Beekeeping (day 2)

Last Sunday was day 2 of the beekeeping course in London that I started the week before. And the second day was no less amazing than the week before.

We learned primarily about swarming and that is what I shall talk about here.

A bee colony will naturally want to swarm because that is how they reproduce. One colony will split into two and they will each go on living their lives.

When a colony gets bigger, the bees at the outer edge will have less of the ‘queen bee substance’ as they are quite far away from her. If they get too far, they will think there is no queen and they will panic and start building queen cells. The queen is under instruction from the colony so will have to go and lay eggs there.

It is at this point that she gets ready to swarm, as she sees it is her time to leave (usually around the three year mark). Off she goes, taking all the flying (foraging) bees with her and we will deal with her in a moment.

Left behind are the ‘house bees’, who are worker bees who are not yet going out foraging and the queen bee cells. They will build more than one to give themselves a good chance that at least one will produce a queen. If the first queen emerges and she sees there are other queen bees developing in their cells, to get rid of the competition, she will go outside the cell, make a noise and if there is a response from inside, she knows there is a bee growing so she stings it to kill it.

If, however, one of these queen bees emerges and there are two in the hive, they will either have a full on fight to the death or the hive will choose sides and kill the unlucky one by crowding around her so the temperature rises and cooks her to death. Or they will sting her to death. Nice.

The half of the colony that left earlier, will hang out somewhere temporarily while you, the beekeeper, catch them (hopefully) and take them to a new hive. This can be a real headache if they’re in a neighbour’s garden or if they go somewhere high up and you can’t reach them or if you catch the colony but the queen bee is left behind so they will just fly back to her at the first opportunity. There are a whole host of potential problems.

But the clever beekeeper has a way of convincing them they have already swarmed by simply moving the whole hive about 400ft away and putting a new hive in the spot where the old hive was. You then take the frame which has the queen bee on it and put it into the the new hive. When the foraging bees go out to collect nectar and pollen, they will return to the new hive as it is where their old hive was. Thus, you have the queen bee and all the foraging bees in a new hive. And ta fa! The bees think they have swarmed!

The bees left behind are the house bees and the eggs, which is how it would have been if there had been a natural swarm. Everyone is happy.

And no-one’s children have swarms on their bikes! Woop woop!

We also saw an extraction machine, which basically spins around the wax frame sheets, causing the honey to fly out and run off. We also tasted tons of different honeys, my favourite being the heather honey and the manuka.

My mind is blown. Yet again. Bees are my heroes.

Tissue paper and jumper shavers

Now, readers, you know I never leave you with just one look into your favourite magazine. Yesterday’s laughing dormouse was just the beginning. It’s time today to visit everyone’s favourite section. It’s the ‘Blimey! That’s clever!’ section.

Check out some of these top tips. And boy, are they ‘top’!?

Firstly, put pegs on the greaseproof paper in your cake tin so it doesn’t rip when you pour the batter in.

What on earth is her greaseproof paper made of?! Tissue?! Who’s greaseproof paper rips when simply pour the cake mix in? Mine certainly doesn’t. It’s quite sturdy. It’s made to take the heat from an oven and then the weight of the cake as I lift it out afterwards. It wouldn’t rip just from putting the batter in.

Next up, shave your jumper if it’s got fluff on it.

Or just use cellotape? Quicker. And then you can throw it away.

No, wait, maybe it would be better to shave my jumper. Because it would be great next time I’m shaving my legs or Danda’s shaving his face, to have the added fun of fluff left behind on one’s leg/face. I mean, what fun! Right?

And last but not least, the fabulous too-much-time-on-your-hands, make-extra-work-for-yourself method of DVD storage.

So, let me get this straight – instead of just going to the DVD collection and looking for the one you want, instead you go to your list and find the name of the DVD you want and what raffle ticket number it is. Then you go to your DVD collection and look for the raffle ticket number.

If you love order and filing, maybe I could just suggest something to cut the workload down? Put them in alphabet order. Simple. That way, you just think of what the name of the DVD is, say it’s Conair, then you just look to the beginning of the collection and what do you know?! You’ll see DVDs beginning with C and there it will be.

My goodness, I’m a genius!

Laughing dormice and sock monkeys

Chat magazine was amazing this week. It really excelled itself. I hardly know where to start.

The first page has a picture of a dormouse…

And says ‘Perhaps someone just told him the joke about the chicken crossing the road!’ I mean, really now. That’s clutching at straws a bit, isn’t it? What would a chicken have to do with a dormouse?

