of us eventually made our way to our beds around midnight.

It is fair to say that very little was achieved on Sunday.

We breakfasted out in the garden; demolishing home cured bacon sandwiches and eggs; collected from the coop that very same morning.

After copious amounts of tea and coffee, we managed to summon the energy to take a walk down the lane and out along the bridleway. C&S departed late in the morning, and we were left to have a very lazy day.

One thing worth mentioning about the weekend was that Wilson was absolutely amazing. He was a little noisy when our guests arrived, but settled down within minutes and was relaxed for the rest of the time.  The boy has only been with us a dozen days, but is rapidly fitting in with us and our little pack. He still has his moments, and can be a little possessive at times, but, overall, seems to have the makings of a lovely dog.

Coffee & Walnut Cake

With guests arriving tomorrow, I thought it might be a nice idea to bake a cake.

The Air Show weekend does tend to involve a fair degree of sitting in the garden, and refreshments are always welcome. I therefore decided to extend my baking repertoire and have a go at a coffee and walnut cake.

I used Nigella's recipe, and upscaled it to suit my two 9" baking tins. The ingredients and method are summarised here.

Ingredients

• 65 g walnut pieces
• 285 g caster sugar
• 285 g unsalted butter
• 255 g plain flour
• 5 tsp instant espresso coffee powder
• 3 and a bit tsp baking powder
• ¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 5 large eggs
• 1 - 2 tbsp milk

and for the buttercream

• 440 g icing sugar
• 220 g softened butter
• 3½ tsp instant espresso coffee powder
• walnut halves to decorate

Method

1. Lightly butter two 9" baking tins and line with baking parchment
2. Pre heat the oven to 160℃ (fan)
3. Add the walnut pieces and caster sugar to a food processor and pulse it until is is a fine (ish) powder
4. Add the softened butter, flour, coffee, baking powder, bicarb and eggs, and blitz it until it forms a smooth batter.
5. While still mixing, gradually add some milk. The aim is to produce a soft dropping consistency.
6. The divide the batter between the two pans
7. Bake until the sponge springs back when pressed, or a skewer comes out clean. It took about 40 minutes for a 9" cake.
8. Once baked, leave the cake to cool in the tins for about ten minutes, before turning out on to a cooling rack.

Buttercream 

1. Pulse the icing sugar in the food processor to remove any lumps
2. Blend in the softened butter to produce the buttercream frosting
3. Dissolve the espresso powder in 1 tbsp of boiling water and, while mixing the buttercream, slowly introduce to the mixture; to produce a coffee flavoured filling and topping.

I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow

The afternoon included a bit of hoeing in the veg patch and it's worth noting that it's not every day that a Lancaster bomber does a low level pass right over one's house. We also had a few strafing runs by the Red Arrows.

Cooking

 Activities took a culinary turn today.

It is the Midlands Air Show this weekend. It is centred on Ragley Hall, near Alcester in Warwickshire. This is conveniently only a couple of miles from us as the crow flies, or rather as the splendid display of aircraft and hot air balloons fly.

There is no forking out handfuls of cash for tickets and overpriced refreshments. Us cheapskates watch from our garden and do get a rather splendid view with all the comforts of home.

This weekend we will be joined by C&S, and B&H will be joining us for the first time at what is becoming an annual event.

This intro was a little long winded, but explains the reasons for my culinary activities. We have guests this weekend and it's only fair that I do my share of the cooking ... I also then stand a chance of doing less of the house cleaning that will definitely need to take place!

It had been agreed that we would be serving a honey roast ham this weekend; obviously basted with this year's honey harvest, and I was on the hook to prepare the it.

30% had purchased the gammon joint earlier in the week and, after the obligatory walk with the dogs, I put it on to simmer for three hours. While it was cooking, I headed in to Alcester and picked up a few essentials from the supermarket, including a disposable aluminium roasting tin.*

I started the afternoon by sticking cloves in to the ham, followed by a sprinkling of soft brown sugar, and a coat of this year's honey. After 40 minutes in the oven it was finished, and simply needed to cool, before being refrigerated.

That was pretty much for today. We did take another short walk with the dogs and I also adjusted the ingredients of Nigella Lawson's coffee cake recipe,** as I plan to extend my baking repertoire tomorrow.

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* The couple of quid price for one of these is well worth paying, to avoid having the clean the sticky mess that results from honey roasting a ham.

** From an 8" baking tin up to a 9" tin. Basically it's about a 25% increase

What flavour is your dog?

 Today I did close to bugger all.

In the morning I rinsed out the extractor and uncapping tray, and can finally declare that I have finished the clean up after Sunday's honey extraction.  The extractor was reassembled later in the day, and the store room is now accessible, once more.

