I love elections me..

SAUCE

Cinders' pups at 6 weeks

Cinders' pups at 6 weeks
Originally uploaded by cindersdarkstardeaks

Clever me! eight little waggy tails

Migration to google done

Let me know if you have any problems, you can now ignore emails etc. from Google about it

Bees...

As you may have seen from Facebook, I had a misadventure with the bees the other day. I decided I would try to put off the bees's ability to swarm by clipping the wings of the queen. I went through the hive lloking for her but as usual she alluded me. I eventually found her on my second run through and managed to pick her up. I dropped her again, of course - silly me...trying to be too delicate and not firm enough. The second time around I got hold of her and held her between my thumb and two fingers like she was a delicacy I was about too eat. I clipped her wings with some nail scissors and put her back on the brrod. Pop Morgan would have been proud of me!

Later, having been back through the hive checking for disease, stores and so on I decided to check on the queen. Darned if I could find her! I spent ages looking for her because I needed to know she was okay. I had moved all the frames by the time I found her again, so this time I decided I would mark her with a dot of paint to ensure I could find her more quickly. The red was nearly worn off from last year, so I tried yellow....only, unbeknown to me, for some reason her sisters didn't like yellow and when I released her she was attacked and 'balled'. Bees don't sting their queen, they over-heat her and cook her. I didn't see it at first until I was closing up the hive. Not much I could do after that. I now await what we call supersedure where a new queen is raised from an egg and takes over the hive. It tales about 23 days before the new queen is developed, mated and laying so this will set the hive back a little...but I should still get a bit more honey than last year. Currently they are raising five or six new queen cells, so I have to keep checking in to see how they are developing.

In the end I think they did me a favour as I would never have had the balls to knock her on the head myself and I probably needed a new queen as they only last a couple of years and I don't know how old she was, coming as she did from a swarm.

Fun, fun, fun... Anyone want to get involved?

Happy Birthday 'The Blog'

2004 we started all this...

Dad Dad Dad

Stars & Stripes Forever
Originally uploaded by eagle69er.

June rang me as you are not answering the phone!!!
She wants you to call her about you going with her to the States if you fancy it!!
I said you would love to go... in June
she's off to the doctor but will be back around 3pm

Dad,

Dad so sorry to have left you in the lurch this weekend without a word, I suddenly found that the cake to feed 50 I had said I would make for the celebratery party of a 90 year old was not next weekend as I had thought but this Saturday, I didn't realise my mistake until the phone call on Friday morning to ask when it would be convenietent time to pick it up AHHHH!! And then it all got complicated.
Today Edmund takes his driving test, so good luck Edmund, although we are not to make a fuss and are to treat it like any other driving leason

Dad,

Easter Sunday in Oxford

in the revamped Ashmolean..



Then later in the Bodlean Library..



Kairos4tet

TheBigBang

HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL

I have just returned home from Church. HAPPY EASTER TO ALL MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS.