Plenty of bees in our garden today

Give us a B!!

 

And living in Barnsley too.

 

Creating a buzz?

 

They go crazy for our lavender and pieris.
Sionnach is currently saving up for a hive as she's well into the idea of keeping bees. I'm not quite so sold on it but I guess it's her choice as long as she's careful handling them.

 

There certainly seem more bees this year. Resuscitated a worn out bee yesterday. I'd like to think it slightly moving its front right leg was its way of waving to me and thanking me. ;-)

 

I am in full adoration for anyone who keeps bees and saves bees. Like this lovely lady from Texas.

 

I've spent the last few weeks doing an artificial swarm process with my original colony, which has resulted in me now having two active colonies in the back garden.

The highlight of my weekend was finding the newly emerged and mated queen in the original hive and marking her with a white dot, making her both easier to find moving forward and identifying her as a 2021 queen (last year's have a blue dot, next year's will be yellow).

All looking good too in terms of getting a decent crop of honey from them this year, and the main summer nectar flows are still to come.

 

Got some soft set honey from East Surrey bees at a recent country show and it's absolutely lovely

 

Their promotion party continues.

 

Interesting about the dog. We have been looking after one for the last four days for an elderly relative who has been admitted to hospital. The poor thing - only 7 - basically exists on a life of sitting in a flat all day with the relative, on 2 shorts walks a day (to do his business) 24x7x365. Never really interacts with other dogs, or people.
He seems really at home here, still timid and prone to lash out if nervous, but to see him sat in the sun in the garden yesterday, tail wagging, tongue out, taking in every single sound, whether it was the beautiful birdsong, other dogs in the area yapping, people talking as they walked past the fence, kids playing in the street. It was just great watching him digest it all as if he were committing each sound, sight and scent to his memory bank. Really gave me hope that he is enjoying his time with us and creating his own little memories.

Made me appreciate what a lovely day it was and that we take a lot for granted.

 

happened for the last 3 years here, it’s like they are on tour, last year they took over a nesting box stayed for 3 to 4 weeks then just went!

 

Weekend just gone we were sat outside at Edwards coffee house, more like a posh van, by the river in Windsor watching the bees on the flowers and the Red Arrows went overhead celebrating the Trooping of the Colour, with boats and swans gliding up and down the river. The smile on Susans face was worth all the money in the world to me. Definitely one of those good to be alive moments

 

He looks like he's made himself at home!

 

I was thinking that, too, Helen!