I imagine this was written late at night and the editor was like, “Guys, what does this mean? Why would a dormouse laugh at a chicken joke?” And the others just went, “O, just let it go. We’re all knackered and dying to go home. Just put it in. Stop going on about it. Who cares if it makes no sense?” The editor, convinced by this persuasive argument, shrugged and let it pass, but not before adding “If you like our laughing dormouse, check out this video of a llama who also can’t stop chuckling…” and a website address. O, stop fussing. No, not of it makes sense. We know that. But it’s all animally so just, shh, just let it go.

Next up, the photos page and this…

Yeh. A ‘sock monkey.’ Who doesn’t love a good sock monkey, I ask you. Despite, the fact that none of this makes sense (maybe I should have read the issue they’re talking about), it’s just stuffed in there, amongst the other photos. Someone made someone else a sock monkey and they love it. Here’s a photo of it. Well, thank you Chat. Thank you indeed. Where would we be with these little essential titbits of information, hey?

Next up, a dog pulling tongues….

That’s it. It’s a dog. It’s pulling tongues. Fab.

I’m not going to dwell to much on the next story, suffice to say, it’s a couple who met on, wait for it, the Ian Beale Facebook page. For non-UK residents, Ian Beale is a character on a soap called Eastenders. Mandy knew Kieron was her soulmate, she says, because she could see he “was as obsessed by the Eastenders star as I was!”

It turns out he has gender dysphoria and is a virgin while she is a 30 year old living at home with her parents. When they decide to meet, her parents drive her to meet him.

Draw your own conclusions.

And then check out this photo.

I’ll say no more.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this advert for a Tweety necklace.

Let me know if you want one and I’ll send you the details. They’re only £90. Bargain.

The time I met Danda at the airport

A little while ago, Danda jetted off into the sun for some Portugal-based fun. I was supposed to be away at the same time but due to some nonsense rules in Texas prisons, I had to postpone it. So I was here and Danda went and had beach fun with family.

On the day Danda was due home, his flight was getting in at 23.15. I left the house at about 10pm and, anticipating boredom, took a Narnia book with me, Prince Caspian to be exact. Now Prince Caspian is a pretty good book, not very like the film apart from the basic story. There is no romance between Caspian and Susan and no rivalry between Caspian and Peter.

Anyway, there I was, on one train then the next, head in my book, wondering if Prince Caspian would beat Miraz and would Aslan come back and help by waking up the trees. There was a lot going on, you know?!

I got to Gatwick and took the shuttle from the South Terminal to the North, head in my book. I got to the North Terminal and looked on the arrivals screen. Danda’s plane had landed and the baggage was in the baggage hall. He’d be about fifteen minutes yet. I might as well chill for a few minutes.

There was a Costa coffee next to a doorway and a sign saying ‘UK arrivals’ above it. Well, I thought, he is arriving and we are in the UK. That must be where he’s coming out. I grabbed a bottle of water, sat within view of the doorway and got reading.

Then Danda called.

“Hi, have you landed?”

“Yeh, where are you?” Danda asked.

Now I’m a girl who loves doing surprises. I love them! I think that’s why I love Hide and Seek so much. And that’s why I said, “Just reading on the sofa.”

“Ok, I’ve just come out so I’ll be ages yet.”

O, he’s only just come off the plane so he’ll be a little while yet, I thought, whilst burying my head in my book again. Still, no-one had come out of the gate I was sitting by, which I thought was a bit wierd. I gave it another ten minutes, then thought something was up. I got up and walked to the arrivals screen and suddenly saw it… The international arrivals gate….

Ah, UK arrivals meant arrivals from other flights within the UK… Not just that we are in the UK. Of course we’re in the bloody UK. As if they would have specified where we are!? Hmm… Top dunce points to Laura.

So I needed to be at the international arrivals gate, not the UK arrivals gate… To be fair, they’re not that far apart so it’s not like I was miles away but I was all taken up with Prince Caspian so I was oblivious to it all.

I stood outside the international arrivals gate for a minute but felt something was wrong. There was no-one coming out. I had to give up my surprise fun and just call Danda…

“Danda, where are you?”

“I’m just on the bus to the car park to pick up the taxi. Why?”

“I’m standing at the international arrivals gate….”

“No! At Gatwick? You’re there?”

“Yes, I came to surprise you but I’ve missed you.”

“O no! Let me get the taxi and come back for you. Where exactly are you stand….. beeeeeeeep.“

His phone died. I called back. Nothing. Just the answerphone. Again and again. Eventually I just had to go out to the road and hang about, hoping he would be able to find me.

So for ten minutes, I stood there, in front Gatwick airport, stranded and unsure whether I’d be picked up.

That’s right, I came to meet Danda at the airport and I ended up stranded, waiting for Danda to pick me up.

Well done, Laura. Well done.

*He found me quite easily and I invented a cover story about having just been at the toilet when he came out the gate. It made me sound less stupid.