I also finished repairing the super that I started yesterday. Basically there were two areas where the cedar sides had split, and small sections had broken away. One of these was large enough to allow ingress of bees, and this is not a good situation. Honey bees are not beyond robbing weaker hives of their stored honey, and a hole in a super would give them easy access to free food.

The repair wasn't particularly complicated. The damaged areas were cut away and routed to make regular, rectangular cutouts. I then fabricated an oak dutchman, and glued and screwed it in place to fill each of the holes. I'm rather pleased with this little repair job and it will be interesting to see how the super stands up in use.

As I said earlier, I did close to bugger all today, and the bulk of the afternoon was spent snoozing on the sofa. For some reason I felt absolutely shattered. Looking back, I suppose I have had quite a demanding few days in the preceding week.

I did also make it to Tai Chi this evening, but it was more an exercise in frustration than mindfulness ... Basically Swotty Caroline virtually glued herself to Kung Po Fran,* and it was very challenging to follow her lead for much of the session.

Finally, the recent arrival of Wilson got me thinking about the dogs in general. 

Wilson is described as a red Standard Poodle, but I think he would be better regarded as a dark apricot. Thinking about his coat colour led me to think of ways to describe him and I landed on "almost caramel" in colour.

This led me to bestow each of the dogs their own particular flavour. Wilson was, of course, salted caramel. Whiffler is a pale cream and is now definitely vermilla.** Hobson is a pale apricot colour, but he is, without doubt, banana. *** Finally we get to Dog #4 aka The Rat. Her flavour, without fear of contradiction and based on considerable evidence, is fox shit!

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* Our most excellent tutor

** It's how we say vanilla in this household

*** In the UK "nana" is an abbreviated form of banana, and is used as a gentle and affectionate rebuke for someone who is daft. Hobson is adorable, but can be an absolute fool at times.

A good day

The weather forecast for today was not pleasant reading. After a mediocre start, rain was expected to arrive by lunchtime and stick around for the rest of the afternoon.

This is far from perfect beekeeping weather, but my hives were due for an inspection.  At this time of year they need to be checked once a week. The inspections are for a variety of reasons including swarm control, disease, and, surprisingly at this time of year, starvation.

I have just taken a honey harvest, which has removed stored food from the hives. We are also about to enter a period in the British beekeeping year known as the June gap.  Basically June is surprisingly short on nectar bearing flowers. We have had the flush of fruit blossom and oilseed rape in the Spring, and now there is an interval before the Summer flowers make an appearance in July. It is, therefore, vital that the bees are checked to ensure they have sufficient food to keep them going.

I wandered up to the hives after breakfast and judged that they were sufficiently active to allow an inspection. I then headed back to the store room and gathered my equipment. This included some brood frames packed with stores, and the six supers that had been extracted on Sunday. 

The frames in these supers are still sticky with a film of honey that cannot be mechanically extracted. But the bees will collect every last sip, if the supers are placed atop the hives' crown boards ... this was my primary objective for today.

Hive #1 is currently my only hive with a laying queen. I quickly removed the two supers, noting that the lower one had a reasonable amount of stores. I then took a quick look through the brood box.  I didn't see the queen, but did spot a few larvae, so am reasonably happy that all is well. I also replaced a couple of empty brood frames with two filled with capped honey.

The hive was then reassembled with three wet supers on top of the crown board. These will be left on the hive for a few days and the bees will clean them up.

Hive #2 had a swarm cell when inspected on 6th May.  There is little point in carrying out an inspection for another week, or so. At that point I will be looking for signs that the queen has hatched, mated and started laying.  I am also aware that the colony's demand for food will have reduced, as there have been no fresh brood for three weeks, and the number of mature workers will have dropped too.  I did, however, give them three wet supers to clean up.

I was about to finish up when my eyes fell on hive #3, and I thought "Sod it, I'll have a look, it's probably not going to come to anything anyway."  This hive contained a shook swarm; taken from hive #2 on 6th May.  A subsequent inspection had shown that the queen had disappeared and a supersedure cell was found on one of the frames. The colony had then been left for nature to take its course.

I flicked through the frames, noting that there was plenty of food, but no sign of brood or eggs. As I reached the last couple of frames I spotted a very pretty queen wandering across the cells ... Fingers crossed that she will start laying in the next week or two.

The rest of the day was spent continuing the clean up of the extraction equipment and a repair to the woodwork of one of the supers.

I also had a call from the hospital regarding the results from my MRI scan.  The news is good. There is no sign of prostate cancer and no further tests are needed at this time. There will be a follow up appointment in six months time, and I will need to have a PSA test completed at that time.  If the PSA is normal I will be discharged.

This is obviously good news. I hadn't become overly worried in the past couple of weeks, and had just got on with my life.  There was little point in worrying when I hadn't even had a diagnosis.  I'll admit there were moments when I did think about a future that involved cancer treatment, but these were few, and I need to get on with other shit anyway.

