Bees eat Blu-tack

We went to Home-ed group this morning which was fun if a little empty - there was a trip to London so quite a few families weren't there but some people prefer it quiet so that was fine. I might think about Drama GCSE for Amber (she's certainly got the raw material if not the raw talent!) having spoken to one of the mums there today.

It was a beautiful late summer's morning:

Oops

which turned into a beautiful late summer's day so having done all the animals this morning I was keen to do my bees this afternoon. I've got one brood box which keen readers will remember I had to patch up with plasticene and Blu-tac...well, the plasticene seems to have held up but the bees have chomped their way through the Blu-tac so there was a 'uge 'ole down the side, so poor bees have probably be systematically robbed of their honey. Anyway I swapped the brood box with another bee-tight one so hopefully they'll be able to build up their stores. They have quite a young queen who's not really laying terribly prolifically yet but if this good weather continues [sorry I won't tempt anything] we'll see how she gets on over the winter. They have quite a bit of honey already so ideally they just need to fill up the frames either end now for both insulation and food. I did pop in the super frames of honey that have been sitting on a tray on my hob for the last few weeks. I can now use those two rings, if not to cook on, at least to store things :-)

The other colony is looking well and also has plenty of honey and the nest has reduced in size so there is less brood. The bees emerging from now will be 'winter bees': they have the ability to lay down the insect equivalent of fat reserves and are darker and furrier to keep them warm. Summer bees wear themselves out after about 4-6 weeks' worth of work but those coming into the hive now will live for 4-6 months. The colony really does operate as a whole; it's similar to a mammal in lots of ways. Incredible.

So what with that and a bit of knitting and a bit of revision oh and some homeschool too, it's been a very pleasant day.