My walk to Ham House

I do this walk once or twice a week when I go to Ham House to volunteer and I love it. Once I’ve got out of town, I hit the river and this is the best part of the walk….

Through Buccleuch Gardens….

Out the other side and along the edge of Petersham Meadows…

Petersham Meadows on my left and the Thames on my right…

Cows in Petersham Meadows…

Ducks on the path…

The Thames, behind a ton of forage-able dock leaves….

Horses came here recently!

Marble Hill House on the opposite side of the river so I know Ham House is soon….

When I see an open space in the trees ahead on the left, I know Ham House is only another minute away…

Sure enough…

The little bridge….

The trees are hiding the house…

Horses from the riding school next door….

Almost….

There it is!

To the right of the front door, the windows you can see at the bottom here, those are the kitchen windows! I spend all day looking out at feet!

I take the side gate around the building (that’s my kitchen window again, bottom left)…

… Which brings me to the door the volunteers use to get in, the black one on the left….

I then go down a few steps to the bathroom area….

… Into the eerily quiet and empty downstairs, which contains the bathroom, the beer cellar, the kitchen and the mess rooms…

Turning left, I get into the scullery, which then opens out into my favourite room in Ham House….

The kitchen! This is where I spend all my time baking, the room I know most about and the place where I feel most comfortable, whilst working at the…

Beautiful and huge old table, built in the kitchen in 1610 using elm wood from an elm tree on the estate. This table is my favourite thing in the house. And probably my favourite table of all the tables I have known.

Readers, if you do not yet have a favourite table, I suggest you get onto it.

And that is my journey, once or twice a week. It’s quite nice, as it happens.

I’ve got a confession to make

I should have spoken about this years ago. It’s been weighing on my mind and it’s time to finally just say it.

When I was 19, I went to university in Glasgow for a year. I was one of those excitable students who joined every club and society going and spent many evenings practising strange sports or discussing books no-one had heard of. I was a member of the Ultimate Frisbee club, the Glasgow University Skydive Club, etc etc etc.

Oddly enough, though, I wasn’t that close to the three girls I lived with. In between all the societies and fun, I was quite studious so didn’t invite interaction when I was in the flat because I was mostly in my room, writing essays and what have you. This confession hinges on that fact.

Now I don’t remember exactly how it went but I was cooking something in a saucepan one evening when no-one else was home and didn’t have a lid so I looked into the big drawer where two of the other girls kept their stuff together. Bingo! They had a lid! I whipped it off, put it on my pan and proceeded to make dinner. Afterwards, I washed up the saucepan and lid and must have forgotten it wasn’t mine and put it away in my drawer.

When the two girls who shared the big drawer next went to cook something in a saucepan, they obviously noticed the missing lid. There was a big hunt for the lid and if they ever looked in my cupboard, they will have just seen my saucepan and a lid and not realised it was their lid.

I didn’t realise any of this was going on (because I was busy being antisocial, remember?) and had long forgotten about the lid. About a week later, I heard them talking about it but it had gone too far by that point. It had turned into an apartment-block-wide search for the lid and conspiracy theories abounded. Because of my antisocialness, I also didn’t feel relaxed and friendly enough to go, “O, I’m so sorry. That was me last week. Here you go, have it back. My bad!”

So I listened to them talk about The Missing Lid and went, “Hmm, yeh. That is wierd. Where can it be?” All the while The Missing Lid burned a hole in my cupboard and I dreaded being found out.

All that week, I listened at my door until I finally found a moment when they were all out. I scurried into the kitchen, took the lid from my pan and put it back in it’s rightful place in their drawer.

A few nights later, the next time they were using a saucepan, they discovered the lid and were astounded. How had it found it’s way back in to the drawer? As no-one else apart from us four could get in the flat, and we all appeared to be as confused as anyone by the returned lid, there was only one other person with access to the flats. In each block, there was one student representative, who was there for emergencies, etc, and had keys to all the flats. His name was Anand.

It had to be Anand. It had to be. There was no other explanation. None.

By total coincidence, a few days later, the cleaner must have left the hoover in the end cupboard in our flat then come and got it a few days later. Because the girls had checked the end cupboard when looking for The Missing Lid and seen the hoover, then went to cupboard for something else a few days later and noticed it had gone, they concluded it was the same person who had stolen, then replaced, The Missing Lid.

This coincidence saved me. It looked like the work of Anand yet again – sneaking in without a trace and simply taking or replacing things to confuse us. Or, we concluded, to use for himself. He borrowed the saucepan lid to make his dinner and then hoovered up after making a bit of a mess.