The clean-up commences

It doesn't take a genius to work out that my priority for today was to clean up the sticky mess in the store room.

I rolled up my sleeves, got a bowl of hot soapy water and made a start. 

My approach was to deal with the easy items first. The honey buckets were stacked in a corned, and I then focused on the messy clutter of sieves, uncapping tools and so forth.

Over the course of the morning I made some progress and the extractor is now unbolted from its base and partially dismantled. It hasn't yet been cleaned, but I'm working myself up to that task.*

I dipped in an out of cleaning up over the course of the day. I know it needs to be done, but after the long day yesterday, the last thing I wanted was to be dealing with more sticky stuff.

Fortunately the afternoon had a welcome diversion, as 30% had invited Bubbles and Bobbyn over for coffee, a catch-up and to meet Wilson for the first time.

And that just about covers Bank Holiday Monday. I did manage to get the extractor frame and honey sieves in the dishwasher ... so they'll be nice a clean by tomorrow morning.

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* The extractor is about four feet in height and is approximately two feet in diameter. It is a large stainless steel drum on legs, with an electric motor unit to drive the central shaft. This shaft supports the cage that holds the honey frames. I am not blessed with long legs and I can only just reach the bottom of the drum when cleaning it. A few years ago I actually managed to crack a rib leaning over the edge to get it cleaned after extraction.

The Extraction

Sunday really did have an early start.

The honey supers needed to be removed from the two hives before the bees started flying. This meant that I was up there just after seven o'clock; loading the supers on to my wheel barrow.  They were quite a weight, which boded well for a good first harvest. There were also very few bees present. This indicated that my new clearer boards had worked too. I wheeled the supers down to the store room and stacked them, ready to be extracted.

It was then time for breakfast and a short walk down the lane with 30% and the dogs.

I was now at the point when I could put off the extraction no further. A bowl of hot soapy water and a towel were collected* and TP and I made start.

For the next few hours we worked our way through six honey filled supers. Each super contains ten frames of honey, each frame is double sided. That is sixty frames that needed to be uncapped before being loaded in to the centrifugal extractor.

I think I have already mentioned that the bees cap off each cell with wax once the stored nectar has been converted to honey.  These wax caps need to be removed. This is done with a knife that has a long serrated blade; very similar to a bread knife. 

This may sound straightforward, but the face of the combs can be quite uneven, and the frames can be heavy; making it a the most arduous, and tedious, part of the process.

Loading the frames in to the extractor, pressing the start button and operating the speed control are a piece of cake by comparison.

By the end of the day we had about 120 lbs of honey; filtered and stored in plastic honey buckets.

I was pleased, but every piece of extraction equipment is covered with wax and honey. I now have a monumental clean up to "look forward to" in the coming days!

Now that should have been all of the new today, but I also noticed that my carrots have made an appearance in the raised bed.  These were planted on two weeks ago, and I was concerned about the viability of the seed, but it seems that there was no need to be worried ... they are coming up like weeds! 

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* This is the most vital piece of equipment. Honey extraction is very messy, and I cannot overstate how much of a pleasure it is to, briefly, have clean hands.

The Toms are in

The new relatively* early morning routine is that we all take a short walk down the lane with the dogs.  We tend to cover a mile, or so. The aim is for the dogs to be emptied, and for the new boy to become familiar with us, his new pack and his new surroundings.

He is making good progress and can now be walked off the lead.  His recall seems to be pretty good, and he is unperturbed by horses, traffic and other dog walkers.

However we were a little concerned by his behaviour later in the morning, when TP turned up for a weekend visit.  The new boy, Wilson became quite agitated and very noisy.  He soon calmed, once TP sat down and gave him a stroke, but the behaviour was repeated each time Wilson encountered TP afresh. 

Matters improved slightly over the course of the day, but he was clearly not as comfortable with TP as he is with me and 30%.*** We can only assume that it is a response to a new person in his new territory, and that he is being somewhat protective ... Let's hope he calms over time.

Right, that's the dog news update, now on to the garden.

I got my tomatoes planted in the greenhouse, and mowed the lawns at the front of the cottage.  The garden now looks reasonably presentable, but I do have to say that my tomato plants look very small considering that it is almost June.

TP and I then took a walk around the Three Miler with Wilson, Hobson and The Rat.  This was the first time Wilson had completed this loop and he performed really well.  He did pull a little on his lead through the village, and he seemed to recognise when we were close to home; pulling to the limit of his extending lead.

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* 30% is not an early riser. She says she is and will present some waffly narrative about rising at the crack of sparrows to let the dog out for a pee. The problem with this tale is that it will not include the fact that she then returns to her bed and has a lie in until seven thirty** at the earliest!

** Eight o'clock is her more usual time of rising.

*** Apparently he shared his last home with his owner's brother; a young man with alleged anger issues.  It may be that he is wary of younger men.