Into July…

The months creep by as the world struggles to come to terms with the pandemic. Politicians the world over are attempting to walk a fine line between financial ruin and personal tragedies. What are we prepared to do for the greater good? Would we be prepared to die to save our Country? Every year 17,000 die in the UK from flu and this appears to be acceptable so is there a figure we would accept for Covid-19? If so where would we draw the line? Would we accept 50,000 additional deaths so that we could carry on doing what we’ve always done? Or maybe 100,000?

Away from having to make such difficult decisions I try to mark the weeks in small ways. Every day of the week I have muesli for breakfast but on Sunday I had poached eggs on toast washed down with a large mug of Earl Grey tea. A superb start to the day. I should have made a face of the eggs but I was more interested in eating it.

I do a lot of pottering around the garden and try to observe things, looking afresh. This led me to notice the Cordyline Australis by the front door has taken on quite a lean as it is becoming top heavy. It will be even heavier when it flowers. Apparently the solution isn’t too complicated. First I should try turning the tub around so it starts to lean back towards the sun, If that fails and it continues to be unstable then I can prune it in May next year. Pruning couldn’t be more straightforward – I just cut it part way down the stem and it will sprout again – famous last words.

I don’t cycle when it’s wet or windy so I went for a walk. I haven’t walked for weeks because of a pulled calf muscle. I left home and headed down into town, across the railway lines on the outskirts, up through a beech wood and passed the Sunnyside Up cafe, sadly closed. It’s only a 4.5 mile walk but I felt quite tired at the end of it. You use different muscles when cycling and walking for sure.

And a Pig Yard post wouldn’t be complete these days without an update on the bees. In the past week I’ve been stung three times by the ungrateful creatures. On both occasions I was weeding in the vegetable plot and they simply came at me with the intent of stinging me. I hoped this level of aggression had declined with the new queen and it is still possible these are the last of the old queens bees.

I did an inspection over the weekend to see if the honey was ready to be removed. The bees were not happy. After removing the honey boxes (Supers) and getting into the brood box there was a cloud of angry bees trying to sting me. They kept flying into my bee veil and buzzing around. I confess it’s quite disconcerting. Rather than trying to go through the colony frame by frame I decided to close them up and walk away. The angry bees followed me for ten metres before getting bored and returning to the hive. This photo shows the bees coming out to orientate themselves. A thousand bees per day are emerging from their cells and they then spend up to 3 weeks, half their lives, housekeeping in the hive For the last 3 weeks of their lives they leave the hive to forage. The first thing they have to do is find out where they are – hence the orientation to make sure they can find their way back.