This went on for the whole year. They’d joke about Anand. If someone left a book or their cutlery out in the kitchen, we’d say “Oo, you’d better put that away in case Anand comes round tonight to borrow them!”

And I played along. I laughed and joked and made up a few of my own. In fact, considering I have lots of memories of being alone in my room writing essays or studying, joking about the Anand thing is one of the few memories I have of actually coming out of my room to socialise with the other girls.

But it was all lies, readers! All lies! It was me! I took the lid! Me! It was my fault! I took the lid and put it in my cupboard by accident and then it was too late! It wasn’t Anand. Poor Anand was just a good guy doing his student rep thing.

I’ve carried that secret with me for 9 years and never told a soul.

It was time.

Palm House (Part 2)

Good morning all. It’s Wednesday and time for my regular guest blogger, Rambler5319, to follow up last week’s popular post about Liverpool’s Palm House….

 

Now hopefully you remember last week I’d intended to do the flower beds and then this week the inside of the Palm House but there just wasn’t space to fit everything in. So I’m starting with the outside again and here’s a view of the path I walked along to get to the Palm House. There is a wide tarmac roadway but I fancied the woodland walk:

And looking back toward the bridge

Some of the greenery and flower beds around the outside.

These garden areas and flower beds were immaculate. You can tell a lot of time is spent on the upkeep of this whole area.

Ok here’s the entrance.

So let’s go inside

How about these for big leaves on a plant?

Some big plants in square wooden pots.

This pic shows the spiral staircase leading up the roof area where there is a metal walkway running round the base of the dome on the top. (Visitors are not allowed up but there’s probably a great view from up there!)

Next is a statue called Mother & Child in the guide leaflet

It looks very similar to a statue (from 1857) by Benjamin Spence called The Angel’s Whisper. If you look at this pic on Flickr the only difference appears to be the wings which aren’t there (folded down?) on the Palm House one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37303706@N08/3608478457/in/photolist-6uSoVP-5skebV-8MKxJs-6UkzcY-4HEWhJ-FxB9B-6a7Ngo-tEmt1-6UgxdB-8jqyfx-fn3nM-ct3ZWS-6RvkfB-29bKn1-65biXj-5DF6Jx-dTqUvR-doemN9-7GpFe2-3iFpJw-7V9CG4-89scv3-ab6ke2-8MDRMK-aUgvdZ-4qGxac-924ZWG-2JW3PZ-Htnpg-KvczK-boELsG-g5HK3-dCUy9v-8rAByJ-agfvj2-dAZzdV-856jEq-7PRqBQ-a8RfAX-azQZh5-5oy1KQ-bt5WA9-5eHhXB-9Rzwyv-aWesbn-dBGHWk-caFiNA-5FYKcg-9p7XXL-4oiiWm-CMrgW

Now here’s an interesting thing –look at the statue in the pic below. Gender? Don’t know about you but I guessed female.

Now look at this:

The inscription on the front of the plinth/base (written by Robert Burns) reads as follows:

“The golden Hours on angel wings

Flew o’er me and my dearie

For clear to me as light and life

Was my sweet Highland Mary.”

 

Highland Mary (Mary Campbell) was betrothed to Robert Burns. While waiting for him to emigrate to Jamaica she caught typhus and died.

 

Next look at this inscription on the side of the same base. It reads: “Robert Burns, born at Alloway 1759, died at Dumfries 1796.” Those facts may be true but that’s definitely not Robert Burns standing on the plinth. Clearly it’s Highland Mary. Therefore you know what I think – I think there’s a statue of Robert Burns somewhere with the name Highland Mary underneath it! Someone’s got them mixed up – oops!

As I’m not that good with plants and stuff I thought I’d use the “audio post” to help me out. It’s a thing that looks like a telephone and has push buttons for the different subjects. The six buttons are:

1. Welcome 2. Our Plants 3. People’s Palm House 4. The Story of the Palm House 5. Mini Plant Trail 6. Descriptive Commentary. What to press first? Naturally I went for no.1 Welcome – result, nothing, silence. I then pressed each of the other 5 buttons with the same result – silence. Hmmm. Just as I was wondering why no sound was coming down the line I saw this:

How about that? The thing was out of order. However it didn’t just not work, it also thanked me for my patience whilst they were waiting for it to be repaired. Well that’s good – how did they know I was being patient? I was annoyed. Instead of telling visitors to “note … that it was out of order” why didn’t they just put an apology there. Something along the lines of “We’re sorry this audio post is not working and we hope to get it repaired as soon as possible”. Their sign is just a way of NOT saying sorry. Not impressed with that bit.

However I have to say that over all I was really impressed with the Palm House. To think this structure is in a public park in Liverpool is fantastic. Definitely worth a visit if you’re ever in Liverpool.