I Had A Busy Tuesday Morning Planed,

and as I am going to visit Duncan early today, Wednesday,

I will only be making one post today, so back to Tuesday, out into a nice sunny, bright park,

not a cloud in the sky,

first stop to the station to buy the railway tickets to visit Duncan on Wednesday,

 

tickets purchased and on my way past the church, after which I called into the surgery, I had an appointment to give a blood and urine sample for a check up,

next stop to the war memorial and into the bank, after which a stop at my accountants, to hand in my P60 that I printed off yesterday,

and into the shop to give the boys their P60s, then by sheer happenstance Steve called in for some RO water, and mentioned that today he was going to give his bees their weekly check over and did I want to watch? I did not need asking twice! I just love all of this sort of thing,

so back to Steve and Kai's home, looking in the garden,

the strawberries,

were starting to fruit,

Kai was in the garden as well, cropping some salad,

all set,

the bees in and out as usual,

Steve got a few bits and pieces ready to open the hive, the smoke generator,

with straw and pine cones, which luckily Steve has lots of them in his garden, Steve told me that the advantage of pine cones over straw is that they burn longer than straw,

smoker lit,

the pine cones doing their bit with the straw,

the smoke seems to have settled down,

Steve started to kit up,

hat on,

and the hive opened, inside a water and sugar feeder for the bees to eat before the hive settles down and produces its own honey,

 the feeder and top then removed, 

next starting at one side,

Steve examined each of the frames, 

this was about as close as I was getting to the hive,

on both sides of each fame, Steve was looking at the health of the colony,

and inspecting to see if any Queen cells had been produced, a precursor for the hive swarming,

each frame toward the center of the hive packed with bees,

so far all was well,

and the bees quite passive, so far Steve has not had to use the smoker,

getting to the other side of the hive,

the outer frames are not so populated,

but there they are, some honey cells, so even there on the outer frames the bees are working hard,

the frames are moved back on to their stops, Steve mentioned that when all of the frames are full of honey an extra top of frames will be place on the hive, it will be these frames that the honey is harvested from, the frames that we have seen to day will not be harvested, the honey they contain is what the bees will live on over the winter until next spring,

all was well so top on until next weeks inspection,

whilst all of this was going on I was making a video of the proceedings, as was Kai, chatting away in Thai so her friends would know what was going on, Diana's family will also be watching the video allowing for the time difference, universal bee keeping, well done Steve! after a coffee and a chat Steve was going to drop me off at home, but on the way we saw Diana going to work, so I left Steve and joined Diana we had a quick chat then Diana continued to the bus stop, I made my way home,

at the front of Foxgrove Lodge,

one of the peonies,

was putting on a good show,

as was the rest of the garden,

like these geraniums in their basket,

and roses, arriving home, I watched an antiques show, Dickinson's Real Deal, and some more of the Isle of Man TT races, after my evening meal, a episode of Aussie Lobster men, followed by a Midsomer Murder when Diana arrived home, so a coffee and a chat as we watched a New Tricks, followed by a Silent Witness before we were off to bed.